Date Night—Even During Covid!

In the course of developing a Marital Preparation program, I have consulted with a number of clergy and secular practitioners who help partners prepare for and support their marriages. I frequently hear they regard date night as one of the most impactful connection rituals they can suggest. I encourage couples who come for counseling to institute a Date “Night” into their lives to help them keep their love for each other vibrant over the years.

Most couples grow their relationship with each other by dating. What is it about a “date” that makes time spent together feel special? How is it that this ritual helps to cement a couple’s closeness? 

To begin with, arranging a date sends a message that both people are interested in spending time together, getting to know each other; they feel attracted and want to see where these new feelings will lead them. They plan a time to meet when they are both free of distracting obligations and can give their total focus to each other. So even before they get together, feelings are generated; they anticipate the time together, they think of each other, feel anxious and excited. 

As the time arrives, feelings are heightened. They meet, go out, often away from their normal surroundings, do things together as a twosome, talking one on one, revealing themselves, discovering each other. They sit close together, looking in each other’s eyes, paying attention, animated, vibrant, mirroring feelings, showing interest, expressing empathy, smiling and laughing. Not surprisingly, when these conditions are present, partners experience strong feelings and begin to touch, first in respectful, tender, playful ways that can lead towards more passionate connection. 

As partners become more permanent couples, their knowledge of each other deepens and their relationship grows stronger. They spend more time together. Dates morph into shared lives. This is the goal of the dating, but at the same time, the couple’s time together becomes less separated from the mundane activities of life. Their individual and shared responsibilities begin to take up more of their time and their bond is less frequently celebrated. Inevitably, they also run into challenges, have misunderstandings and disagreements, and experience stressful situations that create frustration, annoyance, tension, and disappointment. Even when couples learn to handle these difficulties well, preventing the build-up of disrespect or resentments, it’s very important to balance negative experiences by having fun together and keeping your connection strong. 

When I work with couples who come for help with their relationships, I recommend they plan a date once a week to keep their special heartfelt connection in the front of their minds. These dates do not need to be long or expensive. They can be any time of day. A simple walk to a neighborhood park for a picnic will do. The most important thing is that they invest time in an ongoing way to keeping their connection to each other a central focus of their shared lives. 

Instructions: Complete with Covid workarounds! 

By setting up your dates in a way that recreates the conditions that were present when you began your relationship, you make it more likely that you and your partner will re-experience the deep and loving feelings that led you to be together.

1. Plan a time

Plan a time for your date when you will both be free of distracting obligations (work, kids, chores, neighbors, friends and family), to have fun together and focus only on each other. 

During Covid: This is particularly challenging to do when we are stuck in our homes, with little access to entertaining distractions. 

It is especially difficult for couples with children in the house with them 24/7. If that is the case for you, the first order of business is to figure out how you two can carve out time when the little ones are really engaged in an activity, or in bed soundly asleep. And as those of you sheltering with kids know, by the time the kids are tucked in, you are generally so exhausted from managing work, children, and chores your energy may not last long anyway. In fact, depending upon the age of your child/ren, maybe nap time becomes date “night.”

Remember that with or without kids, the goal of planning a time is to find special moments dedicated to focusing on each other without distractions. So even if “time” is short, if your attention is tenderly, playfully, focused on connecting with each other, the chronological interval is not all that important!  When attention is focused, the intensity of our experience is magnified;  we learn and recall what we did far better and longer. So we can make a short break count. And though sometimes we may find ourselves in a bit of a fog while sheltering, if we can hang onto our creativity, we can still find a way to be happy and have fun. Doing things frequently or habitually can sometimes mean we don’t experience it as “special.” This is a great time to reinvent date nights 

Once you plan a time… 

2. Get away

Get away from your normal surroundings, talk and listen to each other, sharing thoughts and feelings, especially feelings about each other, and your shared lives. Keep away from jobs, house, kids, money, extended family or other subjects that will keep your conversation “the same” as it would be on a typical day at home. 

During Covid: So what if we can’t “get away” from our normal surroundings? We can still change the scene! If we can’t leave, we can always transport ourselves. We don’t always need to watch movie, we can set the stage for ourselves. Decide where you will have your date this week: which room or nook inside, or outside if you’ve got a porch, or a little deck, or crack a window and bundle up so it feels like going “out.” Change the lighting, the heat, move the furniture, make a pillow fort, move the plants, pull the rug back and turn on the dance music. True it takes some creativity, but you can do this together until you get good at breaking out of your set pattern. And as you get more creative, take turns surprising each other. 

