Military Wellness Collective

EP 18: Date Your Spouse, On Purpose

• Military Wellness Collective

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Stop treating your marriage like a shared calendar and start treating it like a love story you’re still writing. We dive into what it really means to date your spouse—how to define a “good date” together, set clear expectations, and build rituals that bring back pursuit, play, and intimacy without adding pressure. From military separations to the grind of parenting, we unpack why logistics aren’t connection and how to carve out time for presence, laughter, and deeper conversation.

We get practical about planning: put the date on the calendar first, agree on the vibe, and protect it from turning into a work meeting. You’ll hear simple prompts that change the tone fast—questions like “What’s been on your mind?” and “How can I love you better?”—and why those only build trust when paired with action. We talk phones-down meals, the power of eye contact, and how small acts of follow-through create safety that invites honesty. If money or childcare is tight, we share at-home date ideas that still feel special: early bedtime for the kids, candlelight steak for two, a saved movie, and time to flirt without interruptions.

Joy matters too. Laughter is not a luxury; it’s glue. Try playful traditions like an alphabet restaurant tour, a beach walk, or a game night that lets you be silly. Physical affection belongs on the list—move beyond perfunctory kisses and bring back warmth and excitement. And if you’ve slipped into the “roommates” rut, use this as your pivot point. Pick one night, one simple plan, and one brave question. Keep them how you caught them: pursue, plan, and play. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a review with your favorite date idea—we’ll try a few on our next night out.


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Contact us at hello@militarywellnesscollective.com

RESOURCES FROM TODAYS EPISODE

1. Date Your Wife: get it here--- Amazon.com: Date Your Wife (Audible Audio Edition): Justin Buzzard, Lyle Blaker, One Audiobooks: Audible Books & Originals

2. Strengthening Your Marriage: get it here--- Amazon.com: Strengthening Your Marriage (Audible Audio Edition): Wayne A. Mack, Jim Denison, christianaudio.com: Books

3. For our friends in the Southeast, The Billy Graham Retreat center does FREE Military Marriage Retreats, you just have to get yourself there. Check the dates out here--- Events - Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove


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SPEAKER_04:

Hey, hey, y'all. Welcome back to another podcast. I'm Brittany, and I'm joined by Kelly and Brian O'Day, and my husband and my husband Joshua. And today we are going to talk about dating your spouse. So here's a little note for y'all. If you have littles or ears that you do not want to hear some things, I advise you to listen without them present.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe go listen to an older episode and missed.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So not that we're going to get like raunchy or anymore.

SPEAKER_04:

But we're just being real. So we're going to talk about dating your spouse, and that might include some topics that, you know, you might not want little ears to hear. So there you go. We put it out there. It's on you if they hear it and you didn't listen to it. So my this is like a softball to y'all. Should you be dating your spouse?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. Next question. Your spouse.

SPEAKER_02:

Podcast over your spouse. Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

Please don't be dating anyone else.

SPEAKER_02:

Not my spouse, your spouse.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, yes, yes, yes. You should be dating your spouse. And in our house, we always, I never mind, not always. That's a logical fallacy, but we tried to encourage our family not to say you should do something, but you could. I feel strongly that this is a should. Yeah. It's a good point. Like, if you want a strong marriage, you should be dating your spouse still. So, what is dating? Like, what does it even mean to date your spouse? How would each of you define that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I think that's a very important question. We were just talking about this, Kelly and I. Kelly and I just had a date night last night. So we were talking about date night and everything else. And it's similar to a question we've been bouncing around recently. And it's like, what is restful?

SPEAKER_03:

It's good.

SPEAKER_02:

Because it's different for every person. And so I think just the first thing I I I would encourage husbands and wives to ask that question of one another like, what is dating when you're like, man, that was that was a great night together.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What did you do? Like, just start paying attention to what things do you enjoy doing together with one another.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And together is an important word because I think we, you know, you might go into a date with totally different expectations. Expectations. So, like, you know, the man is like, this is what I'm thinking. And then the and then you leave, like, well, that was not what I wanted. So I think together is an important word, like talking that out so that you can make it something that's beneficial for the case.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm imagining a situation where the guy is sitting on the couch waiting for his wife to get ready for the date. Yeah. She's in the back room getting all decked out, dolled up, wearing a dress, like high heels, ready to go out to like some fancy restaurant. And he's like in board shorts and flip-flops, ready to go get some tacos on the beach. May or me.

