Take Your Relationship Back

My daughter was in college and my son was in high school.  Both were doing their own things and we saw them so infrequently that it was like having an empty nest. 

My husband and I were so used to focusing on the kids and their activities that we forgot what to do as a couple.  Yes, we had date nights, but they weren’t the same as they used to be and they were squeezed into our calendar between other people’s activities.  Because our son’s hockey games were mostly on the weekends, our date nights had to change from weekends to weekdays.  What do you do on a weekday?

One Tuesday evening we planned a date.  We went to see a movie and went to dinner.  We ended up at our favorite bar.  There were three other people in the bar and we didn’t know them.  We sat down, had a drink, and discussed what we were going to do.  We wanted to have fun, but none of our friends were out.  At that time it had been so long since we were on a date that we were so confused as to what came next.  I honestly couldn’t remember a time that we walked into a bar and none of our friends were there. 

I picked up my cell phone and called my brother.  I told him what we did and where we were.  Then I asked the question – What do we do next?   Yes, it had been so long since we were on a real date that we forgot how to date.  We weren’t sure what to do and couldn’t come up with one single thing that we both wanted to do.  I had to call in reinforcements.

That story got me worried.  I was so afraid that if we didn’t fix this now, we wouldn’t last after the kids were out of the house.

I did a lot of research, scoured the internet, talked to family and friends, and read any book I could get my hands on.  We needed to find a way to spend time together without our children or anyone else.

I learned about this thing called a marriage meeting and it changed our life!  I made a list of what to discuss, got the “rules” together, and we scheduled a weekly meeting to discuss everything in our lives.  We talked about chores, work, dates, finances, and even our sex life.  At these meetings we scheduled our vacations, planned our week, figured out what worked and didn’t work in our lives and how to change it.  We learned that if we followed the rules of the meeting, we could discuss anything!

On a vacation we discovered that when we sit and play cards for an hour or so, we found time to talk about our day and catch up.  So, we brought that home with us.  At least one night each week we try to play cards or a dice game or something that has us sitting together just having fun. 

We are once again enjoying our time together.  I haven’t had to call my brother for dating advice in such a long time!