Episode 5: Romance in Your Marriage Part 1 of 4 - Romance Date Night
/Sam and Erica's Marriage podcast
Romance in Your Marriage Part 1 of 4: Romance - Date Night
Episode 005
February 4, 2019
Introduction
Who we are
Subscribe...it’s free!
New 4 part series on Romance In Your Marriage
Discussion
Making Date Night Spicy!
Having a real Date Night, it’s really important
What’s holding you back
What to do
What not to do
1. Having a real Date Night, it’s really important
Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all.
Ecclesiastes 9:9 Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil. She is the reward!!!
Date Night Builds Intimacy
Intimate conversation - we did this before we married.
Catching up - life moves fast we need time to reconnect.
Dreaming together - this podcast is the fruit of years of sharing our dreams to serve married folk.
Sex - Good Date nights usually end in sex (married folk only).
Oneness - The net result when a couple commits to Date Night.
Definition of oneness: the fact or state of being unified or whole,though comprised of two parts.
Mark 10:7-8 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife 8 and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
2. What to do
A.Pick a time that fits your schedule
Pick the prime real estate not the leftovers.
Check with family and friends for help with schedules.
B. Be creative
Think about the things you did before you were married
Explore common interests
Recreational Enjoyment Inventory (see link below)
Datenightbox.com
Be consistent
Put it in your Spending Plan (if you don’t know what that is check out Episode 001).
Get excited!
Put the phone down!!!
3. What not to do
Don’t talk about the finances
Don’t talk about the kids
Don’t talk about work
4. What’s holding you back?
Small children
Money
No time
Fear (unknown)
Not interested
ACTION ITEMS
This time we want you to go out on a date. If it’s been a while and you struggle with what to talk about try sharing things you’d like to do on future dates.
Pray for our podcast-we are praying for you.
Don’t forget to subscribe.
Share the podcast with two other people.
RESOURCES
Recreational Enjoyment Inventory from His Needs, Her Needs
Recreational Enjoyment Inventory
His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley, Jr.
His Needs, Her Needs on Amazon
Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
A Celebration of Sex by Dr. Douglas E. Rosenau
A Celebration of Sex on Amazon
NEXT EPISODE
Next we continue our discussion on Romance In Your Marriage.
Transcript
[00:13] Welcome to Sam and Erica's Marriage Podcast. Here we will talk about practical ways to have an even better marriage and ways to handle the challenges that are sure to come. Regardless of where you are in your marriage, your age, or how long you have been married, this podcast is for you. We would discuss difficult topics from dealing with past hurts and unforgiveness to making date night spicy. Even if you're single, you probably want a better marriage than the marriages you've seen. Join us weekly as we discuss ways to make marriages better. We invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
[00:59] Welcome to Sam and Erica's Marriage Podcast episode 5. In this episode we're actually going to be beginning a brand new series. We're in February now. We got a new series, but before we get to that, I just want to take a moment to remind all of our listeners to go ahead and click that subscribe button. We've had some people ask a few questions about subscribe and how that works with podcasts. As we talked about in our previous episode, subscribing is free. It doesn't cost you anything. It just loads up the next episode. Every time we drop a new episode. So go ahead and click that subscribe button.
[01:38] As Sam said, we are starting a new four part series on Romance In Your Marriage. In today's episode, we will be talking about making date night spicy!
[01:50] And this is what I wanted, when we said we were going to do a Marriage podcast this is the kind of stuff I wanted to talk about. Yeah, we spent the last month talking about money and that was cool, but the, that's not what I want to talk about. This, spicy date nights, that's what I wanted to talk about. So we're here now. We get to talk about that romance in your marriage is what we're gonna be talking about the entire month of February and this first episode as my wife so "sultrily" put it. I can say it again. Say it one more time. Making date night spicy. Yeah, I like that. I like that. All right. That's what we're going to be talking about tonight. We're going to be talking about date night. Were actually going to be talking about date night because we are aware that there are some people out there that may not understand what date night is really about, may not be, may not have a date night.
