Have you ever wondered how to keep the fire of love burning in your marriage amidst the chaos of daily life? Join us on the Love Works podcast, as we discuss one area we've found to be vital in keeping our bond strong is the institution of regular date nights. Not just a frivolous luxury, these dedicated times of connection have been proven to significantly improve happiness, commitment, and satisfaction in relationships. We'll be discussing how to make these special nights (or days) happen, even with a busy schedule, limited budget, or lack of childcare.
We can't wait to share with you the benefits of dating within marriage, and how it can reignite the romantic spark between you and your spouse. We'll explore why it's crucial to make your spouse a priority and create dedicated time for one another. Remember, your love story is not finished writing itself, and we're eager to help you add some beautiful chapters to it. So, join us, and let’s get to work on love.
Have you ever wondered how to keep the fire of love burning in your marriage amidst the chaos of daily life? Join us on the Love Works podcast, as we discuss one area we've found to be vital in keeping our bond strong is the institution of regular date nights. Not just a frivolous luxury, these dedicated times of connection have been proven to significantly improve happiness, commitment, and satisfaction in relationships. We'll be discussing how to make these special nights (or days) happen, even with a busy schedule, limited budget, or lack of childcare.
We can't wait to share with you the benefits of dating within marriage, and how it can reignite the romantic spark between you and your spouse. We'll explore why it's crucial to make your spouse a priority and create dedicated time for one another. Remember, your love story is not finished writing itself, and we're eager to help you add some beautiful chapters to it. So, join us, and let’s get to work on love.
Welcome to the Love Works Podcast. My name is Chris Duncan, and my wife, jennifer and I are marriage coaches and ministers in our local church. We've been married for over 20 years and have six wonderful children. Over the years, we've experienced infertility, miscarriages, become parents, had career changes, fostered children and adopted triplets, which, among many other life experiences, have helped to shape us, our marriage and our family. We hope to share some of the things we've learned to help others with their journey to have a successful marriage and a strong family. I'll keep in a focus on our faith as a guide. Thanks for listening and, as always, remember love works, so let's get to work. Welcome back to the Love Works Podcast. My name is Chris Duncan. I'm here with my amazing wife, jennifer Duncan, and we are so honored you've chosen to be with us today.
Speaker 2:This week. I'm amazing.
Speaker 1:This week you are amazing. This week you are beautiful. This week you're amazing. See how it just gets better and better. Men, marriage is awesome. It gets better and better. All right, a little bit of housekeeping before we move along Again. We release our episodes bi-weekly. They'll be released on Sunday mornings bi-weekly. So tonight is unfortunately Saturday night. We try to record on Thursday night. It just got crazy. You know how life is.
Speaker 2:You see the pattern. I think we said this the last three times.
Speaker 1:We did so. Now we're just going to record on Saturday night. But please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, whether that be Spotify, apple Podcast, google Podcast, amazon we're on them all. We're even on a ton that I've never even heard of. So if you're listening on that, thank you so much, but please subscribe, rate and share. Yes, rate and share. And if you're listening on a platform that allows you to comment, please comment. Go ahead and comment. Good or bad, the bad keep to yourself. I'm just kidding. We want to hear it all. So please, again, subscribe, rate and share. It just helps with really everything with the podcast how it's found and frequency and all that good stuff. And also just a huge shout out to all of our listeners in Germany, united Kingdom, the Philippines, denmark, south Africa, kenya and, of course, the United States. On one of the platforms that you're able to listen to. It breaks down some really cool information, and I was able to see where our podcast is currently being listened to, so that was really cool and exciting to see. So thank you so much everybody that has joined along with the LoveWorks Podcast and is following us, and hopefully you're enjoying it, because we absolutely are.
Speaker 1:Again, if you have any questions or topics you'd like us to discuss. There are a number of ways to contact us. You can direct message us through social media on Facebook or Instagram at the LoveWorks Podcast pages. You can text us or call us at 747-322-1089. You can call and leave a message at that same number, 747-322-1089. Or you can email us at LoveWorksPodcast at gmailcom. So multiple ways to get ahold of us. And also, I'm actually considering us having an episode about to drop us on Jen I haven't told her yet. Or have live call-ins, yes, so we're looking at doing that in the future. So stay tuned because I think all 10 of you that's right the single phone line will be packed with 10 people, but we're looking forward to that. So again, thank you so much for joining us tonight or today, whenever you're listening to it.
