247 - Why Your Relationship Needs a Date Night
Do you and your partner or partners have regular date nights worked into your routine? We're going to explore why it's important to take time to schedule dates with partners to maintain a healthy connection, and some statistics on relationship success rates for couples who take the time to have regular dates.
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Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the multiamory podcast, it's date night. Everyone put on your strappy black dresses and whip out the candlesticks because apparently, those are the things that you do on dates.
Dedeker: Like you do .
Jase: We're going to dive into the research on the many benefits of regular date nights as well as tackling some common barriers to date night, and we're going to give you some fun suggestions about how to make your date nights the best, most effective date nights there can be.
Dedeker: Heck yes. So, you know how- I think that for those of us in the relationships and communication fields, there's a lot of really common recurring pieces of advice. These classic pieces of advice like, "It's all about communication. You've got to communicate, communicate, communicate." It's like the automatic go-to of relationship advice. I think I've started to notice that encouraging people to go on a regular date night with their partners, I think is also starting to become a low-hanging fruit of relationship advice. I don't know if you all perceive this.
Emily: You love those low-hanging fruits, Dedeker.
Dedeker: I know I love low-hanging fruit. It's just so fruity. There's these major resources like the Gottman institute that we're going to talk about a lot. They are pretty public with the fact that they recommend older couples have a regular date night. You can see it suggested in a billion different blogs or articles about maintaining a healthy long-term relationship or a long-term marriage or things like that, so going on a regular date night is not a radically new piece of advice necessarily.
However, in my personal experience, it seems to me that a whole lot of people know about that advice but very few people actually do it, like my experience, especially when I work with my clients who are couples that often when I ask people, "Do you have a regular date night?" 90% of them are like, "No, we don't. We know we should" or "We did once and then people get busy and it just kind of falls off the plate". What's your experience of it?
Emily: Yes, I was going to ask, do you two have a regular date night? I think that you do, and with other partners in the past, did you have to implement that in a specific way?
Dedeker: Yes. Jase and I have a regular date night and we maintain that date night even when we're at a distance as well, and yes, same thing with Alex.
Jase: That's actually how we got started doing the regular weekly date night was because we were long-distance, and it was like well, we want to have a dedicated time to not schedule other things and have time, particularly because we're in different time zones. Then we found that by keeping that date night even when we're in the same place that that was really helpful. Ours actually came round about the other way, like the long-distance thing is what taught us the importance of that, which is kind of cool.
Emily: How long are your long-distance dates generally? Are they like a couple of hours or like the whole day?
Dedeker: We do like two to three hours.
Emily: Okay.
Dedeker: It depends on the time of day and what else is going on, but like two to three hours. I guess the same thing happened with me and Alex is that because we were spending part of the year long-distance that it really does establish the importance of having this regularly scheduled time that's not about processing or adulting or figuring out travel plans or whatever, but that is just about hanging out and having a good time. Yes, we have translated that now into when we are together in-person as well. We have a regular date even though we're spending most of our nights together.
Emily: That's great.
Dedeker: I know. What about you?
Jase: Since then I have implemented that with other partners and stuff too.
Emily: I think they generally the weekends are the times in which I do go on more dates with my partner or we'll go out to dinner, we'll go see a movie or we'll do something. Generally, it's Friday, Saturday or the big ones. Sometimes we'll do concerts on Sunday or whatever like we saw Macbeth, an interactive Macbeth.
Dedeker: .
Jase: Oh.
Emily: Just not great. I know.
Dedeker: Oh, it is.
Emily: It is actually not that good, but it was fun.
Dedeker: Wait, isn't technically, Sleep No More an interactive Macbeth?
Emily: That's a way better interactive Macbeth. Yes, it is but a way better one than the community theater version that I saw.
Dedeker: God, the community theater version of Sleep No More, that will happen someday.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: I feel like for a long time like Saturdays, at least my perception is that Saturdays have been the day that you've protected the most for maintaining focused date time or things like that with your partner.
Emily: Generally, I try to at least do the whole day just in case just to see-- It doesn't mean that we need to be together 100% of the time during that day, but that we have the option to wake up, play together or something and go on a hike and then go in the evening doing something or spend time playing video games together or something along those lines.
Jase: Yes, so as far as the people who don't do it or times when-- Because Dedeker and I, there have been periods of time where we haven't kept up a regular date as much. Luckily for us, we tend to get back to it pretty quickly because we're like, "Hey". Like at our radar and we're like, "Hey, we haven't been doing our dates. Let's be sure we schedule those again." The kind of common resistances to going on dates and we'll get into this more a little bit later, but have you found those too, like things that have made that difficult to do the dates every week or however often you do them?
Dedeker: Well, I think for me personally, for a while I think had a psychological resistance to doing regular date nights in a long-term relationship because you start to assume like, well, we live together, we spend all our time together. We already spend all this time together. Why do we need to schedule extra time on top of that? Like maybe that would feel fake or that would feel forced. I know, for me that's been a resistance I've had in the past.