[02:41] So we're gonna talk about having a real date night. We're going to talk about why it's important that you actually have a real date night. We're also going to be talking about, uh, some things that are holding people back, maybe reasons why you don't have a date night. We're going to talk about some do's and don'ts also when you, how to actually do this date night thing. What to do and what not to do, right? So we start this episode with the whole premise of a date night. Like most people that don't have date nights, most married folk that don't have date nights, don't realize that date nights are really, really important. When you do have a regular date night what people find is that it does become a centerpiece. Like it's really, really central to your marriage relationship. Right? And I believe that kind of ties to the first two verses we we're talking about. Uh, the first scripture that, uh, I think though it doesn't talk about dating, it does talk about how this, this marriage relationship is really important and that's Hebrews 13:4 "let marriage be held in high honor among all" very simple little verse, but I think it really speaks to the fact that a husband or wife needs to understand that this marriage thing that God has given us is an honorable thing.
[04:14] It's important. It's, it's a valuable. I think that children need to understand that their mom and dad's their marriage is important. It's to be honored. I think when we have a regular date night, children grow to understand that. That date night is actually a piece of Mom and Dad's marriage and is to be respected, it's to be honored. It's something we can teach our coworkers, something we can teach our friends and family. That's what I was going to say actually.
[04:46] That we you know, everybody around us, those who we are in relationship with know that this an this is an important thing. And they really would honor that. They will begin to respect that. They'll know not to call, you know, don't ask to do any favors, no church activities, because that particular night is date night. And then I also want to back up and say, you know, we're getting ready to get into some details about date night, but one thing date night is not, it's not a trip to Lowe's. It's not a trip to Home Depot. It's an actual date night.
[05:20] Wait, wait, let me just make sure I'm clear. If we spend time together, let's say, uh, going to get the car repaired. That's not a date night. Okay. All right. I was just checking. Okay. So the other verse I was thinking about is Ecclesiastes 9:9. Uh, which reads "live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of the life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil" and I think that speaks to at least two things. The first thing is
[05:58] that this, this gift that is a marriage, this gift that is your spouse is actually something that God gives you as a reward. Like it's, it's part of a way that He chooses to bless us. Those of us that have a spouse it also speaks to the fact that, uh, this is your partner. This is someone that you, you're going to spend all the meaningless days of your life that God gives you with this person, your spouse. The part that, the word that actually jumps out at me in this scripture is that word meaningless. What it does is it really helps me to understand that wait a minute, there are going to be some days in my life, in my marriage that's not going to be happy. Everything's not going to be peaches and cream. It's going to be some days that are just mundane, getting up, going to work and come home every day.
[06:51] But this is still a blessing. This union is still a blessing from God and we have to treat our spouse as if they are a gift, a blessing, a reward. And so, you know, when I think about being a reward for my husband, I really get excited about that. We tend to treat our rewards with sensitivity and tenderness and all of those things. So no, you don't get a reward and just throw it under the bed. No, no. We place it high so that people can see it and no one can touch it. That's right. That's good Bae. So why do we have a date night? Oh, one of the things that, that is a direct benefit of having a date night is that date nights build intimacy. And they build intimacy in a, in a way that it's kinda hard to explain and I'm not sure if it's about the fact that, you know, this is our time or, or even what makes this commitment to spend time together such an intimate time.
[07:54] But it really does have a way of affecting our intimacy. I was really excited when you came home and said we should start having a date night. You know, it gave me something to look forward to and after, you know, being a mom and for however long I was excited it gave me, you know, I got the energy, I'm going to go spend some time with my man. We're going to talk about things that we hadn't talked about in a long time. It gave me a chance, you know, I would really, I joke with my girlfriends all the time. I felt like a school girl, you know, because I want to, you know, do all the girly things, make sure the outfit is right, try on the five different things, make sure that goes hair and nails together. I would really get excited about, I mean, I really got excited about that when you came home, so I really want to thank you.
[08:39] I appreciate that. Well, I was excited too and uh, and we should be because it's, it's a really, really cool, really fun time. Another benefit of kind of that intimacy piece is that when we have dates, we have intimate conversation. We have intimate conversations the way we did before we were married, right? Like when we were dating. Like we really share on a deeper level, on a more personal level. When we have a date night, then we do when we're just passing the kids off to one another. It's easy to disconnect because like you said, we're passing the kids, we're going to work we're coming home, we're doing the same thing. We, we have a routine and it's really easy to disconnect and it's not anything that's done intentional, it just happens. And so the date night is definitely a way for us to, to rekindle that, to reconnect. And that re-connection that's really, um, I kind of categorized it as catching up, but I, that's exactly what it is, it's reconnecting, you know, life moves fast.
