Most of us have heard the advice to participate in a regular date night out with our partner, but only a few couples take this advice to heart. Date night is often viewed as just a “night out” rather than a key opportunity to reconnect as a couple.
Quality time and fun as a couple are key ingredients to a healthy relationship.
In Dr. John Gottman’s 40 years of researching couples, he has found that happy couples have a few things in common: They have friendship and admiration, they have each other’s back, and they share experiences together that create special meaning for them. Date night provides a key opportunity to build those healthy couple qualities and increase the feeling of “we-ness”.
Here’s how Date Night can be used to strengthen your relationship.
- The relationship becomes the priority. Your relationship is too important to leave up to chance. Date night is way to be intentional about making your relationship a top priority. It provides an opportunity to reconnect, have fun and discover your partner’s dreams and passions.
- Strengthens fondness and admiration. A little kindness can go a long way and date nights provide an opportunity to build an emotional bank account. Couples that have fondness and admiration for one another have an easier time navigating conflict, are more accepting of one another’s differences and trust one another.
- Trying something new together. Sharing a new experience together is a great way to build a couple’s strong bond. It creates new and happy memories for the couple as well as shared meaning.
- Having fun together! Successful, long-term relationships have more positive interactions than negative interactions. This may sound like common sense, but having fun together is one of the best relationship enhancers out there.
In our Suwanee office, we’re launching a couples’ date night called “Spark” on July 18th. There is no charge for participating and it is not therapy. The purpose if simply to help couples reconnect and keep their spark alive. Click here for more information on Spark!
Jackie Dunagan, LAMFT
jdunagan @ growcounseling.com