Speaker 2:Obviously, it's very late for us Right now. We're going to go into our what's that? Portion of our episode and, in case you are new here, this is the portion that we talk about what's going on in the Duncan household. Share a little story with you so you can get to know our lives, our chaos, our fun that we have on a daily basis around here. So what's your what's that for this week?
Speaker 1:So I wanted to do one about one of the boys, one of the older boys, because, if you're new to the show, we have six children ranging from the ages of 16 to 15 months. But I just had to share this one. I actually shared it the other day at church. Quinn is a little firecracker, she's one of our six year old triplets, and the other day the girls the triplets were just extra. They were on a sick one.
Speaker 1:So I told them it's the holiday season, christmas is around the corner. So I told them OK, guys, if you don't start acting right, you're going to be on the naughty list. And so that just didn't do anything to that. So they just kept on, kept on, and so at the end of the day I said OK, you guys are on the naughty list, so you're going to have to work really hard to get off the naughty list so you can make sure that you get Christmas presents. And either the next day or a couple of days later we went to Disneyland, because that's what you do with kids who are on the naughty list.
Speaker 2:It helps.
Speaker 1:It helps, yes, private children. So we were at Disneyland because they had Santa there. We wanted to take pictures with Santa. So we're in line and it's our turn to come up and write. When they bring us up, they're situating everybody and Quinn stops right in front of Santa, looks him dead in the eyes and says are we on the naughty list? And of course Santa said no. And she turns and looks at me and says I told you, dad, we're not on the naughty list. And so the whole time during the picture and then afterwards she is cheering because Santa took them off the naughty list. It turned into a chant.
Speaker 2:Santa's going to put you on the naughty list.
Speaker 1:Yes, so that's my was that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good one. That was going to be mine tonight. I got to think of another one.
Speaker 1:What did you get for letting me go first? I?
Speaker 2:know I should have. I should have taken that one first. So I have one. It's not really like a funny one, but it's kind of cute.
Speaker 2:So I was folding old clothes with Harper the other day, like all their clothes that they've grown out of over the past like couple months, and we are folding it all up. And so she was going through it with me and she took out one of her shirts. She's like oh, mom, I remember wearing this and we did this and we did that. I was like, oh, yeah, that's so neat, so we're folding it. And then she's like putting it to the side and then she picks them. She's like, mom, I remember when I wore this and we did this and we did this and we were here. I was like, oh, that's cool. She kind of like folds it and puts it to the side. So she's like, okay, mom, I got put all these in the bag, but I'm going to keep these because these have the good memories in them. And she's like I don't want to get rid of these clothes because they have so many good memories. I'm like, okay, my little pack rat, harper, we're going to have to get rid of some of these clothes. No-transcript. Okay, mom, so we'll just get more clothes and make good memories. And I'm right and I'm like, yes, I finally have a daughter who appreciates clothing and the memories that come along with it.
Speaker 2:But it was really cute. And then, probably like 30 minutes later, I looked over and Rowan had snuck in there and she was listening to us and she had this tiny little sock from when they were like babies and she, like had it clutched in her hand. I'm sure it was maybe worn once, and then we couldn't find the match to it. I said, babe, what do you got? Let's go ahead and put that in the bag. She's like no mom, I need this to remember when we're baby, so I'm just going to keep it in my bed. So she was clutching this little sock and it's just so funny the things kids hold onto and the things that they like show importance to.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so that's where socks go. They go in their beds to keep good memories, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and with Harper everything goes in her bed.
Speaker 2:Everything is a memory.
Speaker 1:It looks like an encampment in her bed. She has lots of good memories. Oh man, I promise Our next episode, when we do the Westside portion, it will be something about the older kids, because there's a lot of funny stuff that happens with them as well. All right, so today, what is our show about? What's this episode about? It's the date dilemma To date or not to date? And no, if you're listening, you're married. Oh, this is for people who aren't married yet. They're talking about dating. No, no, stay tuned, because it is about us continuing to date whilst being married. Shocking, yes, it's crazy. Some of us think we're married now no longer do we have to date. You're absolutely wrong if you're thinking that right now, and so hopefully by the end of this seven hour episode just kidding, that opinion will change.