[09:46] You, you really don't have a time, most of us don't have a time where we really do just kind of get to see what you've been up to. Not so much what you've been doing, but you know what he'd been thinking about? You know, how you've been feeling? You know, what do you, what do you, uh, what are some things you're looking forward to? You know, those, those deeper, more intimate thoughts. We get to share those things when we have a regular date night. Another thing that I think about too when we talk about the intimate conversation is that it really, we have to just be still, you know, to be still in the moment. We're so busy, we have so many things going on and when we have that time together, it really just puts us in each other's presence. We get a chance to talk about those things and to experience and feel things that we hadn't felt in a while because we haven't been connecting absolutely in awhile.
[10:44] And that, that ties to the next thing that I think that we get out of having a regular day night, which is dreaming together. That's one of the things that you end up sharing and it's, it is so wild that people that we know that didn't have a regular date night but started one, it, it's almost uh, once you kind of get those muscles warmed up again and you, you get over some of those more surface conversations or a date night or two in it, it's almost without fail that you begin to share your heart with each other and you begin to talk about those things that you looking forward to those things that you're hoping for, you know, early retirement or whatever it is that you're dreaming about. Those things just kind of come out once you start having this regular date night. One of the things Babe, that happened, this actually happened while we were on a date when we were talking about retirement and we were trying to pick a location where we wanted to go.
[11:48] We both wanted some sun and some sand and you said Belize. And I was like, okay, well let's go to Belize. Never heard of or never have been there, don't know anything about Belize but you know, it was something that we talked about and so let's go, I mean I'm ready, that happens on date night you share some of your dreams. To be completely honest, this conversation that you're listening to right now is a conversation that is the fruit of dreams, shared at date nights. Erica and I sat across many a table from each other, just kind of dreaming about ways that one day we might be able to, to help husbands or wives to just improve their marriages. To dreaming about doing things that might help make families stronger. This podcast is a result of some of that dream sharing. It also, dream sharing with one another of course
[12:49] But I also think that it helps us to get back to the dreams that we once had that you know, were suppressed because life got in the way and so it gives us the opportunity to go, oh wait a minute, you know, there, there was that thing that I wanted to do or remember when we talked about doing this. So it really does bring back all those memories. And you know, you have been so instrumental in pushing me outside of my comfort zone. You know what about that thing you talked about? Remember when we did that? So this podcast is definitely a result of that. We, uh, one last thing about dreams and we'll move on. But when you share your dreams with your spouse, something kicks in because now you take this thing from being something that's in your head or in your heart,
[13:38] You put that thing out there and your spouse, the person that knows you best in the world now starts to think about this thing that you've expressed to be so important to you. Now they can help you with it. Now you've got a teammate on making this dream come true. You've got somebody that can say, well, okay, but have you ever thought about how this might work with that? Or if you ever thought about maybe we could do this? All because you have this opportunity to share your dreams and date night provides like the perfect venue to share your dreams with one another. God actually has given us, Um, I believe, you know, He's given couples an assignment. He's giving us, given us something to do individually and something to do collectively as a unit for His kingdom. And I don't think that it's possible for us to be able to accomplish that without speaking it to one another. I agree. Without me telling you what God has placed in my heart and without you telling me what God has placed in your heart. So I, you know, it's a lot that comes out of that intimate conversation. I agree. I agree. 100%. Another thing,
[14:52] this might be, let me check the list. Yeah, this might be my favorite thing. My favorite thing that comes out of date night. Date nights can often result in sex. Get outta here. Yeah, now this sex that we're talking about y'all? I'm talking to the married folk. Married folk only! Married folk only because anybody can date. So the rest of this stuff, single people, I want you to embrace it. Engaged couples and there's no, no sex for the engaged or the betrothed or boyfriend committed. It doesn't matter what you call it. The premarital committed relationships, none of that. That can't work here. This is strictly for the married people. A good date night, will often end in sex. One of the resources that we're using for this month, the month of romance is a book by a Willard Harley Jr it's called His Needs, Her Needs, and if you scroll down in the show notes, you'll find the link to all three of the books that we're going to be talking about this month.
