Date Night

Hamil and I are both pretty busy--aside from working full time, we both have sports to keep us occupied: I have disc, and he has basketball and mixed martial arts, and each of these entails time allotted for training and tournaments. We also have fairly active social lives (meaning, we meet up with friends quite often). Plus, I always make sure I see my mom at least once a week.

"Til death do us part" doesn't mean we're joined at the hip. P.S. Check out my hair bling!

One of my bridesmaids, while giving her speech at my wedding, said that one of the best things about me and Hamil as a couple is that we're devoted to each other but we give each other space. We're still our own persons outside of being a couple. And a number of other people have also noticed it over the years--not everyone understands it, but it's a setup that totally works for us. I'm the type of girl who needs some breathing room. Besides, we have more interesting conversations because we have other things going on in our lives that we get to tell each other about.

When my husband took his masters a few years ago, we had to find a way to spend more time with each other--aside from going to class, he had projects and papers to submit, case studies to review. We felt that weekends weren't enough to nurture our relationship; we needed another regular day when we could surely see each other. He normally didn't have classes on Wednesday, so that became the default day. Even my co-workers knew that Wednesday meant I would be getting uninterrupted time with the love of my life.

We didn't do anything particularly special; he or I would come over, and we would have dinner, and just watch TV and talk all night. He finished his masters, years went by, and Wednesday remained our regular date night. To this day, even as we're living together, Wednesday is still date night--when I have to work on Wednesday night, or something really important comes up, we go over our schedules and figure out when date night would be for that week. It's cool that some of my couple friends have told me that they were inspired to have their own date nights because of us!

I highly recommend it. It doesn't have to be anything spectacular--a fancy restaurant is nice, but a weekly splurge isn't realistic. Hamil and I often do just really normal, basic stuff. Sometimes we go to a favorite restaurant, or go out for a drink, or catch a movie, or go on a run together, or do yoga together, or go on a coffee shop date where he and I both bring books, and just sit together and read and talk in (you guessed it) a coffee shop. Other times, we just stay home; I cook, we watch TV or a DVD, or stay in bed and talk and read.

It's always a treat just to spend time with my darling husband, whatever it is we're doing. If you're with someone whose company you truly enjoy, then you're bound to have fun, no matter how mundane the date seems to be.