Speaker 1:But why is it important to continue to date, to actually go on dates when you're married? Every marriage needs romance, adventure, physical intimacy and fun, and date nights, date nights, they help foster all of these. And actually I'm gonna say here not only date nights, but date days. We've started doing a few date days rather than date nights, just because our nights are normally pretty busy. We have six kids, so there's always something. We have a church, just a lot of stuff that happens, so we can get so busy like, oh, I don't have an open night, we don't have to go on a date. No, you can do a date day and it's just as fun, it can be just as exciting, but this needs to be an integral part, and a valued part, of your marriage.
Speaker 1:Now there's actually a new report done. They started this survey in 2022 and they released the results in 2023, february 2023. And the National Marriage Project and the Wheatley Institute found that there may be a simple way to help keep your marriage strong. And what was that? Date nights. The report examined links between one-on-one couple time and relationship quality with data from the new survey, the state of our unions. I thought that was a catchy little survey, the state of our unions survey. They surveyed 2,000 married men and women ages 18 to 55 in the United States, and the survey was conducted by UGov for the Institute for Family Studies and again the Wheatley Institute. And the data from the study was used to determine three things Number one, how date nights are linked to relationship quality. Number two, whether one-on-one time is associated with lower divorce risk. And number three, if date nights are tied to greater sexual satisfaction or physical intimacy.
Speaker 1:Among the report's key findings, husbands and wives who engage in frequent date nights were 14 to 15 percentage points more likely to report being very happy in their marriages compared to those who enjoyed infrequent date nights. They also found that spouses who had frequent date nights were significantly more likely to report that divorce was not at all likely in their marriage 63% of wives and 60% for husbands. Compared to those who infrequently or never go on date nights, only 49% for wives and 57% for husbands said that a divorce was not likely. That's crazy. That's a huge difference. So those who they surveyed had a frequent date night 63% of the wives. 60% of the husbands said that a divorce was not likely. It wouldn't even be really part of any conversation thought process. But for those who did not go on dates 49% of the wives and 57% of the husbands they were so less than half because of this one thing going on a date that it would enter the conversation in their thought process. So that's startling.
Speaker 1:And nearly two out of three spouses who frequently go on dates report that they are highly satisfied with their sexual relationship 68% for wives, 67% for husbands, whereas less than half of spouses who don't go on regular dates report similar levels of sexual satisfaction 47% for wives, 47% for husbands.
Speaker 1:So less dates, less frequency, less satisfaction. For couples who go on frequent date nights, nearly three out of four report being highly committed to their relationship 75% for wives, 73% for husbands, versus only half of those who don't 53% for wives and 51% for husbands all because they don't go on a frequent date night or a date day. Those that do the majority, 75%, 73% are highly committed to that relationship, and those who don't, they say they're not highly committed to that relationship. We're not talking about boyfriend and girlfriend. We're not talking about people who casually, or talking about people married that have taken the marriage covenant. This is how important our date nights, our date days, are with our spouse, and the report highlighted five ways that date nights are likely to foster stronger marriages and relationships. Number one communication. Date nights enable couples to discuss important topics, shared dreams, future plans as their relationship develops, without the distraction of kids or employment responsibilities. Right.
Speaker 2:So important, so very important.
Speaker 1:So you can you go on a date. Don't just talk about the kids, communicate with each other, talk about important topics. It actually gives you that opportunity. Like right now, life's pretty stressful, right, our economy is a mess, the world's a mess. There's always there's something going on, so we have these outside things that are pressing against our time and our marriage and it can just really create some important topics right to talk about. This gives you an opportunity on your date night you can have that one-on-one time to talk about important things without the kids being there, without worrying about work, without all those distractions. Kids I'm not saying they're well, they can be a distraction, right, I love my kids, but they can be a distraction, and they're always a good distraction, but we want to have that time without it, and we want to have that time to talk about our dreams too.