[15:53] But one of the main needs that he talks about for the husband, and this isn't for every husband, but most husbands have a need for sex, right? Physical sex is a need and he also says that as important as it is for the husband to have this need of sex met that women, the wife has a need for intimate conversation. He says that the drive is just as strong. So when you're out having a date night and you're sharing this heart to heart sharing, you're having that intimate conversation that your wife craves. It's being fulfilled for two hours. Right. You're giving her what she needs. Right. It's just not unusual for that to result in her being ready or attracted to you or feeling like she really wants to have a love making session with you. Right, right.
[16:56] I agree with that 100% you know when you're sitting next directly across from your spouse and when you're into listening to hanging on to every word that I'm saying and you know, yeah, he's interested. He loves me. He wants to know everything that's going on inside my head and yes I am. Yep,
[17:17] we're good. We're good. We can take that thang to the house. We're good or good or like you talked about it another time. I may not even make it to the house, just straight to the nearest hotel. But, you know this is for the married folk, right! Married folk, newsflash, can I just say this? Married people are supposed to have sex. Just get that out there. In February you are going to hear Sam and Erica talk a lot about sex because married folk are supposed to have sex. Yes, sex isn't a dirty thing. No, married folks supposed to have sex. So you're going to hear that once or 30 times right in these four episodes, right? And and again, that sex in God's design, that sex is for us to have a connection. More of that oneness that we were talking about and oneness is one of those things that is a net result of what happens when a couple commits to a regular date night.
[18:19] I actually took some time and looked up the definition of oneness because I wanted to know and it says the fact or state of being unified or whole, though comprised of two parts. I like that. That's two people making one whole. That's oneness. The Word says in Mark 10:7-8 "for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh." That is both the worldview and the biblical view or definition of what oneness means. And that really is as plain as day talking about husband and wife becoming one. You can't become one if you're not connected. You can't become one if you're not talking to one another. You can't become one if you don't know what's going on inside the heart and mind of your spouse.
[19:15] So we understand why date night is important. So how do we do it? Like, what are the steps? And though we're not going to go chronologically, we are gonna talk about some important pieces that you have to have if you want to do this date night thing. And one of those things is that you have to pick a time that fits your schedule. Like we are super busy. Every person is busy. Uh, we all got plenty to do. If you don't have a regular date night, I'm guessing that every evening of your schedule you got something that you're doing right. Even if you're just watching, you know, some housewives show whatever you do. Did you really say that I don't know the name of those shows. I'm saying I know guys to watch those shows. I don't, I just don't know the name of them, but whatever it is, you can be watching the Cavs.
[20:02] You're gonna make time to watch the Cavs. You have to make a time that fits your schedule and I always suggest that you pick a prime real estate time. Like nobody wants to, your wife doesn't, guys, your wife does want to go out on a date on Tuesday nights. No, no. She wants to go out on Friday nights or Saturday nights because in most places that's when all the events are happening. That's when those, uh, those artists are in town or their special events happening in your downtown area. You know, that's when the, the jazz club is doing a, that's when it's open all night. Those are the prime go out nights, Friday nights, Saturday nights. So I always suggest starting right there. Before, let's back up a little bit
[20:48] Babe, and just make sure that we encourage the couples to make the decision to have the date night. This is something that we are, we are deciding right here right now that this is something that we're going to do going forward. Um, as far as picking the time for us, we really had to, at the time when we first started having date night, we, our youngest daughter was in high school, so we had to adjust our schedule to fit hers with work and with all the extra curricular activities. It happened to be Friday night was the best night for us. So that worked out with, you know, something was going on downtown Cleveland, a concert, whatever. So that was, that's prime real estate Friday night or Saturday night, like you said. Yeah. Back then I had to work Saturday. That is true. Yeah. Getting up at four in the morning.