SPEAKER_00:

And I was like, hypothetical.

SPEAKER_02:

Completely hypothetical. Yeah, I think as well. So I'll just our date night that we had last night. So on like Tuesday or Wednesday, we realized oh, Friday night is open. What are our kids? And our kids were gonna be like scattered to the winds. And so we're like, let's have a date night.

SPEAKER_03:

Love it.

SPEAKER_02:

And then for the next couple of days, we're like, okay, one big thing for us, we love food. We love eating good food. You know, when we go on our double dates together, the four of us, it's always like, where are we eating? We want to go eat at a good restaurant. So we talked about what restaurant we're gonna eat at. And then there's a movie we've been wanting to watch for the past several months, and we don't watch a ton of movies, but we're like, oh, it's not in theaters anymore, it's on streaming somewhere, and so we gotta go find that. So, like we we just like started talking about that, and you have to plan this stuff out. It was very easy for us at this point in our marriage, but in our first year or two of marriage, we didn't think about like, oh, we've got to talk ahead of time. What do we want to do? Hey, we've got a date night. Step one, put it on a calendar. Uh step two, what are we gonna do? Because if one is like, yeah, we're gonna go run 10 miles and who would say that for a date.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm just saying, maybe some Marines, I guess.

SPEAKER_02:

There are people out there for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

But yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think about early on too. That's why I spoke about like expectations. I think a lot of times I was selfish with our dates early on, like I'm these are my expectations of a date, you know. But forgetting, and this is true, like hopefully dating before you get married, is like you pursue one another, you know. And you just need to continue pursuing one another. Like, so going into a date, it's not just about me and what I want. It's man, like I want to pursue my husband's heart, you know, and just like ask questions. And that I think that fuels our conversations a lot of times, which conversations I think is just so important.

SPEAKER_02:

So as we're building this out, you would not feel like we had a successful date night if we did not have conversation. Correct. Like actual talking to one another, looking each other in the face, conversation.

SPEAKER_04:

So I want to define it.

SPEAKER_01:

Whereas other people might say, we haven't had a date unless we're doing something together. Like an activity, like an activity, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. Um I think the important thing to remember about dating are three words Kelly said pursuing, or she said two words, pursuing conversation. And I added a word here to my notes, intimacy. This is us getting to know one another. You will never exhaust knowing your spouse. There are things I'm pretty sure on a podcast a while ago, Brian pointed out, like, oh, you have been married this long and you just realized.

SPEAKER_02:

So last night on our date, I don't know why we started talking about this. Kelly and I were talking about a situation where that happened when we were dating. While we were dating, like pre-marriage dating, and she broke up with me. Fun fact. Fun fact if you want to know our crazy life. We're laughing because we know the end of the story, but like Kelly broke up. Kelly broke up with me, I think it was three times during our dating life.

SPEAKER_00:

You didn't have to say that three times.

SPEAKER_02:

So look at you. Here you are. At least two of them were justified, like direct results of my sins. Yeah. But anyway, we were talking about one of the we were trying to like remember was it two or was it three? And there was one of the situations that we factually did not like we learned something factual about that. I'll not say who was right on the fact, but like we were this is.

SPEAKER_00:

God knows though for those. I'm still not sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Kelly just slapped his arm.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but anyway, yeah, you're gonna discover. You are going to discover. Let me circle this to the military experience. You we spend so much of our lives separated from each other because of trainings, deployments, everything else. And I think we have this idea, if we're not careful, that hey, we're gonna we're gonna reunite, we're gonna get together, and you're gonna tell me everything that happened over that six weeks you were gone. Tell me everything that happened on that deployment. That that's not gonna happen. Like you will be learning all of that for the rest of your lives. And so just jump into learning.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there's probably it's been going on 20 years since my first deployment, and I think there's probably stuff, there's probably a lot of stuff that Britney still doesn't know about it that just hasn't come out. Yeah. Like once once I get home, just sit down and be like, all right, yeah, tell me what happened.

SPEAKER_02:

So but the date nights are those those times that that stuff can come out naturally. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04:

I think it's just that pursuing, right? Like you pursued your spouse before you married them. You want to you presented the best version of yourself. And when we get married, sometimes it's really easy to just like let all that go and be like, Well, you made a covenant to me, and here it is. Yeah, I like that. Will you say that again?

