I want to know why you don’t date your spouse.
Is it time, is it money?Is it that there hasn’t been a movie that the two of you have agreed on since Top Gun? Is it because it would take you away from your crops in Farmville?
We are going to be talking about this here on the blog for the next couple of weeks and I would love to hear what keeps you from romancing your sweetie.
Kathi, I’m not real sure how to answer that. I think time for us is huge. We are so busy it is hard at times to blow our nose much less go out.
Money…oh yes that is a big one too. By the time we pay a baby sitter, our dating budget is about shot and since we are now approaching the next decades of our lives, the dollar menu at McDonald’s has lost all of it’s appeal.
We hadn’t dated in a long time, but this year we are trying to do more of that.
Our main reason for not dating has always been time and money. We have four kids and a nontraditional household. We also live with my mother, who over the last two years we’ve been helping get on her feet again after the loss of my father unexpectedly to death.
We all have been grieving, and only recently have we felt we’re getting our footing back in our lives, and for us,in our marriage.
This year already we’ve gone on two days.. about one per month and we’ve made it a priority this year to go out on a date at least once a month.
For us….retired and not having babysitting concerns…it seems we just fall into a rut ! It’s easy to stay home…watch a movie…and NOT go out.
It takes planning and effort. We’ve been trying to do this more often…make the effort. Sometimes it’s just a trip to our favorite bookstore….and a nice coffee. Sometimes a dinner “out” ! For me, I don’t care if it’s a fancy place…as long as it is not at home. Recently-on a very rainy day-(which I LOVE) we went to a movie and our favorite bookstore-then had a walk in the pouring rain (which was an accident-our car was far from the movie theatre- but it was fun !) ! Then we came home, dried off, and cooked dinner “together”…FUN !
I love a nice dinner out the most…our recent Cheesecake Factory dinner was great 🙂
$$ for babysitters. We could go out on a creative, cheap date, but paying for a babysitter ($10/hour is the low end around here) is a deterrent. In addition, we need to go out early because we are in the always-tired-with-two-young-ones phase, so that leaves a babysitter with a lot to handle (dinner and bed time for a baby and toddler, difficult for ME to do on my own, and I’m the mom!). Sometimes we get a friend to hang out at our house after the kids are in bed, and we head out for a quick coffee/dessert date. It’s great when we do it, just takes some arranging.
Money is keeping us from doing the traditional dating. Babysitters get $5.00-$10.00 an hour here. But we do have a date to watch “Castle” on Hulu every week. And we try to attend a religous ceremony at the LDS temple every month. And now that our weekly planning sessions are taking place consistantly, they often turn into “couple time.”
Well, as I said, it is difficult to find a babysitter that I trust. I have a few family members and friends that I trust and yet I don’t do it. I usually ask my Mom and don’t want to bother the others. As Karyn said, I don’t want to inconveinace anyone.
For me, it is having to get a babysitter for two children under 2 1/2. I feel like they are a lot of “work” for a babysitter and only feel comforatable with certain babysitters. When we do get out, I feel like I should feed them dinner, change their diapers and put their jammies on so that the babysitter doesn’t have to do too much. I don’t want to inconveinance anyone.
Frequently it’s about time and money, but now that the kids are older and frequently gone doing things with their friends, it’s more that there isn’t so much the pressing need to plan that weekly night out we used to have. Now on Friday nights we often have the house to ourselves and uninterrupted access to the living room and the TV, so we catch up on our Netflix, relishing the opportunity to watch a less popular, more artsy movie. In a way, it’s still a date, just an at-home one.
M-O-N-E-Y. Babysitter, dinner, then actually doing something? We can’t afford it right now.
Time, money, a lack of ideas and energy. We’re out in the ‘country’, so it’s a 45 minute drive to drop the kids off with our trusty and willing babysitters (grandparents!), then we just can’t find a whole lot that we really want to do. Movies lately are so raunchy and $$. It’s just easier to stay home and put the kids to bed a little earlier so we can watch our own thing and eat ice cream. Not an ideal date by far, but it’s better then nothing.
Time and money are always the toughies to overcome for a date. The nice thing is that now that our kids are into the teens and elementary years, we don’t have to get a babysitter!