Emily: Yes, the forced fake thing is a really good point, it's like it somehow diminishes the spontaneity of it when you have to schedule it, but I think the opposite is actually true. Scheduling something really shows like, "Hey, this is a commitment. This is a really important thing to me and so I'm going to keep this available to you. We're going to keep this available to each other to show how much we care about each other."
Jase: I've found the struggle that I've had sometimes is getting both people's idea of what a date night is lined up with each other.
Dedeker: Oh, yes. That's huge.
Jase: That's not even just lined up in general, but even week to week or month to month or whatever because for some people, it's like date night is like time where we're going to sit and watch our show together each week, like just be with each other and not be on our phones, or it's like we're going to cook dinner together and then we're going to watch a show. Maybe that's an awesome date night. Whereas for other people that's like, "No, that's a normal life. A date night should be going out somewhere or a date night should be getting dressed up" or it should be some kind of other things.
I find sometimes that's been a struggle, especially with a newer relationship, to figure out what is our balance? Like what do these look like for us? What feels good for us to do?
Dedeker: I've definitely been resistant to it in the past because of money and time, the common fall-backs or the feeling like I don't have enough money or enough expendable money to just spend on going on a date, going to the movies or going to dinner or I'm exhausted at the end of the day and so I don't feel like getting dressed up and going on a date night. That's definitely been some obstacles I've had in the past to setting up any kind of regular date night.
Emily: Yes, exhaustion is a big one, I hear you. Let's talk about why it's so important to have a date night and the reason behind that is because you can lose the connection with your partner if you don't have one. If you don't have this regularly scheduled time to really be with your partner where you're not, as you said, adulting or fixing problems that you might be having or problem-solving, but rather just embracing and enjoying each other's company.
According to the Gottmans, marriage tends to end at one of two times. So, five to seven years due to high conflicts or after 10 to 12 years due to the loss of intimacy and connection. Some marriages will certainly end before five to seven years or between seven and 10 years but the Gottmans argue that these times; the five to seven years or the 10 to 12 years are the really critical or high risk times for marriage. I'm interested in the reasoning why behind that? Yes, I guess it does make sense. I don't know, five years, you are really in the groove of things, but perhaps the NRE is very much worn off by that point, and you're living with each other. Or not, or you're just around that person a ton, and maybe this is when the really intense challenges of the relationship start to come out or the conflicts that happen over and over again, it's a make-or-break a time for those.
Dedeker: I think also that five to seven years, if you've had kids in this marriage, that's probably the likelihood that you have a small child, at least a small child-
Emily: It gets even harder
Dedeker: -or multiple small children. Which is I think the time, ages zero to six is, from what I've heard anyway, the most taxing time on parents for raising a child. I'd imagine that if you have that stress combined with maybe just unresolved things in your marriage that that would be the most likely where there'd be such high conflict, that you would want to end the relationship potentially.
Emily: Just in 10 to 12 years, yes, that loss of intimacy is interesting. Where maybe you start going into the friend phase rather than the intimate phase of your relationship. Or maybe it even moves past that, and you're just living together roommate phase. Maybe that loss in intimacy and connection. Exactly.
Emily: Yes, so we've all seen those relationships, right? Where the intimacy and the connection has totally been lost. Often it happens in these very long-term relationships, where people don't talk to each other, they're not touching each other. Maybe they're living largely separate lives. Maybe if fights happen, there's no repair after the fights. Or often what happens once you've gotten to this point is that fights don't even happen, because the both of you have just learned to just withdraw right away essentially. You don't even have the energy to necessarily dive into the argument, there can be built up resentments, things like that.
I think we've all known someone or seen someone in a really-- Or ourselves have been in a relationship like that. I think it's a pretty easy thing to call to mind because it's not an uncommon phenomena, in my opinion, in this day and age. Regularly generating that connection and investing in your connection via a regular date night, that's just one of the many ways to prevent that from happening. Prevent the connection from being lost. Of course, having a regular date night is not going to be the be-all-end-all magic trick that's going to make sure that the intimacy stays alive for 50 years. It's going to be many, many different things, but that is one surefire way to help invest in that connection.
Jase: Yes, so we want to get into some research, because we love research. To start out here, we do need to give a disclaimer about pretty much all of this research and that's that the research is done on almost exclusively heterosexual, monogamously married couples, so that's just really it's our own fault. We don't spend enough as a demographic group for people to want to spend money on researching us. No, I'm joking.
Dedeker: Not with that attitude.
Emily: Okay, it's all of our faults.
Jase: Sort of. I'm only joking, but anyway as a caveat, just understand that, and that there are obviously other factors that go into all of this, but I do think there is some really useful stuff from this research. Because there are some of these studies that have been done not only on tons of people, but also over a lot of time. This first one we want to talk about here is Professor Steve McKay of the University of Lincoln analyzed data from the Millennium Cohort Study, which was this huge longitudinal survey of the lives of over 18,000 babies born in 2001 all the way up to 2018, and into the future.