SPEAKER_00:

Present your best selves. Yeah, we present our best selves, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Like I like that. And not that you want to not be yourself, but why are you not cherishing, caring, adoring one another? You know, that's a really good foothold for the enemy to just your complacency if you're not pursuing, can be an enemy's for sure foothold, especially in a military marriage where you are separated a lot. You need to value each other.

SPEAKER_01:

Can I throw a little catchphrase out there that might be helpful?

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Keep them how you caught them.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, that was advice we were given a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's been helpful for us. I don't know, helpful for everybody, but like we maybe one another, right? But then but then after we get married, it's not like, oh, we can just stop pursuing one another.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So like, so Brittany just said present we present our best version of each other when we're like pre-marriage dating. Sometimes in marriage, really fast, it turns into the worst version of each other. Really? Our spouse sees literally the worst version of us.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's a that's a massive problem. And that's a recipe for disaster.

SPEAKER_01:

I like. Can I in this realm, can I put another qualification on what is a date for for when we go out on a date? Because we've had several situations. So Titus is doing some work down in Wilmington with his, you know, theatrical performances and such. So we've been going down there for his practices, and we're down there sometimes for like four hours. Yeah. And so there's there's times during the weeks that we can actually go down there together. And when we go down there separately, one of us will bring Titus down and we'll go off to a coffee shop or sit there in the USO or something, and we'll do work. We'll just like type out emails, we'll work on sermons, we'll do whatever we're doing, right?

SPEAKER_04:

You will work on sermons.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll work on sermons, yeah. Thank you. Just clarifying. So, but when we're both able to go, here's here's the like weirdness that happens sometimes. We have to actually talk about this before we go down there. Yes. Because we'll both go down there and sit down, and we can both just work with each other by ourselves, doing our doing our thing. And we literally block out the time and we go, okay, we're gonna go sit down for the first two hours that he's in there. We're gonna take care of what we take care of. We're gonna bounce our schedules, we're gonna do our work stuff. That's not a date.

SPEAKER_03:

That is a work meeting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And that is a scheduling meeting. And so when that time comes, we're like, all right, we're done with this. We have two hours, let's go have a date. And we don't talk about schedules, kids, ministry, work stuff, any of that. And we move on to just talk about it.

SPEAKER_02:

So you should, as husbands and wives, sync up your schedules, talk about what's coming up. That'll actually prepare you really well for lots of things. But let's not call logistical meetings a successful day.

SPEAKER_00:

And I like that you just intentionally block out that. That's great. That's good yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And if you're all you're doing is talking about your kids, or all you're doing is talking about like projects or military stuff, like you're not you're not talking about each other. You're talking about stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

So but when you are so but you're gonna like delve, you're gonna wander into those topics.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, absolutely, because it's part of your life.

SPEAKER_02:

So how can we get those topics back into like us?

SPEAKER_00:

You're good at asking questions. What are some of the questions that you've asked about?

SPEAKER_02:

I was thinking about so like as you were talking about it, like, hey, what's going on in your life, you know, that we haven't talked about? Man, my boss at work is dot dot dot, whatever. It's the best boss on earth or the worst boss on earth, or however that goes. And okay, well, what's the challenge for you? Like, honestly, like just finish any question with for you, and it'll just kind of bring it back to here because we're so tempted to talk about circumstances and other people. And so, like, let's bring it back to questions that end with for you, or you could start them with for you. Like, for you, what's the challenge here? For you, like, how what you could also start. I mean, questions like, hey, what's God teaching you in that circumstance? What's how's what's God trying to change in you through that circumstance?

SPEAKER_04:

Is there a way I can be helpful to you?

SPEAKER_02:

And that's a follow-up question. What can I do to be helpful? Yeah, hey, ding ding, husbands, number one question to be always asking your wife, what can I do to be helpful? Maybe not number one question, but that's a big one.

SPEAKER_04:

And I meant that for the wives too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And in every couple, there's the natural talker and there's the natural listener. Okay. Yeah. Each of you need to break out of a little bit of that and do a little bit more of the other.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh so the natural listener is great at asking that like follow-on question to keep the conversation going without actually saying anything. Like saying, Oh, why is that? And then you just sit back for another five minutes and listen. But like you gotta engage in both ways.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I think just thinking about like some good questions that you've asked, you'll say, like, what's been on your mind recently?