Speaker 2:Like sometimes, you know, especially when you're married, it's like you're constantly talking about, like the important things, like talking about finances, talking about your kids schooling, talking about you need money to buy them shoes, talking about all these things. Who paid the mortgage? Who did this? Who did that? You're talking about all these things, but do we ever have time to just talk about, like, what are you dreaming about? What is making you passionate about life? What do you want to see in your life, and how important is that to know what your spouse's dreams are?
Speaker 2:We talk about that when we're dating, before we're married, because we want to talk about our future together and we talk about all these things, but sometimes, once we get married, that discussion ends. It's like, okay, well, we're living our future, but Really, what is it that you wanna be living? Are you living the future that you dreamed about? Are you living the future? And sometimes dreams change. Once you have kids and once you have all these different things, sometimes your dreams are gonna change and it's so important to share that with your spouse. Otherwise, you're going two different directions and you're both becoming more unsatisfied with that relationship.
Speaker 2:Because you don't know what that other person wants. You don't know what that other person needs in that relationship. So it's so important not only to discuss important topics but discuss things that maybe you think it might not be as important, but it really is. It's just as important.
Speaker 1:It really is. I heard this a little off topic, but I was listening to a podcast, because podcasts are amazing, and he was talking about how to become a critical thinker and how to problem solve and he said one of the ways was to think of just a wild outland, just an extravagant way to solve the problem. You might not be able to do that, but his thinking was, or what he was saying, is that stretches your mind to go places that it normally wouldn't go. And talking, sharing dreams sometimes they can be crazy. We talk. Well, one of our big topics, a dream, is when we are on a date night not every time, but often we talk about being able to have a cabin on a lake and the kids being able to come there when they're older and us have holidays there. That's a dream of ours. I don't know that that will ever happen, but that is a dream and we talk about that. We share that. So huge, huge Number one communications. What's another thing with five ways we're talking about?
Speaker 1:This report highlighted five ways date nights are likely to foster a stronger marriage. The first one was communication. The second one is novelty Couples who participate in novel activities or experiences beyond a dinner and a movie outing, but also experience exciting active or unusual activities, from hiking to dancing, to travel, to card games, enjoying high level. They enjoy high levels of relationship quality. Have fun. Don't always like, okay, we're gonna go to the movies.
Speaker 2:Get out of your comfort zone Totally get out of your comfort zone. You aren't going to know what you're missing unless you try everything. I always tell my kids this you have to try everything at least once. Obviously, nothing like you know sinful or criminal or anything like that.
Speaker 2:But try things just once, because you don't know. Even with our girls, like when they're like trying new foods or whatever they have to take, we call it a no thank you bite. So they have to take one bite of something. If they don't like it, they can say no thank you and they don't have to eat it, but they have to at least take that step.
Speaker 2:So, take some no thank you experiences get out there, do some crazy stuff that you may think oh, this is gonna be terrible, this is gonna be boring, this is gonna be crazy, I'm gonna get sick. Whatever you think it is, I'm gonna be uncomfortable. Do it once. If you hate it, you never have to do it again. But you did it and you did it together and even if you both hate it, you'll have the memory together.
Speaker 1:If you both hate it. Remember that time we hated that date Totally. But be all in right, be all in on it, just do it and that's right 1999. No, but be all in right. If it's I was thinking about this, it could be something like crazy, like bird watching. There are some really cool birds. Okay, no, just listen, this is where I'm going. Okay, come on now. I'm not talking about the yellow belly ball warbler. But hey, even if it's that like get into it, man, get binoculars, google some birds, man, but binoculars, I have a bird book, get a bird book. But I'm just saying like, dive into it, have fun, it doesn't have to cost money, just research it a little bit and go have some fun.
Speaker 2:You can borrow that bird book right from the library.
Speaker 1:That's right, just go straight into the library with your library card. None of you have a library card. Stop it right now, all right. Moving on, the third thing, talking about date night, what a foster satisfaction and it's eros, that's the definition is physical love. Romantic love sustains couples who have frequent or romantic love sustains couples who have frequent date nights as they share feelings and engage in romantic activities with one another and rekindle romantic and the romance. It's sparked, right, it's sparked over time. This can also foster high levels of physical intimacy or sexual satisfaction. When you're out with your spouse, you're having a good time, even if you're having a bad time. But you're laughing about having a bad time, bird watching it draws you closer.