3. Choose an activity

Choose an activity you both enjoy where you will be close together, physically and emotionally present, looking in each other’s eyes, paying attention, mirroring feelings, showing interest, expressing warmth and tenderness, smiling and laughing. A dinner, lunch or afternoon at a beach will provide more contact than watching a movie. Choose a range of activities over time so you will have new experiences together keeping your connection fresh and vibrant and be sure not to include drinking on every date so you will both be able to experience your full range of feelings. 

With many “destinations” closed or off-limits, what can you do? 

During Covid: If you live in a city or apartment where access to outside spaces is limited, an afternoon at a beach or park is not likely to happen. Similarly, for parents sheltering with kids in the house and without childcare, your activity will have to be something you can do “on site.” But in either of these situations, what is important to remember is the goal is not “what” you do or “where” you do it, but “how” to be close and warm, having fun together. So the particular activity you choose to do when you are together will need to create interest, energy, curiosity, fun, laughter, and emotional connection.  

If things we used to do are unavailable, no restaurants serving us, no bars, no concerts, no theatre curtain times, no laughing with friends around the table….what are our choices of active, engaging ways to spend time together that helps us break out of the numbing sameness and experience ourselves as an intimate couple?  

One way to break the pattern is to evoke positive emotions we remember from special times in the past. Each of you can think of a favorite memory of you share. Places you’ve been but haven’t thought of in a long time. Maybe there’s a special song or piece of music. Don’t tell each other, you’ll share these memories on your date. Eliciting fun shared memories can make you smile and share a special knowing.

Or we can be creative about doing something different and unexpected even though the situation is actually unchanged. Make a list of your favorite things and imagine how you can reinvent them at home. If you generally read side by side, read to each other instead. If you often order take out, try cooking together. If you always cook together, order take out.  Write a love letter, or a letter of appreciation.  Watch the night sky, a moonrise, or a celestial event. Cuddle outside or throw sleeping bags on the living room floor. 

Or you can jump into the future and get excited about sharing fun adventures.

Dreaming. Where do we want to go when this is all over? What have we missed that we want to do again? Are there changes we would make? Are there new things we’ve never done that we’d like to try? What will we do with the kids, by ourselves, with our friends, our family, when things open up. 

The activity you choose doesn’t have to be great, maybe it’s just goofy, maybe you just get a laugh or a yawn, try again next week. The idea is brainstorming something to break the monotony and the numbing distance that can begin to set in when you are stuck in your house for a year 24/7 with kids. If you come up with one or two ideas that help break the boredom you have succeeded! 

Now that you have planned a time and chosen the activity you want to try this week… the next thing you need to do is: 

4.  Anticipate being with each other

As the time nears for the date think about what you want to share with your partner. Be sure you remember how grateful you are that you found each other and plan to celebrate your bond. Make sure you pause to feel your anticipation and be present. 

During Covid:  Get ready like you would for a real date. If you have kids, eat with the kids so you don’t have to cook or cook together because you love to cook. And before your date begins be sure one of you engages the kid/s with warm, quiet, attention so they feel filled up with love and are ready to let you go, and cuddle them up to watch the special movie or drift off to sleep. The other partner can set the scene for your date and be ready to help you let go of all your cares. Take turns doing this. 

5. Enjoy! 

“Be excellent to each other and party on! 

-Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, screen writers for “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure!”

Copyright 2013, Barbara B White, Ph.D. 

Renewing Your Relationship During a Pandemic

As 2020 began, we thought we saw ourselves, our relationships, and our world clearly. Three months later, enormous changes occurred in our social environment as we moved into sheltering.

Pressed up against each other, our focus on our intimate relationships became more intense, revealing both strengths and vulnerabilities in the way we treated each other. Being confined, facing losses, and away from pleasant distractions it was hard not to feel the strain we were living under and to see its effect on our partnerships. See Love in Covid: How the pandemic is affecting our relationships.

  And then, what had started as a crisis - went on and on - morphing into a chronic condition. Over time, sheltering became increasingly disruptive, and began to affect our mental health, and our physiology. Our individual stress levels rose, and we began to lose sleep; we became more anxious and depressed, which in turn affected our ability to focus our attention effectively, remember accurately, and think clearly. As all this was playing out within our homes, we were seeing inconsistent and conflicting reports of the pandemic that revealed disturbing social, economic, and racial inequities in the larger social environment. It was disorienting; the resulting accumulated stress and exhaustion shifted what we focused on and the perspective from which we viewed events. The lens through which we viewed ourselves and the world altered our perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

While some of us were able to cope well, many in more compromised situations were struggling. People got lonelier, more anxious, and depressed, and both substance abuse and the use of antidepressants rose sharply. As the challenges mounted for each of us individually, pressure on our long-term intimate relationships grew, with increased irritation, decreased satisfaction, and both divorce and domestic violence rates rising.

