Friday Night Dates: Tips on Dating with your Busy Spouse

 

Here we go.  I am hoping to have Friday Dates or Tips on going on dates with your spouse.  We'll see how this goes.

 

For today, my tip is something that took me a long time to come to terms with.  As you probably know, my husband is in his 2nd year of medical school.  Needless to say, he's a little busy and preoccupied.  Finally, with a little help from a friend that moved in to our ward (neighborhood), I decided to:

 

1.  Do it Myself

 

Guess what, I kind of thought that my husband didn't really want to go on dates.  Since he was too busy to plan them, he was to busy to go on them.  Since doing a couple of things I'll share in a second, I have realized that that is not the case at all (thankfully)!  Plus, since we are the ones on Pinterest, or following blogs like the Dating Divas doesn't it only make sense that we can plan the dates?  I wouldn't say do it 100% of the time, and some of your husband's might really love planning things like that.  But honestly, don't get mad at them for not planning dates when you can do it just as well, if not better haha.  Besides, you can make them do things they would never plan, and tell them if they don't want to do it, they can plan it.  I'm only kind of kidding.

 

What are my other tips?

 

2.  Schedule your Dates

 

and

 

3.  Arrange a Babysitting Swap

 

This may be something you don't really need to do if you live really close to your family.  But you know what, even if you do, it might not be a bad idea to do this.  The friend I mentioned above presented me with the idea of doing a temple night swap once a month.  We (I) watch her kids while they go and they watch ours while we go.  Well, that worked out so well, I was kind of thinking we could do another swap, but have it just be for a date night.  Guess what?  It's so nice! 

 

This is kind of why it's important to schedule it.  This way, things don't come up quite as much to get in the way of your date.  You also have someone else involved which makes you stick to it better.  If you're like us, it's not really fun to go on a date knowing you have to pay a babysitter.  We can't really afford to go on dates, let alone pay someone to watch our kids.  This way, you're helping out another couple who may be in the same situation.

 

We have only done this one month so far.  This month, all we did was go to Park City to just use this gift card we had at the Nike outlet, and just drove right back.  Our friends went to see a movie.  But then, I think what will be my favorite, will be to do an at-home date while the kids are at their house.  So you don't have to feel like you need to go out and spend money, but it might be more fun to make a nice dinner and play a game or something.

 

So those are my big ideas for helping especially you young moms with busy husband's and not a whole lot of cash.  What are some things that work for you?

 

p.s.  The picture is the only picture I really have of us on a date lately.  Ironically enough, my husband planned this one.