Emily: Babies?
Jase: Exactly Emily. Wait, babies? What are you talking about?
Emily: babies now.
Dedeker: You're talking to me about baby marriage?
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Jase: So this is clearly a huge study, right? It's 18,000 babies over the course of what we're looking at 17 years, then continuing on, and it's still continuing too. What's interesting is that they weren't just collecting information about the babies, but about the babies' lives, which also involved their mothers and by extension, their mothers relationships.
Particularly if they were cohabiting with their partners, so they found through that, they could pull from this data, which is what Steve McKay did, can pull from this data to then learn things about those relationships. Which is kind of cool where they used that research again, and what they found is that splitting up, that getting separated is reduced by 14% in couples who find time to go on a date together regularly.
Emily: Now, here's the really interesting part. They found that it was the couples who had a date time just once a month that had the highest odds of staying together more so, than the couples who had a date time every week. I really I wonder why this is?
Dedeker: First of all, couples who had a date night once a month, as well as couples who had a date night once a week, both of those groups did better and were less likely to split up than couples who didn't have regular date night at all. There's that, but they found that specifically, it was the once-a-month category that did the best out of all of them. Their chance of splitting up were reduced the most.
Some researchers theorize that, especially since this was a study of parents, specifically, that they think that for some couples, especially couples raising kids, that trying to aim for a weekly date night, it would add enough stress to the process like having to rearrange your schedule, having to figure out childcare, having to figure out the budget, stuff like that, that essentially it would be kind of a net neutral. The net gain would be less than if you only did it once a month, and you only had to figure out all those logistics once a month, essentially. Which makes sense.
Jase: Because you just have more scheduling and maybe financial stress, then subtracting from the gains you've got. You're still getting gains, but it subtracts it a little. There was also a huge study of date time and "couple time" conducted by the National Marriage Project in 2012. Same thing, very hetero-normative in the research, but their findings suggest that couples who devote time specifically to one another at least once a week are more likely to have high quality relationships and are less likely to divorce.
I think it's interesting that they put time specifically to one another, so it's not even date night in that you have to go out, but it's more that, "We have time dedicated to just being together and focusing on each other." Which I think is a cool way to define what I think we often mean when we say date night. It doesn't have to mean going out to a restaurant every week or every month or whatever it is. Maybe it could be but doesn't have to be that.
Emily: Yes, going along with that, they found that higher amounts of one-on-one couple time, which is not necessarily a date night, but shared activity or focused conversation with just the two of you focusing on each other and your love for one another and your hopes and dreams, things like that, that fosters higher sexual satisfaction, feelings of commitment and better communication.
Specifically, this found that couples who engaged in novel activities that are fun, active or otherwise arousing, from things like hiking and dancing to travel, to even card games, they enjoy higher levels of relationship quality, which I really love. Because I know one of my favorite things to do with my partner is travel and have new experiences. Even go to a concert and have a novel experience in that way, it's huge, and it's lovely to get away from the mundane day-to-day things that you do all the time.
Dedeker: Yes, there's tons of research out there that shows that very little, seemingly insignificant novelties can influence how we feel about our partner. Related to that, there's a study that shows that if you see pictures of cute kittens, interspersed with pictures of your partner, you're going to feel more affection for your partner.
Emily: More love for your partner?
Dedeker: Yes, and it's the same thing, that if you're doing some kind of new activity together, even it's something as mundane-- I think they were having people build something out of Lego blocks, but it was a really challenging experience, but they did it with their partner. That even that generated more positive feelings toward their partner, versus a controlled group that was doing the more mundane tasks they've done a billion times before. Novelty, newness, fun adventures, the Gottmans are all about that too.
Emily: And kittens.
Dedeker: And kittens. Adventures with kittens is really the silver bullet here.
Emily: Oh my gosh, I love it.
Jase: Yes, in the Gottman's Eight Dates book, and I think we've talked about a little bit before, Dedeker and I did that, that they had a section where they talk about adventures. Going on adventures together, and also a section where they talked about the importance of playing together. I feel like what this study here is showing both of those things as well. Because these examples are some kind of play. Also some kind of discovery and novel experiences. Even if that adventure is trying a new restaurant or building something out of Legos.
Emily: Lego night sounds like a great date night now that I think about it.
Jase: Yes, actually.
Dedeker: I know you don't have to procure Legos but if your partner already has them then go for it.
Emily: Yes. Like buying a Lego set, Lego sets are not necessarily cheap, but you could probably squeeze a couple date nights out of a big Lego set.
Jase: That's true. Yes.
Emily: Like building one of those mansions or something. That'd be pretty good. Nice. Okay. Going to write that one down for later. That's what the research has to say but what else specifically can we all stand to gain from regular date time? I think first and foremost, the biggest benefit that I see is just being able to give each other a break and an opportunity to destress together. An opportunity to step out of your normal lives together and share that little destressed, more relaxing space together, which is great because they do find that external stress is a huge contributor to overall relationship stress and to having a lower sex drive as well.