When we are flooded by anxiety, it is easy to become overwhelmed by negative thoughts and feelings, and we feel helpless to move forward constructively. But if we can regulate our emotions and keep our perspectives hopeful, we can focus on the positives and train our brains towards hope and optimism. There are specific steps that can lead to stronger connections with ourselves and with each other. 

Strengthening these connections is the work I have been doing for four decades. Partners come to me very hurt and angry, feeling lonely, alienated, resentful, and betrayed, and my job is to help them find a way to love each other again. And yes, it is possible, there is a path to move from hurt and anger to love and connection. And we need that path more now than ever to take care of ourselves and our relationships, so we can be a part of a larger healing. It is not easy, and it takes work, but it is achievable using the tools and perspectives in this website, and it starts by making a choice: A choice to move away from fear and anger and towards hope and optimism.

The guided Do It Yourself (DIY) program introduced here, Love for the Long Haul.com can help you to strengthen, enhance, or renew your relationship see Relationship Blueprint overview, and Tools. This path is rooted in scientific research. Research on relationships reveals the four critical components that lead to the success of long-term intimate relationships can be strengthened by learning new perspectives and tools. And the past two decades of study of interpersonal neurobiology shows how we can actually change our brains by creating new neural pathways. This process helps us become more secure, more emotionally well-regulated individuals, happier, calmer, and more capable of love and compassion. We can be better partners in our intimate partnerships because we are better able to listen to our partners, understand them, and resolve our differences. As we become better communicators, and happy, stable, and secure partners, we will be much better able to apply our learning to our relationships with our children, parents, friends, colleagues and neighbors.

Soon we will leave 2020. How we will remember it depends on what we choose to focus our attention on. If we are able to move our focus past our constraints and disappointments and see it as a time when we renew our relationship with ourselves, our partners, and families, we will be on track to develop 2020 vision.

Gandhi “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change… We need not wait to see what others do.”

“We Just Don’t Feel Close Anymore”

There are many reasons partners lose their connection. Sometimes feelings cool because you are busy, stressed, or distracted, and you forget to make it a priority to take care of your bond. Or you may have gotten into conflicts you were unable to resolve and have started to build resentments. Pressure from parenting, work, dealing with extended family, or stressful social situations you find difficult to manage can also result in a lack of warm connection. Partners start avoiding conflict, begin labeling each other in unkind ways and feel lonely. Without tenderness or connecting conversation, sex is much less appealing.

If you follow the four steps of the program, see Relationship Blueprint overview, I think you will find you can calm down any conflicts you are experiencing and your relationship will warm up quite a bit. To maintain your BEST partnership: You have to maintain your Bond, take care of your own Emotional health, manage the Social stresses you encounter and be sure you have adequate support to weather the changes you will have to deal with over Time.

The Tools in this program address both sides of the problem; warming things up and cooling off the conflicts. There are tools that help you pay attention to, recall, and focus on, your connection (Plugging In, Positive Tracking). These help you feel more motivated to spend time together.

Other tools help you stop escalations and learn effective, kind ways to resolve your disagreements in a way that pleases both of you. (Circuit Breaker stops the escalation. Collaborative Communication replaces competitive debate with a kind, constructive process that builds understanding. Brainstorming guides you to find solutions that satisfy both of you. Scaffold helps you gain perspective.)

“My Partner Doesn’t Want to Work On Our Relationship”

You can always jumpstart this program yourself by choosing to practice Tools that generate positive behavior (Appreciations, Be Kind, Positive Tracking, Sandwiching). Your partner will likely notice your new attitudes and behaviors and like the change. When you change your own behavior, you elicit change in your partner. S/he may become curious or even reciprocate.

But before you initiate any change, remember, you want to warm things up, be sincere, if you feel irritated or frustrated by your partner’s reticence, try to generate empathy.

Lots of people don’t believe they can improve a relationship. They might feel awkward, insecure, sad, unsure, disappointed, lonely, ashamed, inadequate… who knows? If we didn’t grow up with positive models and good relationship skills, it’s hard to know where to start. Don’t blame them or yourself, just be willing to take the first step to reset.