Speaker 2:So if any of you go bird watching on your dates, please comment and post a picture of that, because I need to see that.
Speaker 1:Dude, I, okay, I know there's bird watchers. I feel like I would like bird watching, okay, I don't know why. Okay, back to the podcast, but that it fosters that love, that it rekindles the romance. We were talking about first dates for some reason earlier today I don't even remember why, and oh, I know why. My sister-in-law is visiting from Texas and she was talking about a viral video of some young lady upset that she was taken to Cheesecake factory on a dish oh restaurant.
Speaker 2:It shall not be named, yeah.
Speaker 1:Brrr, I'll have to bleep that one out, okay. So, anyways, my favorite restaurant. But so we started talking about our first date and you think about when you're dating before you're married and how that really builds into your relationship, how you get to know that person and then you go into the marriage stage. Being while you're married can do the same thing. It builds it, you get to know them. Just because you're married doesn't mean you know everything about your spouse, right? You can be married for, like us, almost 22 years and there's still things that you can learn and get to know during that dating process. So make sure that you're doing it so it can rekindle that romantic spark in you and really foster that love. And, hey guys, you get the romance going and you know what it's going to pay off at night. So I'll just leave it there, because this is trying to stay at least PG-13.
Speaker 1:So, number four, commitment. It fosters greater commitment. Couples sense of commitment to each other, which serves as a key component in a stable and high quality relationship, can be solidified on date nights by deepening their sense of togetherness during this one-on-one time. Really, that commitment, getting to know them is during that one-on-one time. That's why, again. We love kids. We have six kids. But when we're talking to people, when we're doing marriage counseling, we tell them not to start having babies right away. Get to know each other, travel, have fun, go on dates. It doesn't stop once you have children. It gets a little trickier and we'll talk about that in a few minutes. But it really helps. The dating, the date nights, the date days really help foster and build and deepen that sense of commitment, that sense of togetherness.
Speaker 2:It's all about intentionality, right? We talk about that a lot when we talk to our couples. Anything that we have in our lives that's important, anything that we're making a commitment to, we should be intentional with. I think sometimes people think marriage and parenting and these things should just be something that we just know how to do. You hear people saying, oh, this doesn't come with a rulebook.
Speaker 1:This doesn't come with directions.
Speaker 2:My kids didn't come with directions, they don't. But it's up to us to be intentional. It's up to us to learn how to do these things. Somebody doesn't just go out and decide I'm going to be a lawyer tomorrow, I'm going to be a brain surgeon tomorrow. They're intentional with the process to get to that point. They made the sacrifice, they made all the requirements, they did all this stuff to get to where they wanted to be.
Speaker 2:The same thing is true in our marriages, the same thing is true in our parenting and that commitment to your marriage. Part of that is dating your spouse, is spending one-on-one time with your spouse and letting them know look, I know we have all these other responsibilities. I love that. We've created this life together. That includes being parents or being whatever we are together having careers, having all these other things in our lives. You're still the one that's important to me. You're still the one that I chose to be by my side for my whole life and I'm still going to make the effort to make sure that we have time together, that I'm making you a priority.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2:It's making your marriage and your spouse a priority, and they should be the first priority. That sounds like you're pushing everything else aside. You're not. You just have to keep things in the right order. And it's so important and it's so easy to disqualify dating. Like well, I'm with my spouse all day long, my husband works from home, the kids are home all day, we are around each other all day, but there's some days I don't see him. And even when I do see him, there's some days we don't have a meaningful conversation because, it's like, okay, where's this kid's shoes?
Speaker 2:This kid needs to go here.
Speaker 1:I'm still with life I need food here?
Speaker 2:Can you change this one's diaper? There's like a hundred million things we need to do. Or did you pay this bill? Oh, I need to go here. There's so much going on, but it's so important that we put all of that aside and we make time for our spouses, that we make time to make them the priority, to make them the focus in our life, not just what we can do for each other, not just the roles that we fill, but as your spouse, as your partner in this life, as the person who's going to be with you through thick and thin. We have to make that something. That's important. And how else can we do that by then? By setting aside time. What's our most important commodity? Time. We have to spend it with each other.