Dedeker: Oh boy, I bet. This is absolutely true. I know like when I come home from a really long day at work and I am stressed about multiamory in addition or whatever, then yes, it definitely makes me not want to really have sexy times or do much with my partner in general anyways and I think vice versa that happens. Yes, that's rough.
Jase: Yes. I find for myself too just being too busy and the stress, that feeling like every single corner of my schedule is filled up also adds that level of stress and I'm just really not-- It's so hard to get in the mood or to really feel like being intimate or affectionate or anything.
Dedeker: We get so caught up in our own shit.
Jase: Yes. Also, if you're non-monogamous and with your long-term nesting partner, for example, it gives you two the opportunity to tap into some of that exciting energy by having this date night. Giving you the opportunity to do things that are new or going to new places that you might be getting with your other new partners because they're novel all the time because they're new but you're also getting to bring that to your existing relationship as well.
It can be hard to watch your partner shower and put themselves together nicely before heading out to see someone new but then when we have a night together, it's just wearing our yoga pants on the couch. It like gives you a chance to show up for each other and have that moment to get to impress each other or flirt with each other or try something new together.
Dedeker: I have seen this a little bit in the Patreon group from time to time, where people say like, "I feel as though my nesting partner has such an amazing time with all of these other people and they get really excited and then when they hang out with me, they want to go to bed immediately or they fall asleep as we're watching a movie on the couch or something."
Again, as Jase said, especially for long term partners or if you happen to live with someone and you do have multiple relationships, that you do really carve out time for you and your nesting partner to have really special moments like this, because otherwise, yes, it would make sense that the novelty would wear off and the excitement would wear off and the intimacy would potentially go away if you don't really spend that quality time together in this way.
Jase: Yes. There's such a stereotype about the people who are in a long-term marriage who just-- There's all these stereotypes about letting yourself go when you get married or just sort of not putting in effort once you've locked them down because now they're stuck in a marriage contract and they don't have a choice, I guess, is the implication, but that's just such an ingrained stereotype and I think that we do do that whether we're married or not.
But I absolutely, in relationships before realizing how important this is, would just have a tendency to take it for granted a little because that's what's been modeled for me. That's what's been shown to me as normal, as like, yes, now you get to relax, now you don't have to keep trying so hard.
Emily: Something really that my current partner does a fantastic job at is asking open-ended questions and fostering open-ended communication and deeper communication. You can still keep learning more about your partner by asking things like open-ended questions, even if you've known them for years. We're going to talk about this a little bit more later but it is so lovely to even just have little questions that maybe you curate in some way and then when you're sitting together or at a date night and maybe you don't know what to talk about, you can pull out these questions and have them on hand and ask your partner something that maybe you never knew about them before.
Jase: Yes. I love those opportunities to be surprised by your partner.
Dedeker: Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. Other things that you can stand to gain are things like just having more playfulness and fun and novelty in your life, just an opportunity to break out of routine and experience some newness in general and then on top of that, like we teased a little bit earlier, having a regular date night can kind of help set you up for sexy time, if your relationship is sexual, if that's the way that the two of you connect. I know for me that sometimes maybe if I'm working all the way until the end of the day, that then I'm just like, I'm not ready to have sex then or if I'm really tired or exhausted or whatever, that then I'm not ready to have sex.
Your date night doesn't always have to include sex necessarily and you shouldn't have an expectation of always including sex, but it is nice, especially if you're going to shower and put on makeup or shave or put on perfume or whatever, that it kind of helps to incorporate this ritual that for me, I know helps get me into my body, helps remind myself again that I am a sexual being after I've been in front of a screen all day or whatever, that can really help to facilitate having that sexual connection as well even in a long term relationship.
Jase: Yes, definitely. I think it would be great some time coming up to do an episode about connecting sexually, and I know we've kind of talked about it in the past, but it'd be cool to do one again about that because a lot of the research about it is so fascinating that a lot of the barriers to long-term couples having sex is just like making the time to do it and then you'll get into the mood by making the time.
Whereas people think it just has to hit me, which maybe it did when you first started dating, so this gives you an opportunity to do that. There's actually also a lot of research showing that that is how sex works in sexually happy couples who do have satisfying sex lives with each other. It's not because they're spontaneously constantly hot for each other, it's because they just make the time for it.
Dedeker: That they make time for it?
Jase: And they put themselves in that situation with someone they know they know they're going to have a good time with and that then it kind of leads to sexy times rather than it has to hit you and you have to be 100% there right away. It's a pretty interesting thing. I'd love to do a whole other episode about that. Maybe we'll do that at some point.
Okay. Maybe you're hearing all this and you're thinking, "Sure. Okay, maybe intellectually. I understand this is good for me. Yes, this would be good but--" We wanted to cover some of the most common either misconceptions or objections to doing a date night. The first big one here, we've got three big ones. First big one is we're too busy. We hit on this a little bit earlier and I've definitely fallen prey to this about a lot of things in my life. There's this article that the Gottmans put out that basically claims if you're too busy for date night, you're too busy, period.