SPEAKER_02:

Or what's what's been on your mind? What's top of your mind sometimes? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you have asked this question, and then we like I'll ask it back to you. And I think this one's hard. It makes me think really hard because you're like, How have I loved you well? How could I love you better? Or something. And it's like, oh wow. And I think that is just a good space to be honest and maybe tar talk about some things that are, you know, like you're opening yourself up to maybe hear something that you don't want to hear. But also ask the question. What's what's unhelpful?

SPEAKER_02:

What's unhelpful? Yeah. And so and that's the thing, guys. It's always a surprise. What comes out of her is when I ask those questions, is always a surprise to me. I'm like, I had no clue.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you were not tracking that.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, it's gotten better.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Where I'm less surprised and less shocked, but definitely early on in marriage when I started asking those questions, like, hey, how have I loved you well recently? She'll say, I'm like, whoa, I okay.

SPEAKER_00:

But it helps you learn, like, okay, that's important to her, and that's she feels loved when I do this or whatever.

SPEAKER_04:

So about learning what each for the why asking those questions. Cause I think on the opposite end, sometimes what I think is helpful to Joshua or how I'm serving. Yeah, it's your version of it. Yeah, it's my version, not his version, which we talked about on an earlier episode.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, man. Yes, there's there's so many different situations that I can think of. We can't go down them all, but like listening to your spouse and then asking them the question to get an honest response. You have to cultivate that relationship to where the person actually feels comfortable with. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good thing to point out. Good job, because it takes humility.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And it's even though it's your spouse, like you should be able to share everything with your spouse. But it's it's still uncomfortable sometimes. Yes, especially when you're asking for something that you're doing wrong that you could be helpful with and be genuine in doing, especially if you're doing this for the first time, you ask that question, whatever that thing is, make the genuine like try to help with whatever that thing is. Because if you just blow it off, laugh about it, or like push it to the side, your spouse is not gonna keep opening up to you after that. Like they're just gonna be like, well, you don't care anyway.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, and then build the divide.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, pay attention. We could probably do a whole mental health episode on like when why don't we ask those types of questions, and or what are our like really unhealthy responses? Because if we blow it off, laugh it off, blow up an anger, whatever the case is, to our our wife or our husband saying, Well, it's actually helpful when you do this, and it's actually less helpful when you do this, or loving, or whatever the case is. If you respond to that with you know, blowing up in anger or laughing it off like they're a joke or whatever the case is, that that should be like yellow or red warning light that you need to get alone with the Lord and maybe a biblical counselor to figure out what's going on inside your own self that you never do anything wrong or like you know what I'm saying? So there's some precursors to everything we've talked about to this point.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, because it hinders intimacy if you're doing that. And the word pursue stands out so strong to me when I think of dating, just like Christ pursues us, he never stops pursuing us, he's coming after us. We need that depth in relationship with him. We're not gonna exhaust knowing him. Which I think our heart longs for. Yes, yes, and yes, and marriage is a picture of Christ in the church. So it it really is shocking to me when I hear spouses say, Well, we're married now. I don't need to date my spouse. Right. Like, can you imagine if Jesus was like, Well, you're safe now, peace out. No, I don't need you to know me. Yeah, like that's crazy, town. Like, why do we do that with our spouse? One thing I want to say about dating that we haven't mentioned is it should be fun. Like, it sounds kind of heavy. Like, we're talking about all these great things. There's times that it's heavy, but yeah, but that heaviness should be shrouded in a fun, a jovial. Like, why did you marry your spouse? Like, yeah, I remember what do you enjoy doing together? Yeah, and find new things. Yeah, what hobbies do you want to do? Do you want to do an activity? Do you want to do dinner? Do you like watching movies? Do you like playing putt-putt? Do you want to go to the beach and take a walk? Like it should be enjoyable. It should not be a chore. If it's a chore, I want to segment what Brian said, you should really evaluate within yourself like what are you what's really important to you? It shouldn't be a chore.

SPEAKER_01:

And I actually like research and dive into doing some of those things and get creative with it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I have some really good friends of ours. Not you guys, a different group of friends, but you have both friends. Well, you mentioned you like you guys like to go for restaurants and I didn't mention other friends while we're selling it. How dare I? But no, they're they're really good friends of ours. They've been married for quite some time. And one of the favorite things they like to do is go out to different restaurants and try them out. So what they did for a long period of time was they started at the letter A and went through the alphabet. That is fun. And they had to pick a restaurant that started with the letter, but it couldn't be a chain restaurant. Okay. It had to be a local. So, like when they got to some of the weirder, less used letters, it got real interesting. But they found some strange food. Yeah. But they were like I don't know if I'm willing to do that. But it was a way in which they kept the like did they live in Onslaught County?