Speaker 1:So good. The fifth thing that the study brought out that strengthens the marriage through dates, nights or date days is de-stress. Stress is often relieved when partners step away from the pressing concerns of their regular lives and to extend that emotional support to one another. That's another huge thing. You're alone together. Your wife is stressed, your husband's stressed, whatever it is. You can share what's going on, you can talk about that. If you're not already sharing that burden with them, you can now understand what's going on, share, empathize with them, take a load off them or you might not be able to, but at least you're there, empathizing, you can understand what's going on and be there for them. That's a huge thing just being there for them and helping alleviate that stress. I think that's probably an underrated thing about a date day or a night.
Speaker 1:You don't even realize it, you don't even realize, but it helps take some of that stress off. If you are in a stressful time of life, you can talk about it. You have that alone time, that time away from the kids, that time away from the situation to talk about.
Speaker 2:I think that's important too, especially if you're scheduling it. It's kind of like a vacation. When you know vacation is coming up, you're like, okay, I could just make it to that day, I can't wait to get on that plane. It's going to be awful till we get there. If I could just get to that plane and get where we need to go and then I can relax. If you're scheduling these things, you know, okay, you know what. The kids are driving me crazy or my boss is killing me. I know next Tuesday I'm going to be able to go such and such place with my spouse. I know Tuesdays are on the corner, or Wednesdays whatever day that you pick, you know it's there and it's like a little mini reprieve from just the craziness and the chaos of life that you can learn to depend on.
Speaker 2:It's really important that we're not just it's okay to be spontaneous and have just a random date, but you should have things scheduled. It should be something that you're like. Okay, this is our day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if you don't schedule it, it won't happen. It's not going to happen. Very few of us are able to be spontaneous continuously. Yeah. So, every once in a while, spontaneity is going to happen, right? Thanks, I think that's really the whole yeah.
Speaker 1:But most of the time we need to schedule that, 99% of the time we need to schedule the date, put on the calendar. All that or it just won't happen because life has a way of getting so busy and we just think, oh well, we're married, we're here, I see him, we had dinner with us and our 37 children like hello. But no, we need to schedule that. Put it on the calendar.
Speaker 2:So important. There's some ideas, there's some really cool things now that can help you with that. One thing you can do is I know when we had very few dollars in our bank account and we wanted to do some date things, as I would go on to like Groupon or one of those sites Living Social, one of those sites and just pick something, something crazy that I didn't know, that normally we wouldn't be able to afford to do, or normally we wouldn't even do because it was out of our comfort zone, and we would just pick something off of there and go and do it. There's so many different things, things that you didn't even know existed on there. You can go on there and it's inexpensive. They have deals all the time where you can get discounts on top of that. So if money's an issue, that's a great thing. There's hiking. There's so many different things. I mean you can? I don't wanna start mentioning too many things because I don't want to pigeonhole people into thinking, oh, I need to do that or I need to do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:There's a really cool book it's called the Adventure Challenge, if you wanna look into that where they have a bunch of different ideas and you kinda like look it up. I don't wanna explain the whole thing, but they have it for families, they have it for couples, they have mini date nights. They have all these different things. That gives you some great ideas, things that you don't even need money for. You could stay inside and do them inside and that's what I was gonna start to interrupt.
Speaker 1:But some of you that are listening right now you might be where we were for many years early in our marriage. Just, money was very tight is your thing. I can't afford to go on a date night. There's things you can do that don't cost any money or very little money. And if you're thinking, well, I don't even have very little, well, come on, I know you get a Starbucks. I really don't want to. Or there's something that you do but it doesn't always have to cost hundreds of dollars or a hundred dollars or any. There's so many things you can do that are gonna cost nothing or very little, so don't let that be an excuse not to have a date night.
Speaker 2:Really it shouldn't. There shouldn't be anything that stops you because you don't have to even spend any money. You can go for a hike, you can go to one, walks on the beach, you can do I mean, there's so, so, so many different options. And switch it up. Don't just get pigeonholed into one thing. Don't just stick.
Speaker 1:Every single time you go to Chili's and the same booth and walk around the mall.