Emily: I do really like that.
Jase: I really like it. Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. It's like if you're going to be in a relationship with someone and you're too busy, then you're too busy to be in a relationship, in my opinion, because you can't maintain.
Jase: Totally.
Emily: I'd like to believe that that accounts for, of course, we're going to go through periods of intense busyness. Like if you're take care of someone who's sick or whatever, we can understand that but as a general rule-
Jase: If I could try-
Dedeker: Yes. For extenuating circumstances, yes, but if this is a constant thing or it just seems it goes on for years at a time or something then well-- I don't know.
Jase: Yes, If I could offer maybe a different way of looking at it is if you're too busy for date night, that's when you most need to make time for date night. This may be another more positive constructive way to-
Dedeker: I like that. That's better.
Dedeker: That's what I tell people about meditation too but no one listens.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: I know. I want to meditate when I'm in Shanghai. I'll try to get back in there.
Dedeker: You should meditate now. You should meditate now. That's the whole point.
Jase: No day but today.
Dedeker: I know. Yes.
Jase: For this one, I get it. I've been there. Like Emily said, it can happen sometimes but if that, "oh, well, it's just a busy time" is your excuse, I would be cautious of that because not having time is my excuse for not working out and now I haven't worked out for the past month because it was like, well, I was traveling and then I was sick and then I-- It's just now I'm out of the habit.
With date night, it's just make it important, make it a priority. Part of that is actually schedule the time, is put it in your calendars. What works for Dedeker and myself is to put it in at the same time every week and then every month at our scrum, we can evaluate do we need to change that time, whatever. Then also each week, if it's like, "Hey, I need to change the time for next week. Is that cool, we can do that and that's fine, but having it there every week helps us not to just forget to do it at all. Otherwise, a month goes by and then it's like, “Oh, right. We never remember to schedule that date night”.
Then the other one-
Dedeker: I think it is also very important just to reiterate that don't wait until it's the leftover time because that could happen too where it's like we schedule the stuff with the kids, and with work, and with my friends, and maybe even with my other partners or whatever, and then whatever time is leftover from that, then we'll make that date night. Be proactive about it. Don't just make it the leftover time, make it the choicest time if you can.
Jase: Like when you're going to have energy when you're going to feel up for it. Then also that it doesn't have to take a ton of time. We talked about earlier with Dedeker and myself, especially when we're long distance, it might only be a couple of hours. Maybe that's it because it's like her morning before work, and my evening after work or whatever it is because of the time zones that we're in and that's fine too. It still gives you that dedicated time together or even if you're together in person, it's not about time zones, maybe that's all we have.
We can't afford to take an entire evening off because we've got to take care of the kids. We've got to do other things but just having that couple hours is still effective, it's still helpful. And that it doesn't have to be an evening. It could be any time, it could be a morning, it could be a morning on the weekends is when you have your date time or it could be an afternoon that you both happened to have half days on that day. It can be anything that you make it be.
Emily: If your partner has a 9:00 to 5:00, it's really nice too, maybe go surprise them and go out to lunch with them, for example. That's pretty awesome because it breaks the day up for them and for you. It's just of like I love going on hikes. It's fantastic to get to do that during the week even if you have the time or on the weekends and then maybe make a whole day out of it and go grab food afterward or something along those lines. That's a really lovely thing as you said, day times can be just as wonderful as evening time dates.
Jase: Actually, something I heard years ago is that a doctor encouraged actually Emily and me to be active together because then you're producing more pheromones and stuff because you're sweating and being able to smell each other being active like on a hike or something can actually also be a way to help foster that sexual connection and attraction for each other.
Emily: Okay, it doesn't have to be expensive. A lot of people will make the excuse that it's too expensive to go out all the time, which I know that I've definitely done and sometimes it is but it doesn't have to be an expensive date. It doesn't have to cost anything for it to matter. The intention behind creating the standalone time and space is much more important than how much money you spend on the date.
As we said, you can go for a hike, you can go to a free museum day if you live in New York. I think it's the third Thursday of every month they have a free museum day or third Friday, or something. I don't know New Yorkers. I wish I had that but they probably have something like that in LA too, but you can create something novel to do at home. It can be like playing a new video game together, it can be even like-
Dedeker: On your Legos.
Emily: Yes, the Legos, exactly. Josh and I got some succulents recently. We were like reporting them and putting them in nice places but really it was-
Dedeker: I just love the image of the TV just like hanging out with your batch of succulents and that's your date time. It’s so cute.
Emily: Well, I do love the fact that you got us started on that like the reason why the succulents happen was because of the ball-
Dedeker: Right, with the little Pokemon. Little Bulbasaur pot that I got you.
Emily: Exact, right.
Dedeker: I helped facilitate your succulent dates?
Emily: Exactly, so thank you but there are so many options out there. For the bonus episode, we're actually going to talk about our favorite cheap or free things to do. Another easy hack is just make dinner at home, go out, and maybe buy one cocktail in a bar, and then nurse that all evening or get a I don't know, a bottle of wine or a can of wine or something.
