Personally, I’ve always thought of dating as something that happens when we want to meet someone, I’ve never really thought of dating the person I am in a committed relationship or marriage with and I am sure I am not alone in this. However, It seems that loads of Institutes and relationship experts are doing research, reporting stats and recommending we all jump on that “Date Night” train.
Recently on a sleepless and potentially frustrated night, I decided that some “Professional” 3:00 am research on the “inter webs” was necessary on my part in order to learn more and understand the social phenomenon of “Date Night”” I wanted to ascertain “What’s the deal?” and “Can it help?”. So down the Google rabbit hole I went learning all that I could about this so called “Date Night”
Turns out “Date Night” looks as if it can be pretty rad and healthy for your relationship. It seems (with some pretty convincing and fairly damn logical points and stats) that “Date Night” can reap substantial benefits for most of us! “Date Night” = A fun way to foster healthy communication and interpersonal goodness for people in all stages of relationships. From the newly committed to the engaged, married or married with children.
Honestly, I was more than a little overwhelmed with all of the information I found. I am going to try and break this down for you in a 4 part miniseries, yep bite size pieces babes!
Date Night helps with communication. This is an essential element of an intimate relationship. But communication also involves the willingness to deliberately remove distractions such as children and career demands. Date nights offers couples the opportunity to discuss topics of mutual importance. They can self-define, and dialogue about mutual aspirations. Communication is like a muscle. Sometimes you plan your communication work-outs. Gottman’s research, in particular, tells us that a “stress-reducing” conversation can help couples to stay current with what is actually moving through their intimate partner’s life.
Couples typically experience a habituation, a “settling in” quality where both are more likely to take each other for granted. The symbiotic “we are a couple” can settle into an ordinary domestic routine. But new research indicates that a deficit in fun and novelty is toxic. A balance of activities, interesting to both, which emphasizes novel and different experiences can help increase intimacy.
Romantic love is that erotic spark, excitement, and an overwhelming sense of attraction to your significant other. But with time, the emotional and physical expression of erotic love tend to transcend for many couples.
Because Date Night allows a couple to completely focus on their connection, the erotic spark may be restored by the intentional pursuit of romance, novelty, and deeper communication. Date nights may not only rekindle the romance, regular Date Nights can be helpful in sustaining the fires of love over the long haul.
Couples that have a regular “Date Night” maintain a connection through intimate conversation and emotional support. They also lower the stress on their own brains, as well as their partners. Fortunately, nature has endowed us with great resiliency in this area. We don’t always have to connect with our partner perfectly, but we do have to preserve and develop our capacity to pay attention and be fully present to our partners when they are stressed, and to be a solidly loyal and reliable friend.
The benefits of creating time to date your partner seem to be pretty strong as well as motivating. If you are looking to strengthen a bond, maintain a healthy relationship or do some damage control and re kindle romantic love I am of the opinion that “Date Night” is a pretty cool thing that can assist in any of the above mentioned.
