We all know it, couples who spend time together doing activities that they enjoy are happier. They have a higher chance of staying together.

Especially after marriage, even more so after marriage. Just cause you tied the knot and put a ring on it doesn’t mean the courtship ends. If anything it means you need to ramp up the romance and dating. You have even more to fight for now than you did when you were just dating.

So we all know it…but why does it seem like we just never make it happen?

Well I don’t know about you guys but it all comes down to the calendar. Simply finding time for one date, let alone multiple dates can be hard. Especially if your schedule looks anything like our schedule.

And this is just the stuff that makes sense to put onto a calendar. This isn’t even the to-do list?!

How in the world can we think about date night with that schedule.

Well it’s simple really…we want our marriage to last.

One way we can do that is make sure we keep dating.

So how do you combat the calendar…you beat it at it’s game.

So here are some steps to get some dates on your calendar.

Step 1: Create a list of dates

Start by thinking about all those activities you’ve both said, “That would be fun. We should do that sometime” and then life happened and the activity never did. Once you’ve exhausted that list. Head on over to Google–search for “cheap dates”, “dates in your area”, etc.

I googled “Howard County Dates”. It wasn’t very successful. So then I started looking for “Things to do in Howard County”.

When I was creating our list, it took me a few days. It was consistently on my mind and when I came up with a new idea, I put it in the notes app on my phone.

Step 2: Do your research 

Once you have your list, you need to figure out if certain events on your list are restricted to certain days of the week, times of the year, etc. Having this info written down next to each date idea will make things a lot easier when getting them on the calendar.

Step 3: Schedule

Looked at each month between now and the end of the year and put as many dates on each month as possible. I got about two dates on each month for us. It was much much easier to do so in the later months because they just don’t look like April does. If some months allowed it, they got some extra date nights.

TIP: Schedule the dates on the calendar with as much detail as possible.

Don’t just put “Date Night”.

No, that sets you up for failure–because then it’s even easier to say “oh well, let’s just stay in and watch a movie.” While sometimes, that does certainly count for a date night. You have to also get out and explore the world around you.

A scheduled date on the calendar looks like this…

It’s detailed. We have the date, time, event and then whether or not we can bring Jake, the dog.

Step 4: DATE! 

That’s it! Now go have fun, experience new things together.

REMEMBER: The ultimate rule here is that once it’s on the calendar, it can not be moved. Obviously if something big comes up, there’s sometimes nothing you can do about it and it needs to be RESCHEDULED. You see that, you don’t cancel the date. You reschedule the date.

 

I’ll share some of our date night ideas in another couple posts.

But in the meantime, I challenge you to get dates on the calendar before it’s too full!