They have those underwood cans of wines at Trader Joe's and they're really cheap but it's like a glass and a half of wine, so you can get one of those, nurse it all evening and then have your dinner at home and it'll be a lovely evening.
Dedeker: I like that because then like you save the bulk of the money by cooking for yourselves but then you can still have the specialist of getting dressed up and going out without needing to spend a ton of money just buying coffee or tea or even a beer or something like that.
Emily: Exactly.
Dedeker: The last big one that we want to cover here is who's going to watch the kids, which is a huge one. Childcare is definitely expensive and not only is it expensive, it's not always easy to access. I've had some clients talk to me about- especially if they're talking to people on Tinder or something, or trying to coordinate meeting up with someone for a date that it's not super easy.
If someone's like, how about we meet tomorrow afternoon but then it's a scramble of like, “Who's going to watch the kid?” It's not quite so easy just be like, “Sure, tomorrow afternoon. Great”. The good news is that even if you could only pull off date time away from the kids just once a month, again, according to the research, even if you can pull it off once a month, you're still going to reap the benefits.
Again, if pulling off some once a week, childcare is just too difficult or too expensive, you can do just once a month. You can arrange childcare exchanges with other couples. A lot of people do these other couples with kids-
Emily: I have never heard of this and this is genius. I don't know. I guess it makes sense. You specifically--
Dedeker: Because clearly, you don't have kids?
Emily: No, I really don't. I really just don't. Just the idea that you would have your kids come over maybe with someone else's kids come over and play with your kids and take care of all of them for an evening and then you get to swap on a different evening with a couple, that is genius and free.
Dedeker: So you can both get date time. You can also reach out to your family members, friends.
Jase: If you're trying to do it once a month, that's not an unreasonable thing to ask too, I think. To ask whoever it is the relative or the friend or the other couple to be like, “Let's swap. You guys want to do a date night or just sleep for a night once a month? Then you take care of other kids", so we can do that.
Dedeker: Yes, definitely. Then something that they Gottmans also, a point that they made that I really appreciated is just remember that you are also demonstrating to your kids what it takes to foster a healthy relationship long-term.
I know it's really easy. I know my friends of mine who are parents, it’s really easy to fall into a feeling of guilt of like, “Oh, we should be here with our kids, we shouldn't be taking this time away. It’s going to be traumatizing for our kids?” Sure, I guess you could do it in a very traumatic way but my understanding is you don't have to do it in a very traumatic way. Just know that this is also teaching a really important lesson to your kids about maintaining a healthy long-term relationship the fact that the two of you that this is important to you. Your relationship is important to you to the point of being willing to invest this time and energy on doing this regularly and so that's something that your kids watch.
Jase: I love that so much.
Dedeker: You see, it internalize as well.
Emily: I think that's huge and something that maybe not all of us got as we were growing up with our parents. I saw my mom dating various people over the years but just the idea of that you really take time away for yourselves, iIt also shows the kids may be that they're not necessarily the center of every single moment of your world that rather your parents are autonomous people and they can do their own thing too which is great.
Dedeker: I never got any of that. My mom was single for a fair amount of my childhood but then she did remarry and I'm looking back on it and I can't recall any time that the two of them took away from us for their time that wasn't like time going to church events or like some business-related event. It was all very functional stuff. I don't remember any date night. It's probably because of all the same obstacles. They’re too busy, not enough money, like have to watch the kids, stuff like that. I know I definitely didn't get that lesson. What about you Jase?
Jase: I can think of maybe a couple times that I remember us having a babysitter or something and the reason for it was so that they could go out. I do remember a handful of that when I was younger. Then I think that fell off later as I got older. I remember that happening sometimes but I don't feel like it was very regular or at least not ongoing. Maybe it was regular for a couple months or something. The timelines all blurry because I was a kid. I do remember a little bit of that but I definitely--
We talked about this is something that we had to figure out either through reading this research or just doing it because of long-distance and it's like, “Oh, hey, this works”. It would have been cool if it's like this is a normal part of having a relationship if that you do take this for granted.
That would be a cool thing to just take for granted like that's what you do and to get raised that way. That would be cool.
Emily: Well, we all have friends now or family members who have children and do you see those people in your life implementing this? Do you think that you can tell at all--? Maybe for those whose kids are a little bit older, has that benefited them and has it benefited the relationship in various ways?
Dedeker: Interesting, I think the closest example that I can observe is my sister who does have kids. Again, it's not like I'm all up in their relationship so I don't know the details of exactly how they managed that but I do for a long time have memories of them being very vocal about having date nights in general. I don't think they do weekly day nights. It's probably closer to me, maybe every couple of weeks or once a month or something like that but they were probably one of the first in-person examples of couples that I ever met that were very vocal about-- Like, "Yes, we're going on a date night." You know?