Speaker 2:Have those new experiences together. There's something about sharing a new experience with your spouse that makes your relationship so much more fulfilling. You have that together. We did this together. We have this memory together. It's so important to make those memories. Wear that dress that will help you with that memory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come on that leather skirt Okay not the leather skirt. It's a great memory.
Speaker 2:But you know, do those things that you guys can cherish together. It's so important. Have fun, enjoy yourself. Even if it's something that you're uncomfortable doing, just go and do it. You're spout when you were dating. Sometimes, I know I know you guys, I know when you were dating, there are sometimes your significant other would wanna go do something and you're kinda like, ah, but you did it because you wanted to be with them.
Speaker 2:And you wanted to make them happy and you wanted to it just everything was better, and it can be like that when you're married as well.
Speaker 1:It doesn't stop, it doesn't stop.
Speaker 2:Unless we allow it to, but make it important and go out and do those things. There's also I mean, there's so many different things that you can do if you're like, ah, I just can't think of them. We just pulled it up on Amazon today because we were like what.
Speaker 2:There's cards where you like. Pick a card and it tells you an idea. There's dice, dice. You roll the dice and it gives you ideas of where to go for lunch or where to go on your dinner night. I mean we keep saying date night, but it can be any time of the day, it's just a time with your spouse, so super important. Another obstacle we have sometimes is okay, we already went over, we don't know what to do. We went over, we don't have money. Another obstacle we have sometimes is we don't have anyone to take care of our kids. So we've been there. Obviously we do have a great support system, but sometimes there's just not enough people to take care of six kids and sometimes you just don't want to burden someone with six kids.
Speaker 1:I do, I always want to.
Speaker 2:I don't, I'm like, oh, poor people. So there's a lot of different ideas. If you have older kids, obviously you could have your older kids watch the younger ones. There is if you have family. That's always great. Some people don't have family around. I know a couple who, when they were younger and they wanted to get out, what they would do is they would find other couples and they would switch off. So one week this couple would watch all the kids and these two couples would go out. The next week this couple would watch them the other two couples. So everyone got a chance to go out and everyone got a chance and it was fun for the kids. The kids had a blast. So you weren't like mom's leaving again, dad's leaving again. It wasn't the chaos that you normally have.
Speaker 1:That's a really good one, and the understanding is you're not paying for that babysitting per se because you're gonna be babysitting the next week You're trading off, you're trading off. So that's a really, really good idea if you don't have the money to hire someone to watch the kids.
Speaker 2:If you do have a little bit of money, find a young lady in your church Sometimes there's young people in college and stuff that are looking to supplement their income while they're in school. A lot of times there's really a lot of options. Now. There's a ton of options. There's a ton of options. There's a lot of different things, so don't let that be something that keeps you from going out with your spouse. Now, when we first had our triplets, we couldn't really take them out a whole lot and they couldn't be around a whole lot of people because they had to kind of be quarantined because their immune systems were so fragile, because they were preemie. So I know sometimes there's issues like that. In that case what we would do is we did a lot of date nights at home and we would just wait until the babies were all in bed and then we would just do things together. And now I don't think that should be all the time, but you have to know your situation and when there's-.
Speaker 1:Life has seasons right it does.
Speaker 2:You know the season that?
Speaker 1:you're in, but work with it and work through it.
Speaker 2:Work with it, be creative, do what you need to do to have that alone time with your spouse and to enjoy each other. Just enjoy each other. What was the last time that you just enjoyed being with just your spouse? Yeah, you have to make sure that I'm enjoying it right now.
Speaker 2:With me and you and our 10 listeners. So we talked about childcare, now we're talking about how often is there like a golden rule of how often I should have a date night? I know this is kind of like one of those things where people you know, some people will tell you every week and some people will tell you, you know, at least once a month, and then other people are like, eh, just make sure it happens, you know, once a year, who knows, maybe you go out on your anniversary. There's a rule that a lot of therapists use called the two two, two rule, and it works kind of like this so you go on a date night every two weeks, you spend a week, in a way every two months and you take a week long vacation every two years. Now I know this is probably not realistic for everyone.
