How important are date nights to sustaining a marriage?

[Anonymous]

It’s important to me. I like to go to movies and plays and restaurants sometimes. Having someone to do those things with is part of the reason I got married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to have date nights when we have young kids and are both working full-time, but we do spend a lot of time as a family. Is that enough for the long haul?

Its fine. We didn't have family here and didn't trust sitters so we didn't start date nights until our kids were teens. We did do date days when kids were in school or on playdates.

[Anonymous]

Most of divorced people I know, did dating, partying, fun and all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to have date nights when we have young kids and are both working full-time, but we do spend a lot of time as a family. Is that enough for the long haul?

You’re probably fine. My spouse and I were hardly ever able to have date nights, and we’ve been happily married for forty years. Spoiler alert: things get really great when the nest eventually empties. Then, every night can be a date night, if you know what I mean.

Only if both spouses want that.

Well, obviously. And since we’ve been happily married for forty years, it’s pretty obvious that we both want that regularly.

[Anonymous]

Have tried to explain to wife that having some specific alone time like date nights are important, otherwise all over our interactions become about chores and logistics. She doesn't care, refuses to trust babysitters. We now sleep in separate beds with a dead bedroom otherwise. I don't think I will cheat but I fantasize about it.

[Anonymous]

We have four young children and we will do a date night once in awhile when my parents are in town but otherwise we don’t really need it. It would be nice but too much of a hassle to make happen. Our date night is feed the kids, get them to bed a little earlier and then we have a nice calm dinner.