That's why we're arranging childcare, getting grandma to come over and watch the kids, is because we want to have date nights." Not like, "We have a specific concert we were want to go to", or "a specific event we want to go to." It's just straight up, "We just want to have a date night." I don't know, my niece and nephew seem like they're doing fine as far as I can tell. I have to wait till they're adults and then get them to therapy before you figure out what effect that had really but they seem like they're pretty well adjusted.
Jase: That's good. I've got some friends, they seem to make time for-- I don't know how regularly they do it but they've seem to make time for date night together; having grandma, or a baby sitter or an au pair or something. I don't know the specifics, but having someone else watch the baby so that they can go out. They also do something that's interesting which is-- They're a monogamous couple, but is giving each other one night a week. That's like, "This is your night to go hang out with your friends and I'm going to take care of the kid on my own tonight so that we don't end up so isolated."
Emily: Wow-
Jase: For him-
Emily: -that's great.
Jase: Yes, so for my friend, it's like, "Hey, Monday nights." He told me, he's like, "You're in town, Monday nights, so you know, is my night to hang out with friends." We hang out last week and played video games and then this coming Monday, he's meeting up with another friend of ours for dinner, so we're all going to meet up for that. Having that time for each other is a cool thing too but that's extra. I feel like they're doing a good job of trying to find ways to both be-- They're very active in raising their child together but building in time for both themselves and then also for each other.
Emily: I love that because so many people do get so isolated when they have a kid and it becomes very lonely. It's like, "It's the three of us", or "the four of us", whatever. That's it, and that's all that you ever get to see. One of my best friends from Arizona, she had a kid almost a year ago and she just with her husband went to on-- They were on a trip alone for the very first time in like 10 months. That's tough and they both have very grueling doctor jobs, but still I know that she said that it was rough that they haven't really gotten to go out very much since having the kid.
Dedeker: Good for them for finally being able to make that happen.
Emily: Yes. I'm glad that they were.
Dedeker: That isolation, that's something that-- We've ranted about the nuclear family and its flaws many times before on this podcast but that sense of isolation and really not
being able to either escape each other or escape your kids or whatever, I think that that leads to-- When I see families, usually, it's families of a couple and two kids. And the two kids are usually are a little bit older. Maybe twins and teens and no one is having a good time basically. I feel like I see that so often but these families where it just seems so clear like, "We've all spent way too much time together and we're all sick of each other, essentially. And we all just press each other's buttons."
Emily: That's intense.
Dedeker: Maybe that's impossible to avoid but I do think that to a certain extent if you end up super-isolated, that's another byproduct of that. Anyway, let's wrap things up by talking about what are the important aspects or the important things to have for a regular date night? When you're actually sitting down to take this time and have this date, what should be the important pieces of that? I think it's important to make sure that we do no adulting on the date as much as possible. The date-time is not spent talking about the kids' schedule or about what we need to fix.
Emily: Problem-solving
Dedeker: Problem-solving. Ideally, not talking about what we need to figure out around the house or things like that because that can really drain your soul. That's probably conversations you're having the rest of the time anyway.
No processing, ideally. By processing, I mean things like-- This is not the time to work out what happened in the fight like two weeks ago or this is not the time to work out-- This happens with my clients all the time. Your date night is not the time to work out, "How do we do non-monogamy?"
Emily: Oh boy, yes.
Dedeker: Unless that's a super-fun conversation for you but that's not the time. That's definitely not the time for it. Ideally, you have a different processing time, you have a radar, you have a check-in conversation or something like that in place, so that that can be a processing time and date-time can be just positive feeling time.
Jase: I was going to mention that because I was thinking, for our listeners who've been following along, you're going, "That regular time, that's our radar." It's like, "No, that is a different thing."
Emily: No.
Jase: I just want to share kind of personally about this one because I think this is challenging to not spend all this time figuring out logistics or adulting as Dedeker called it or processing. I think particularly if you are in the process of opening-up a formerly closed relationship, yes, for a while, maybe all your conversations are going to be kind of taken up with processing and figuring that out. That's understandable. That's a normal thing, it takes a little extra for a while.
I did want to say that I know something with Dedeker, and I have to be very mindful about, is that on our date nights talking about work, talking about Multiamory stuff or talking about scheduling things.
Dedeker: All the freaking time.
Jase: Or like our last two date nights have involved booking flights to see each other or to see family for the holidays or to see Emily for the holidays or whatever it is. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes we will come to a date night together and one of us would be like, "Okay, can we talk about work for like five minutes because I just need to get this out of my head? I need to get this done", or like, "Let's book these flights."
Ideally, we don't do this all the time but we try to at least be mindful of, "Okay, that's done now, right? Done?" "Yes, done." Like, "Let's close all those windows on the computer, let’s put away our phones", whatever it is. Like, "Okay now, we're not doing that." We do try to at least make that effort to do it. I just want to throw that out there as-- If you have to do a little bit of adulting or a little processing, that's okay or maybe if a lot is going on you can but just really try to be mindful and make some time for not that too.
