By the time this article is published, my DH and I will have returned from our family vacation. We, along with our kids, have made this a priority every year for the past 3 years. (This being our 4th) This year is very special to us though. During the middle of the vacation, we were afforded the opportunity to have a little romantic getaway without the kids.
I cannot possibly tell you how much these little getaways mean to me. When the kids were younger, I wouldn’t do it. I would think about the kids so much. Were they ok? Did they miss me? Did they NEED me? No one could replace me. No one could take care of the kids as well as I could. But what about my marriage? What about my husband? Didn’t he….didn’t WE deserve a chance to be the lovers we were meant to be?
You see, we were pregnant 5 months after we got married. We never really had the opportunity to explore our sexuality together before our son came. Our first anniversary was spent in Galveston and I was 7 months pregnant at the time. Kinda hard to enjoy yourself when you are that far along. It just went downhill from there. Baby cries all night, feedings in the middle of the night, not enough sleep, going back to work and the guilt of putting the baby in daycare….it went on and on. Our sex life didn’t….
So that is why this private time for us is so very important. We started making weekly date nights. The kids are old enough that we do our date while they are involved with Wednesday night activities at church. On occasion, we plan something on a Friday night. Our oldest is old enough to babysit, so we feel that our youngest is safe. I have to admit that I have finally allowed us to go for dates with him babysitting where we get in very late…. going to concerts across the border and driving home afterwards. I haven’t quite felt confident enough to let him babysit his sister overnight….not anything to do with my son, it’s still me. But my parents and my mother in law have been awesome about keeping both kids while we go spend time by ourselves. It is truly a blessing for us and our marriage.
Now, we’re back to work and the real world, trying to figure out how to have those date nights over the summer when church activities are done until the summer ends. It is so important for your marriage to find a way to have date nights. Do a babysitting swap with friends. Someone from church. A family member. Make sure that your priorities in life are (1) God (2) your spouse (3) your children and so forth…. Take my advice…it wasn’t fun when I put the kids before both my husband and God.
What are your experiences with dating your hubby or getaways just the two of you. How often do you date? Get away from it all?
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Christian Nymphos 
We have started doing this lately, and I am so glad, I’m going to try to continue.
We go out on a date at least every other weekend, we try to do it more. I would love (am DESPERATE!) to have an over night date with just the two of us soon. Our daughter is 1 1/2 and we haven’t spent a night without her yet. We do try to make special time in the evenings, especially on the weekends, for just the two of us to connect after DD is in bed and have “mini dates” at home.
Spicynutmeg, hope you had a great time on your vacation! My husband and I have not been consistent about date nights throughout our marriage, although we go out by ourselves somewhat frequently. But we were consistent about getting away for a weekend, generally twice a year. We even did it when our youngest was a few months old – we stayed at a local B&B and I remember delivering bottles of breast milk to my MIL, who was keeping the kids. Of course, it’s easier if you have reliable and willing family members in town. Now that our kids are older (high school and college) we have left the older one in charge on a few weekends. One of the things I am trying to start now to keep things fun and interesting in our marriage is to plan some different kinds of dates/outings. The first one will be a guided moonlight river trip (canoe) in July. I’m pretty excited about it!
We try to get away 2 or 3 times a year, we love B&B’s! With 3 children and a church to care for, that’s about all we can do, but it’s so VITAL to our marriage! We just got back from a getaway, we hadn’t played or laughed that much in a long time!
We just celebrated our 26th Wedding Anniversary yesterday and since the beginning of our marriage we’ve always had date nights weekly….of course, we’ve had to take breaks after the birth of a child (we have 10 children, 2 step for me and our 8 together).
We only have 7 left at home and it’s so nice that we can depend on the olders to watch the youngers(our youngest will be 6 next month).
We are going on a short camping trip for our third yer anniversary which is tomorrow. 🙂 we don’t have a lot of time to go away but a two day camping trip is going to be fun! I love my hubby and I can’t believe it’s already been three years! The time has flown by.
I have said it here before but will say it again and again. Date nights are one of the things that have brought my marriage from OK to fabulous. DH is not a planner, I am and I get totally in to planning fun and inexpensive things for us to do. He surprises me from time to time with a spur of the moment invite but I am so happy that I took the lead in this respect. He always enjoys himself and it has built our emotionally intimacy, not only because we have made some cool memories but also because the act of getting out of the rut of day to day life inspires conversation, and trust in eachother and just adds depth to our connection
Overnight/Weekend trips are fantastic! There is nothing like the feedom of being able to explore each other rsexually without the distraction and worry of kids but being able to count on one on one time during the week is something that makes this 21 year old marriage hot!
Although we don’t have any kids, the DH and I are both graduate students (and have been for 5 out of 6 years together). Between teaching and our courses during the day and grading and our own homework/research at night, we can go several days without spending any real time together. On top of that, my field is theatre, so I am often away from home from 6:00 pm – 11:00 or later half of the year. To combat how separate our lives can be, for the last five years, we have had lunch or dinner together at least once a week. Sometimes we pack a lunches and meet at a park, sometimes we go to a nice restaurant, sometimes it’s just fast food in the car, but we find that time to look at each other in the eye and talk and laugh for 45 minutes. We also try to walk our dogs together a couple of times a week and try to plan a “dinner and movie” (or board game, local baseball game, etc) night every other week.
Like many of you, we also plan short getaways every year. We call them adventures. We choose someplace within a 4 hour drive that we’ve never been, check into a nice hotel or B&B for a couple of days, and put our coursework and grading aside. We get room service, explore zoos and museums together, check out local pizza parlors, and generally enjoy each other like we did when we were first together and everything was new and exciting. Although I think our lunch dates are super vital to our success, we look forward to our adventures every year. It’s nice to know that after 7 years as a couple, we still have fun together. It’s also great to set aside everything for a few days and just focus on each other, not just sexually (but that part is great, too), but intellectually and emotionally.
Congratulations on your anniversary!
*New to the site – first time posting*
My DH is a police officer who works nights and I work full time during the day. We have a one year old, and with all of our family 100’s of miles away, we are in short supply of babysitters. When we do have time to sneak away, my DH always has a way of making it romantic and special… he’s so good like that! We have our first (since the baby was born) real vacation planned, just the two of us, for the end of July. An Alaskan cruise, we can hardly wait!
I’ve always known in my head how the priorities fall “(1) God (2) your spouse (3) your children” but only recently have I been convicted, that’s not exactly how I’m living out my life. Reading your blog, I’m glad to know there are others who relate. I look forward to frequenting the site for other encourging articles and information.
I can’t tell u how glad I am to have found this site!! (Been with u since Dec)
Our getaway time hasn’t been exactly penciled in for the summer yet…and probably wont with me working part time. But we’ve made the most of sleep over invites for the kids and full days without a nap to guarantee maximum sleep thru the night for them and date time for us lol. It is so important to have your top three priorities lined up the right way. There we find God’s grace to keep it all balanced. Have a great summer ladies!