[21:35] Yeah. Yeah. So, but that commitment that, that picking a choice night is, is valuable. You have to do that. And it kind of ties into the next point, which is, or before we get to the next point, let's talk about, uh, how do you pull that off? So there when you decide, okay, what is it gonna take for me to do this on a Friday night? It's probably gonna take both people kind of making some special arrangements because you may have existing obligations on Fridays or Saturday nights that you're going to have to reschedule, right. If you get family obligations or children,
[22:12] right. Do you have to connect with your family and friends to find out if they are able to watch the children on a Friday night or a Saturday night? And most times if you go to your parents or friends or family members and say, look, me and my spouse, we want to start having these date nights, we want to go out on Friday night. Is it possible for you to watch the kids? They, 9 out of 10 times they'll say, yeah, you can always get a teenager, a babysitter, or you can connect with other couples. You can get another couple and you watch their kids on Friday night while you go on your date night and then you watch, I'm sorry, you watch their kids on Friday night and then they watch your kids on Saturday night so that you both get a chance to have your date night. That's a
[22:53] great suggestion. You know and if you spread those babysitters around, you know you only asking your mom to watch him once a month, right? You got their uncle watching them once a month. Yeah. So you know, but you really have to to work it out, you know it's not going to fall into place for everyone. It's going to take some adjustment. Right. So that kind of ties to our second one is that you have to make date night a priority. You have to not only be committed to do it, but you also have to make it preeminent in your schedule. Right? Like you have to build your schedule around date night. So much so that the people in your life, know, it's date night. It's date night, right? Friday nights everyone in our lives, know, that Friday night is date night. My pastor is not calling me asking me to do something on Friday night because he already knows my date night. It's date night. My kids, they know when we get home from work. What are you guys doing for date night? They've known that for years and, and it's amazing how people have such a good attitude it kind of goes back to that scripture about marriage being honorable among all. My boss will come into my office on a Friday and ask me "Hey Sam, what are you guys doing for date night tonight?" People kind of get a little excitement in the fact that you have set aside this time and it's untouchable to go on a date with your spouse.
[24:22] Another thing that will happen too is that the people around you will, you know, they'll be excited about your date night, but then they'll want to start having date nights for themselves. I, uh, I have a coworker who, her and her husband would go out to dinner every Wednesday night. They would just go have pizza or whatever. And I started referring to it as their date night and she would say, no, it's really not a date night, but it really was a date night. That was the time for them to connect outside of home. And then she started referring to it as her date night. And so on Wednesdays I would say, you know, I have a nice date night, Lisa, and then on Friday she would say, have a nice date night Erica. You know, so that is, that is encouraging those around, you know, people want to know, they want to experience that and they see how healthy your relationship is and they want that for themselves. Yeah. I'm
[25:10] pretty soon, like you talked about at another time, you know, you look around and now all your friends have date nights too. Right! Yeah. Your relatives, they all, everybody's got a date night, you know, so it's when we prioritize it, it just, it turns into a good thing all the way around. Another thing that we talked about or to want to share is that you have to be creative in what you actually do. You can't just mail it in like, okay, well from now on baby, on Fridays we are going to the movie no matter what showing we're going, we're going to the movies. No, you have to be creative. You have to really look out and find something fun to do. Ladies, let me just say, I have slept through many a Star Wars movies on a Friday night but the popcorn was good. There you go. I got a good nap.
[26:05] And you can't just drag your spouse around to do the things that you like to do. Right, but it's okay. Yeah, but mix it up, right. Do be creative. And one of the things that we always suggest to people when they're giving us the look when we tell them that they have to do a date night is do some of the things that you did when you were dating. Right! Because you were going on some dates when you were trying to win that person over. Right! Do some of those things. You know, that's always a great place to start. Another place to start is, or another thing that date night gives you is the ability to explore common interests. So when you're going out and your being creative and you're trying new things, you can stumble upon things that both of you like doing together. Like ballroom dancing, I drug Sam ballroom dancing.
[27:00] Wasn't my favorite thing. But he was a trooper. He did it. I watched those Star Wars movies, he went ballroom dancing. So you know, and then what I'm going to do is I'm actually every summer I said I'm going to commit to learning how to play golf so that we can, that's something that we would be able to do together. That's that recreational companionship and I'm going to commit to doing that this year. That's another point. Recreational, the book that I talked about earlier, His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harley Jr, he talks about, another great thing he talks about is that a lot of times spouses have a need for their, their spouse to be their favorite recreational partner. Like your marriage is healthiest when you're doing the things that you like to do with the person that you love the most.