Dedeker: You can focus your conversation away from the adulting, away from the work, away from the processing and toward asking some open-ended questions of your partner. It could be just as simple as the last movie the two of you saw together, asking their opinions on it and asking them to share their thoughts. The Gottmans have an app, actually, that you can find pretty easily that has a bunch of different open-ended questions that you can ask your partner about all kinds of different things.
Jase: Gottman Card Decks is the name of the app, if you're looking for it.
Dedeker: There's also the famous 36 intimacy questions that The New York Times profiled. You can just Google that and those are also great questions. I find and those are great questions even if you've been with someone for a long time to still ask and just continue to get to know your partner. Because even after 10 years, 20 years there's still more to know because this person has also been changing the entire time as well.
Emily: Also, try to find a novel location or try to even carve out a novel space at home. Maybe not space but novel time, a new ritual, a new something. Try to make things spontaneous and exciting and fun and new just because then you'll add a little bit of spice and fun and newness into your relationship as well.
Jase: Make it different, you know?
Emily: Yes. Also, take turns planning these things together or separately because I know, for myself, sometimes I get in a routine of maybe being resentful at times because I'm like, "Aah, I'm always planning the dates, I'm always planning the things to do" or something along those lines. Make it a point to voice that and to be like, "Hey, let's take turns doing this". Because it's important for each of you to show like, "I have some ideas here and I want to put my time and effort into planning date nights." Avoid just one person always being the one to plan things. Also, minimize phone time, so Dedeker you have a role around this. I think this is very important in this day and age.
Dedeker: It's a rule I only apply to myself, maybe it's boundary I don't know. .
Emily: Not a rule, but yes.
Dedeker: Maybe even in neurosis perhaps if we want to go there.
I have this thing where if I’m sitting on a table with a partner, we're having dinner and its date-time or whatever, if I pull up my phone to check something like maybe we're like, “Where is the next place we're going?" I’m like"Oh, I don't know, let me pull up the address". Then if my partner pulls up their phone too, I just have a thing about then there only being one phone out at once. This is like a thing I apply to myself, it's not like I turn to my partner and I’m like, “Put your phone away". It's I’m always the one to put my phone away.
The reason why I call it a neurosis is because I have this thing of, I just cannot stand to have someone look over at my table and see two people on their phones.
Jase: I see
Emily: It's the optics of it.
Dedeker: Yes, because I hate looking at that honestly. I hate seeing that out and about, I hate seeing it when everyone at the table is on their phones, I hate that. My opinion is you got plenty of time in your life to be on the phone, now is not the time. That's why I’m like there's only ever going to be one phone at a time at any table that I’m sitting at. If it's not me, then it's not me and that's fine.
I've also find that when I do that, then if my partner pulls out their phone to check something, if I automatically go to my phone, chances are we're both going to stay on our phones a lot longer than we normally would, because then we both check notifications or we're going to look at this thing or wherever. If I don't pull up my phone, the other person is aware that I’m not there on my phone.
The other person is aware that I’m just sitting there waiting patiently and the onus is on them to wrap things up of that machinery. At least that's how I feel at time, I’m the only one on the phone and no one else is, I feel more of pressure on myself to be like, “Okay, I'll look up the thing, I'll look it up and then I put it away right away". That's my little thing, it seems to work for me anyway, to help with minimizing phone time, having the intention ahead of time that we're going to try to minimize phone time is great, but I follow the only one phone out at once rule for myself and it seems to work out.
Emily: Yes. Finally, the ideal frequency for all this is once a month you can move up from that. Just start it once. Make once a month a time in your schedule with your partner or with multi partners to have a date night. That should be easy enough, we're hoping and maybe move up from there if you want to but even just that once a month that's going to give you a ton of benefits in your relationships. Just start with that and you'll see what happens.
Jase: Yes. As an example of that, Dedeker and I, we do our date night once a week but we specifically we'll try to do- when we're together, at least, we'll try to do once a month where we'll do an outside date, so we call it, but it's like that's the date where we're going to do something. Whether it's going out to dinner at a place or going to an event or going to a show or something. Whereas the other dates can be a little more of low-key, maybe it's playing video games together, maybe it's watching something together or just taking a walk together. They can be low-key but we'll try to do just one a month, that's a little bigger. That's also an option too of kind-
Dedeker: It helps with budgeting also.
Jase: Exactly.
Dedeker: It's much easier to budget for one fancy date a month as opposed to every single week.
Jase: Also for planning. If it's like, gosh, it's a lot of work to try to figure out what to do every week, but it's like, "No, just a month", and we talk about doing a radar, what we want to do this next month for a date? We can collaborate on that or like, "Hey you do it this month or you do it this month". Its lots of different ways that can look. I love that idea that it's the bar to entry is just once a month, it's not that bad.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: For our bonus episode for this, we're going to talk about our suggestions and some of our favorite things to do for cheap or free dates. If you're either looking for ideas or looking for ways to not spend as much money on your dates, come check that out, and that's the bonus episode for our patreons.