SPEAKER_04:

They do. They went to Willington. Yeah, they did drive to Raleigh a couple times.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they they they were committed. Okay, they were committed. I was like, it's fun though.

SPEAKER_04:

But then, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

There's all sorts of things you can do. Sorry, Onsla County is where we live in eastern North Carolina. Marine Corps. If you like barbecue. Anyway, yeah, you can probably do lots of bee barbecue. So the fun thing, hopefully you're hearing, we have fun on we get serious on this episode on this podcast, but also it's fun. I was reminded as we were thinking about this one, there's this story of Isaac and Rebecca in the book of Genesis. And the way that who is it, Abimelech figures out that they're married. Because they've like Isaac's lied about she's my sister, and he's basically doing what Abraham had done before and everything else. And the way that Abimelech figures out, oh no, they're married, is there, and there's a difficult Hebrew word. It gets translated as like laughing or caressing or whatever the case is, but they're doing something fun together that only husbands and wives do. And that's where he's like, Oh, they're married. And so we've got to be like, there should be fun. You know, you should laugh. I remember Kelly and I we read a book together early on in our marriage. Don't even remember what the book was called, but they said, fill your walls with laughter.

SPEAKER_04:

I love it.

SPEAKER_02:

There should be laughter in your walls as as a family, as a couple. And uh that's just really laughter's so good.

SPEAKER_00:

Laughter's great. Be silly with one another. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, Proverbs talks about that, right? It's like medicine to our bones. I think it's a gift in a culture where there's not a lot of laughter or joy, it is also a picture to the world that you have something that is beautiful as the gospel.

SPEAKER_02:

Are you yeah, we're in a like hyper serious culture, if you mean just like the country we live in, yeah. But also military in the military culture, which it's serious business, but we should have fun in in a lot of ways. And then also, like, I think even in the church culture right now, there's just so much anger and vitriol. And I I don't know that it that Christians are being accused of having too much fun or laughing too much.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, which is crazy because when you look at Colossians and it talks about what to put off and to put on, like we should be filled with great joy, happiness, delight. Like we are not we we know the eternal kingdom is coming. In the midst of just a reminder there for you in case you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_02:

In the midst of difficulty, the whole book of Philippians, the apostle Paul is writing from prison and he talks about rejoicing like continually. He even says at one point, rejoice, like to write the same thing to you is no problem for me. Rejoice in the Lord. Like he's just constantly, as he's sitting in prison, like, rejoice.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, yeah, not that Brian is comparing marriage to being in prison. But no, I was thinking more rejoice anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

The military life, the military life is does mimic prison in a lot of ways. And so your marriage, it can be a joyful little outlet for us.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that to make it a joyful outlet. Something I just want to like throw into this pot of things that we just keep bouncing around on. You're dating your spouse, it's intimate. We've been talking about that in like a intellectual way, a spiritual way, those kinds of things, but also a physical way. And so like when That's what I was just gonna ask.

SPEAKER_04:

What are some things we don't talk about or think about when you talk about dating?

SPEAKER_01:

What I wanted to mention to that question is be intimate also physically. And when it comes to I'm not I'm and I'm I'm not just talking sexual relationships, but like when you're out dating, a lot of us get into this mundane process uh with our spouses to where a kiss is like a handshake almost. Like when you're leaving for the day or coming back from something or you're going to and fro and you engage with your spouse, yeah, it's turned into just this greeting rather than a passionate thing that you're showing that you love that person. And so when you date your your spouse, like kiss your spouse and love them well.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and that I think that's when the pursuing comes in, you know, like still just like playful, fun, like might smack you on the tush or something, you know, and like flirting. Yeah, just like I'm excited to see you. I'm excited to be with you, I'm excited to go on a date with you. And so I think even as maybe you're listening to this, I hope you're encouraged to set a date for your next date and choose to be excited about it and plan to show your spouse that you're excited about it and plan what you're gonna do and how you're gonna grow in those areas of intimacy.