[27:54] So finding things that both of you like to do together really does add something really special to your relationship. It does. Now you don't have to go out with the boys to have fun. You go out with your girl and have fun. Erica and I have found bowling together and going to certain restaurants together there are certain places in downtown Cleveland that we call our spots, places we go after we have dinner and we go and it's our place and we just hang out. You know, there's so many common interests that the two of you will be able to share together that will really kind of, that oneness we talked about that it just increased that oneness and you get that from a date night. Another thing that I actually, I saw this on social media and I thought it was pretty cool that it's called date night, date nightbox.com and so they actually, it's a subscription so you have to pay, it's a couple of different categories, but they have a date night literally in a box.
[28:55] So it's a, you can do arts and crafts, you can do cooking, um, you can do painting. It's a couple different things. You have several different options, but it's date night in a box. So it gives you the ability to be creative, without having to be a creative person. Right, without having to be creative and you have to pay. So that's something that I thought was pretty cool. So that's something you can check out. Another thing is to be consistent. You know, when you commit to that time, you have to commit to that time. That's going to be your date night. We're going to go, no matter what. You know, we've had the Sam and Erica marriage, in the Sam and Erica marriage, we've had some date nights, well we've had some times where Friday night would come around and we're not digging each you know, we might be, we might've had an argument on Thursday or Friday morning or Friday morning
[29:49] and it's Friday. So we're going out or what? You know. If you want to. Alright, oh, come on.
[30:00] What we committed to this time, so we're going to go. And it is amazing how many times that that date night has been the little, the little push we needed to kind of get us back into our right mind. You know, and before we know it, we're kind of back laughing, that's happened a few times. Yeah,
[30:17] it has. And you know, again, it's that that oneness, it builds that intimacy and it really, what it does is of course on the car ride, you know, try not to talk to each other and one person will break the ice. But then it really gives you the time that says, what are we doing? Yeah. You know what? This is silly. What are we doing? We're wasting time. What are we doing it? That's what happens most of the time, right? Yeah. There have been one or two day nights that we kind of sat there and ate quietly. Right!. Check! Right. But most of the time it has been something that's really helped us to kind of get perspective and get things back on track. You know, another thing about date night and, and this I think lends more to, we think this lends more to the ladies than the men, but I don't, I've learned something different over the years and that's get excited. You know your date
[31:11] night is something that you can look forward to. You know, I look forward to, I know I'm going to be going doing something that I really love doing with a person that I really love the most. Like that's something that I can, on a Friday when I've had a rough week at work, I'm counting down because I know when I get outta here I'm going home, I'm going to get changed and we're going to go hit it.
[31:37] That's something to get excited about. It is, and I get just as excited. You know, I'm like again, that school girl, you know, I'm, I am getting ready to go spend time with my man. You know, I'll get my nails done, get my hair done, I'll let my girlfriend's know, look, hey, what's cute? What should I wear? I'll jump on Pinterest to find a real cute outfit, you know, get it together because it, you know, I'm excited because this is the time that I'm getting ready to spend one and a half to two hours or more with the gift the man that God gave me to spend the rest of my life with. I love this man. So to take, you know, I just look forward to that time, that time where we are just connecting. We're going to be one. It's going to be good. You gotta get excited about it. Yeah. Another thing you ought to do to have a good and regular date night is put the phone down. I said that sternness. Yeah. You meant that thing. I did
[32:40] the phone down. Yeah, you can't, we go out. It is amazing how many places we go and we see both people their sitting like a foot apart from each other. Both people looking down at their phones, right until the food comes. Then it looked down in their plate until they take the plate away and then they're looking down the phone again. You could you, why did you even bring up the other person? Like all you had to do was bring your phone, you know, you gotta be, like Erica said in the beginning of this thing, you gotta be present. You have to be at the table in the room engaged. If you really want to get the benefit of this thing, you've got to put the phone down. Right.
