Reinventing Date Nights

A friend and I were having breakfast one morning at the Woodside Bakery, catching up over coffee, a split fritatta, and fresh pastries. It was great to take a break from our grueling toddler-run treadmills and escape for a morning.

It's fun to hangout with this particular friend because we share a similar timetable for getting hitched and married with children. We became friends when we were both single and in our 30's. We met our spouses around the same time, dated and walked down the aisle within the same year and popped our first baby out after celebrating our paper anniversary.

During our precious time away from being time-crazed women back at home, we didn't talk about parenting or tantrums. Naw, that kinda stuff is left for everyday fodder, playground conversations. No, we got the scoop on top priority topics. One of which was the lack of time with hubbies and missing table-for-two evenings and weekends.

How realistic is it to inject romance as a regular part of life as couple with kids? And did we actually know any long-married couples who were "still in love"?

Going out for date nights is well-known offered advice that married couples get all the time. Never mind it's hard enough trying to figure out what to cook every night of the week. And finding a babysitter? It's not like we have someone on standby. We have to wade through lists and schedules of friends, family, and college student schedules before figuring out what, where and when.

Hubby and I have managed to get out once a month. And we thought we were doing pretty good. Sure, we often go to the same places. It's an easy, no brainer way to enjoy time together. But in a recent New York Times article, some scientists say regular date nights aren't enough to keep the romance alive.

"Rather than visiting the same familiar haunts and dining with the same old friends, couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different activities that they both enjoy, says Arthur Aron, a professor of social psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The goal is to find ways to keep injecting novelty into the relationship. The activity can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or something a little more unusual or thrilling - like taking an art class or going to an amusement park."

Injecting novelty? Hmmm.. Well, would taking care of TJ count? It's "unusual" and "thrilling" (at times)... And taking a class together? Definitely out of the question. At least, not at this stage in the game with a preschool kid. We've already got a full plate trying to balance our schedule as it is. And people tell me life only gets busier.

A new restaurant? I like this idea. Simple and doable. Sort of. Time out together is such a rare commodity, it seems risky to splurge it an unknown outcome.

As I read down further in the article, I started losing interest. To show how important novelty was in exciting brain activity that correlate to "butterflies of early romance", they asked one couple to simply walk back and forth in a room. Then, they tied the wrists and ankles of the second couple together and had them crawl back and forth pushing a ball.

The results?

"Before and after the exercise, the couples were asked things like, 'How bored are you with your current relationship?' The couples who took part in the more challenging and novel activity showed bigger increases in love and satisfaction scores, while couples performing the mundane task showed no meaningful changes."

Well, whadyaknow! I think any preschooler could tell you it's more more fun to crawl around and push a ball, rather than walking back and forth across a room.

My girlfriend and I brushed off our last bite of treats, but we had a hard time thinking of a long-married couple who were "still in love". We would throw around a few examples, but the closest we got were "happy and comfortable" or "in a functional marriage... it works for them".

Between the two of us, we could only come up with one couple, my hubby's mom and dad.

"What tells you that they are still in love?  And what's their secret, you think?"  my friend asks.

"Well, for one thing, they love telling the story of how they met, in detail. And when they each tell it, they have their own version. I love how they laugh and correct each other the whole time. You can tell they keep the memory and feelings of first meeting close at hand for recall.

The other thing is that they talk all the time. Mom told me she would get up early before the crack of dawn, to make Dad's coffee and chat a bit before he'd head off to work. And when he got back, they'd "visit" for a while to review the day. They talk non-stop. About anything and everything. And it's not infrequent, I catch them holding hands for no apparent reason at all.."

How 'bout you guys? Do you know any long-time married couples who are still in love? How do they keep romance alive? Any favorite restaurants to share for date nights?

Cross-posted on Just Peachy Baby Blog, where Bonnie writes about her peachy life with baby.