SPEAKER_04:

I know. Can I say something that really quick? Because after you when you start having kids, it can get a little wonky, right? And so date nights might look different. So when we were first married and Joshua was a young enlisted Marine and we had littles, you know, we didn't really have the money to go out to a good place to eat or whatever. Pay a babysitter because that's expensive. Yeah. So I had some really amazing older women that taught me how to date my husband well at home. So we would make macaroni and cheese or something for the kids, put them to bed early, and then I would make steak and potatoes or something, you know, and have candlelight dinner around our kitchen table. And then plan a fun event afterwards at home, you know, like because that you have to plan in too.

SPEAKER_02:

Um there's planning. There's also there is some budgeting to to do this well. Like you said, even steak, beef is kind of expensive right now. And so, like, even that, but or go out to eat or pay a babysitter, like however it's gonna happen will take some intentionality, it's gonna take some planning, and it and it's gonna take investing. Like, we're investing in our marriage when we do that, you know. We we waste money on all kinds of stuff, and so like invest in your marriage. Invest in your marriage.

SPEAKER_00:

One thing that I want to say to that invest in your marriage. Put your phone away. Yes. So when you're together, like just put your phone away. You shouldn't both be on a date, both being on your phones. It just sucks so much of our time and distracts us from what's important, and it's important to date your spouse, and that's not dating your spouse. So just put your phone away.

SPEAKER_02:

That should probably be a whole episode of call put your phone away. But put your phone away, build that rhythm into your life. If you're eating a meal together, put your phone away.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, not just on a date, but any meal.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We've we've mentioned schedules a few times and like fitting in these things and doing where we can. I also want to say something that we're probably not the best at, but we could always get better at is prioritizing this in our schedule as well. Yes. Because when we open our calendars, a lot of times what's been happening or what has happened when we get into ruts of things is like, all right, we have all these things going on. We now we need to figure out where we're gonna put our date night in. We really have to do that the other way around and say, okay, what are our date nights? And then schedule everything else around that.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. It's a priority. It's worth the effort put into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that was a good review because we just like discovered an open night. We should be better about planning. Yes, we should. It's good.

SPEAKER_04:

I think that's really good. We've talked a lot about pursuing intimacy, conversations, budgeting, all the things. One thing, if you have young kids, Joshua and I did early on was we would trade nights with families. Yes, you know, that's great. So like we'll co-op. Yeah, we'll take your kids, you take our kids. There are ways to do this. So if you're sitting here listening and you in your mind have all the excuses rolling around of why you couldn't do this and why this sounds so magical for us. These were rhythms we cultivated early on in our marriages and still practice. If you've been married longer and have not been dating your spouse, it's a good time to start. But these were things we were taught early on, like this is important. It it matters.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm sorry, one last thing and then I'll let you wrap up. But um the thing is, is we also noticed earlier on when we weren't dating each other well, you really get into a rut and it is not a good place to be. Yeah. You start to coexist with each other, and it just feels mundane and gross and distant.

SPEAKER_02:

The statement roommate is the statement that every marriage on the rock says. Yeah. We turned into roommates. If you have turned into roommates, so like let this be an encouragement to get out of that rut. Break out of that quick.

SPEAKER_04:

And if you need help because you're in that situation, Google will give you a hundred questions to ask your spouse. There are so many things. There was a point after military when we church planted. I know I'm hurrying, I'm gonna wrap it up. And I felt like we were in this rut. So, like what, five years ago. So I went on a website called Cultivate Web. What matters, and I ordered cards for marriages. And so when we would drive together, I'd pull out these cards and be like, that's fine. Here we are. And you know, it rekindles things.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, maybe you drop some links of good lists of questions. Because don't just Google anything. You worry me when people Google, I don't know what it's gonna pop out. But there's lots of those. Desiring God, Gospel Coalition, the one you just mentioned. There's some good ones out there. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I think we could talk all day on this topic because as you can tell, we enjoy dating our spouses. Uh we probably like to date each other more. Uh we even go on double dates together. So thank you guys for listening. I know it's the holiday time and there's lots going on, but maybe this is a gift. I see this as a gift that keeps on giving when you date your spouse. It's a gift to your spouse and then it gives back to you. So plan in a date this holiday season. Have some fun with your spouse and enjoy each other in the busyness. We love you guys. We're thankful for you're here. Follow us on Instagram. We'll see you back here soon. Bye.