Speaker 2:but you have to look at your situation and you have to plan there you go. You have to plan your date nights and it should be frequent.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think you know, having a date night every two weeks is probably very reasonable and I think that's doable.
Speaker 1:I think it is too.
Speaker 2:Even if you're like, okay, well, we can't afford to go out every two weeks, we can't, you know, figure out childcare, then have one date night at home when all the kids go to bed, and then your other date night can be something that you go out. So then you're really only paying or having to find childcare once a month, yeah. It's so important that it's consistent, so make sure that you put that on the calendar when you're scheduling out your year. Hey, we're in December, so you got January, you could start.
Speaker 1:There you go. Oh, New Year's resolution. New Year's resolution. Yeah, Look at us just helping you. I know we're just so helpful.
Speaker 2:So you know, now's your chance to schedule your calendar for the new year and say, okay, this is when we're going in January, this is when we're going in February, this is when we're going in March, and if something comes up, try not to break your commitment to your spouse?
Speaker 1:No, it has to be something major, your commitment to your spouse has to be priority.
Speaker 2:Now, if there's something major that does come up, you reschedule that it's just as important as anything else in your life, even more so than most things in our life, honestly. So make sure that you're not just allowing things to. Oh, I put it on the calendar, but you know, I decided to go get my nails done that day, or our cathead kittens that day.
Speaker 2:Or you know like I mean all the weird things that happen in life. You know who knows. But don't let that keep you from doing it. You have to make sure you're still prioritizing that and making it happen. If you do not plan it, like my husband said, it won't happen.
Speaker 2:It won't. I mean, life just goes too fast, Things go too fast. Time is slipping away from us and we don't wanna miss out on the opportunities that we have to spend those valuable moments with our spouse, to spend that time creating the magic that can be marriage. It really is. It's something that you have to create, it's not something that just happens, and so it's important that we plan it, that we are intentional about it. I can't say that enough because I've said it 50 times, so make sure that you're doing it intentional intentional, you gotta do it.
Speaker 1:All right Give us some Biblical perspective. Ooh, about to bust out the Bible on you. So I'm gonna read this one verse, because when I first started reading I'm like, oh, this is it right. This is it, ecclesiastes nine and nine. It's the new living translation. Live happily with a woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil. Now, I don't think that translation is quite correct.
Speaker 2:Now.
Speaker 1:I don't think the Bible is saying you know well, I'm not even getting my days are meaningless. My days are meaningless. Okay, I think the connotation is they're meaningless without God, but live happily with the wife you love and go on those days. But here's the scripture actually settled on for this. Not settled on because scripture is amazing and all of it's profitable and good, but Genesis two and 24, king James version. Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. Part of the leave and cleave process when you're married is dating and going on dates, getting to know your spouse even more intimately and in those one-on-one times that really helps solidify the cleaving process. So there's our biblical context with that. So set aside all the excuses, just set them aside and go on a date. Make it a priority. Make your spouse a priority. Make your relationship, your marriage, your union, your covenant, make it a priority.
Speaker 2:Get that spark back.
Speaker 1:Get that spark back. Come on, guys. And you know you get that spark on date night. Come on now. Come on, turns into a fire. No, okay, whoa.
Speaker 2:It wasn't quite the spark I was talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, us men, we went there. Thank you again for joining us. We're so appreciative that you've been tuning into the Love Works podcast. And this is episode number six. Right this time, got it right. Last week I said it was episode four and it was actually episode five and I didn't even realize it until like today.
Speaker 2:Because we're having so much fun, that's right.
Speaker 1:We love being with you guys so much.
Speaker 1:You know whatever whatever episode it is, it's awesome, but thank you again for joining us and, as we always like to do, we're gonna close out in prayer. So thank you, lord, for this opportunity, lord, to come together today, and whenever our listeners are listening to this episode, I pray, lord, that it speak to them. Lord, those that are struggling in their marriage, I pray, lord, that they step into this. They lean into date night or date day, so it can help strengthen their union, strengthen their marriage. Lord, I pray your blessings upon each and every person listening to this. Lord. Keep your hand upon them and Lord, just do what you do so. We love you, we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. And, as always, remember Love Works, so let's get to work. Upbeat music playing.