[33:27] One of my daughters actually asked me, this was a few months ago and because I am sure she noticed this at a restaurant too that couples are there, but they both had their phones, a faces are down and the phone and she asked, you know, mom, after so many years of being married to you run out of stuff to talk about. And I thought that was a great question. Um, because you know, that's what she observes. She observed husbands and wives in a restaurant and they were older. So she figured that they had run out of things to talk about. The reality is that the answer to that question is no, you never run out of things to talk about. But if we don't take the time and exercise that communicating muscle, then we will run out of things to talk about and we will be, we'll get distracted by the phone because that's what the phone is. It's a distraction, a diversion way for me to hide. Right, right, right.
[34:21] I'm here but I can go away. Right. That's the opposite of what we want to do. Right? Yeah. That's good. So those are some things that we need to do to have a good day. Now we're gonna talk about some things not to do and a number one thing not to do, and this is going to be a little tough in the beginning, is don't talk about the finances date night is not the place for that. It's tempting, but date night is not the place to talk about that. Another thing that we don't talk about it date night is we don't talk about the kids
[34:55] and we love our kids and we know that you love, you love your kids too. They do the coolest things. They are at these precious ages where you just can't stop talking about them
[35:09] just for a little bit, two hours a week. They're not allowed at date night, date night, no date night. No, no. Another thing we don't talk about is work, work. So finances, kids, work all off limits during day night. Find something else to talk about.
[35:28] We know it's going to be tough in the beginning because you know this, this, I am calling this, the dating muscle it is weak. If you haven't been out a date with your spouse
[35:38] in a while, this is your, you know, this muscle is weak. You have to strengthen it. You have to build it. You have to cultivate it. You have to do everything to make this muscle stronger. It's going to be tough and tough is okay. Tough is okay. You know what they say? In exercise, right? No pain, no gain. Right? Uh, one of the things with these don'ts, and I suggest we suggest this with couples, is that before you go out, you just set this ground rule. You know, hey, we're not going to talk about money. We're not gonna talk about the kids. We're not going to talk about work. So if either of us starts, you've got permission, I've got permission to say, Hey, you're talking about the kids again so that we can get back into each other. Hey, talking about work again. Nope.
[36:25] Okay. I'm sorry I did it again. Let's get back on track because this is our time, these three topics not allowed on the date. And not talking about these three topics there probably could be some silence because you're so used to talking about work money and the kids. You know, you may find each other, just, you may notice that his eyes are darker than you thought or maybe she does need to do those eyebrows. Whatever, I don't know. No, just do know that there is going to be some silence. It can happen early on. Another thing that we talk about though, we talked about some do's, we talked about why it's important. Uh, another thing is that we asked people that aren't doing a date night, why aren't they doing it? Like, like what's, what's the problem? What's holding you back? And we hear they're probably five or six things that we always hear.
[37:22] And the first and foremost is always, oh, we got small children, or we got big children, well we got to medium children. Like the small children, nobody will my kids because they're bad and the big children are, I don't trust them at home by themselves and the medium children are, you know well they're too big to have babysitters and they're too small to drive so we gotta take them to all of their events and pick them up from their friends and we've got to do all this other stuff. Yeah, kids are a problem. But they are no excuse. You don't get a pass because you got kids. You got to work that thing out, work it out. Contact god mother, god brother, you know, your neighbor, the teenager, PTA president, whatever. Somebody can watch the children. Somebody's got to take care of you will make the time or make away.
[38:19] Absolutely. Another thing that people say is holding them back very often as money, you know? Yeah. We just don't, you know in this season we just don't have the money to spend on doing things like dinner. Like that is the worst excuse ever and if, if you don't know why that's a bad excuse, you need to go back and listen to Sam and Erica's Marriage Podcast, episode 1, 2, 3 and 4 because you probably do have the money. You're going to allocate that money in your spending plan and you won't have that problem again. And even if you really, really are up against it and we've been there, we know exactly what that's like. We've had some of our best dates with a deck of cards closing the door in the bedroom telling the kids we're not going out for date night. We're going upstairs and we sit and play cards with the music on in the background and have a blast. Those date nights don't cost much. If you're in a season where you can't afford to go on a date night, you may not be able to afford to go out on the town but you can afford to have a day night. Another thing that we hear a lot is we don't have the time. We're just so busy. I got three jobs, I got eight kids you know I'm in school. They're just ain't, any time. If you value your marriage, you need to make the time.
