MO AND PHINDI | Date nights essential to keep your marriage strong and healthy

A plant that is not regularly watered withers and dies. Without water, it will die even though it’s planted in soil that has all the nutrients it needs to stay alive.

In the same way, the difference between a healthy and unhealthy marriage is quality time. Quality time is more than just a love language. It is to a marriage what water is to a plant. It is essential. And a marriage without deliberately and routinely planned date nights is a marriage void of health and nourishment.

A date night is a deliberately pre-planned and often exclusive time where the two of you put aside your busy lives and spend a set amount of time focusing on each other, talking and listening to one another. That time together may also involve doing fun and recreational activities.

And no, a date night doesn’t have to be at night, nor does it need to cost any money for that matter. Simple regular walks as a couple every Saturday morning, or attending an event together, or giving your time to charity or community work once a week, for example, would do wonders to strengthen a bond. Of course, there are plenty of other ideas that involve money like eating out, holidays etc. The most important thing is spending quality time together while engaging in shared meaning.

A date night isn’t just a way to spend quality time together, but it’s also an opportunity to strengthen the bond between the two of you. Date nights will strengthen your connection, keep intimacy alive, build and solidify your friendship, radically improve communication, allow you to de-stress, build memories and have fun together.

By deliberately setting aside time to reconnect with your spouse, you can ensure that your relationship remains strong and healthy till death do you part.

Date nights are not a luxury, they’re a necessity.

However, life often becomes so complicated that many obstacles and barriers deter couples from setting aside quality time together for uninterrupted dates.

Ongoing or unresolved conflict. Conflicts aren’t just important for a healthy marriage, they are necessary. However, when a disagreement continues without resolution, it can deter a couple from spending quality time together. Even worse, if you are immature about it, then it may turn the entire date to be about the problem, instead of being with each other.

Domestic logistics. Unmanaged household responsibilities, especially little children, can get in the of regular date nights. When you can’t arrange a babysitter or simply don’t have enough money to fund date nights, it can deceive you into thinking you have more important things to worry about than date nights.

When you’re so busy with domestic chores that you feel your partner is lazy, doesn’t help with anything around the house and that you’re carrying that aspect of the marriage by yourself, it can cause you to not even think about spending time on dates. Actually, this can cause bitterness.

Busy schedules. Arguably the most common deterrent to date night is time. We come home from work exhausted, only to have to catch up with house chores, children and other responsibilities. By the time you’re done, it’s already time for bed and you’ll have to repeat the cycle again the next day.

However, being too busy is a myth. It is only a matter of priorities. We prioritise and make time for what’s important to us, and disregard what we don’t deem important.

Boredom and taking each other for granted. All relationships fall into a routine at some point. It is never really a bad thing, it just means you’ve reached a level of comfort. But comfort can easily turn into boredom. Because you've got so used to being together, it can get very easy to take each other for granted. Once you’ve had this mindset that they’ll just be there as usual, slowly, you can create a distance by not cultivating the relationship as much as you need to.

Growing apart and lack of relationship. Every couple is either doing something that draws them closer together, or that is causing them to drift apart. Every day we make choices about which of these two paths we take by giving more attention to individual preferences and commitments we tend to lean on, often more than we do our spouses.

When you lack a common goal of your marriage, and don’t share a friendship together as a couple, you won’t be motivated to spend any quality time together.

Social media addiction. It’s called, “phubbing”, ie when you inadvertently ignore or snub your spouse (or the people you’re with) by opting to stare at your phone instead. And for someone whose love language is quality time, phubbing can drive them to depression.

We’ve been fooled into believing that technology is neutral, and that the problem is with the user and not the app. Software and app developers have mastered a sort of “addiction code” that has to keep users compulsively engaged, such that they can’t stand leaving their phones untouched for long. In other words, technology has been manipulated to leverage our brains’ habit-forming tendencies. Positive reaction to your social media updates releases a brain chemical called dopamine. It is the same chemical release that causes a drug addict to feel good when using drugs, and feel the urge to take more.

It’s very discouraging to be on a date with someone who can’t put their phone down.