[39:50] Right. Another thing with the, with the money, look, we get it. We know that there were just 800,000 employees that didn't have jobs for for a month. You didn't get a check. We get it. We understand that. We know that they're in episode one, two, three and four we talk about debt, we talk about all of those things. So we get that. We're not trying to tell you to go out and break the bank every month and spend $200 or $300 on a steak every week. We're saying it's important. You have to put, you know, the word says, you know where your treasure is there your heart will be also. You have to put the time, the energy and the resources into doing this if it's important for you.
[40:30] Yeah. You've said before it's investing in your mayor, right? Right. Yeah. And we have some of our best dates back to the money thing. Just for a moment. We've had some great date all we take a Bluetooth speaker out on the deck and there you go. There you go. Light the grill, we'd have some hot dog, you know, but we have a date, you know, it's our time on our day and you can have a great date without spending a lot of money without spending any money at all. And in some cases, another thing that we hear a lot is fear. Fear of the unknown.
[41:03] I don't know, you know what if we don't, we're not connecting. What if it, you know, it's not the same as it was before we had the kids? What if we don't love each other anymore? The thrill is gone. And this is all right. These are all real issues. We believe that you can make it through, absolutely. We believe that if you push, then you can make it through. Absolutely.
[41:29] You know, um, that, that fear of the unknown, the only way to overcome that is to know and the only way to know is to experience it. You know, you really have to get out there and do this thing because that's how you're going to know, right?
[41:50] Right. The last thing you want to do is be sitting, you know that you've, you've spent so much time and energy devoted everything that you have, put it all into these kids. The kids are gone. You're sitting across from your spouse and you don't even know who they are. You know they have interests in hobbies that you don't know anything about because you, you just haven't connected. That will happen. That's how couples are married 30 years ended up getting a divorce when the kids leave, it's because they don't know each other. They didn't take the time to connect, to be one and to prioritize the relationship. That is exactly it.
[42:33] I hear this a lot. I think this is more for the guys than the ladies, you know, just not interested in dating. You know it's not my thing and I, and that's like the worst cop out in the world when I hear guys say that because you know you did a whole lot of dating when you were trying to get her. Right. You didn't have that problem when you were trying to woo her. You've got to dust that thing off. You know your Mojo ain't what it was cause you ain't been using it, you got to dust it off. The mojo has no more mo, no more jo one or the other. Yeah. You got to not being interested in dating is the biggest cop out. You dated that lady when you try to win her over you got to get back out there again.
[43:18] You got to win her over all over again and a date is a great way of doing that. Right? So is that how we do it? Is that how we kick off a date night? How we kick off a date night. Okay. That's how you kick off your date nights. So we just, again, we're in part one of a four part series on romance and we've got three new books. You can just scroll down in to in the show notes, you'll be able to see all three books that we're going to be talking about this month. And there are links for each one. You just click the link, it takes you straight to Amazon. A couple of things. I always say a couple of things and always ended up being like four or five things this time I think we got four things. So a couple of things we want you to do after you hear this episode.
[44:01] The first thing is, uh, continue to pray with us, praying for this podcast and praying for our marriage. We're praying for you guys. We pray for the listener, the person that's going to listen to this podcast. Every time we sit down to do this, every time we do something with this right, we are praying for the person that's going to be listening. So we just ask that you would, you know, put us on your prayer list too. We're also asking you not to forget to subscribe. You know, we've had a lot of questions about what subscribe means. We've explained it a few times. Now when you get done today, just click the button. Go ahead and click subscribe and we're asking that you share. If you like this podcast, share with a couple of people. Just if you've been telling people about it, that's fine. We're asking that you would text the link to two people. Now text the link that sounds kind of technical. All you're gonna do is open up your text message app and you're gonna type in seasons ministries.org/podcast and hit send. We want you to send that to two people this week.
[45:09] All right. You know if you listened to episode 1, 2, 3 and 4 you know we have an action step for you. So this time we want you to go on a date. Imagine that. If it's been a while and you struggle with what to talk about, try sharing some things that you'd like to do on a future date. This is step one to making date night spicy.
[45:32] Making date spicy. Hey go head girl. Hey, that's it for episode 5. Thank you for listening. God bless. God bless.