Tips For Doing Awesome At-Home Dates With Your Wife
I’ve written many times before about the importance in my marriage of doing at-home dates.
My wife and I, before we had kids, LOVED going out to dinner. That was our thing.
At the time, we lived in a walkable city, so, every Saturday (and sometimes Friday) night, we would get dressed up, walk downtown, and have dinner at our favorite restaurant.
We did it so often, and with such regularity, that the servers would have our drinks ready at the table when we sat down. The owner would periodically visit our table for a quick chat. If we didn’t show up for couple Saturdays in a row, they started to worry something was wrong.
If ever there were “regulars” at a particular restaurant, we were them.
But that changed when we had kids.
Instead of spending our Saturday nights sipping champagne and listening to live jazz in a dimly lit dining room, we were taking turns entertaining fussy babies so the other could get some much-needed sleep.
Also, we unsurprisingly didn’t have nearly as much disposable income as we did before our children arrived.
Lastly, we moved to a very rural area which was not only not-walkable, but didn’t have things like Uber or Doordash.
Given all of this, you might think that we just had to give up on being “Going Out To Dinner” people.
But we didn’t.
We refused to give up that part of our lives. It was too important to us.
Obviously, we liked drinking wine and eating great food, but the point of those date nights was to connect with each other. We realized that once we had kids and our lives changed, we needed to do things to recreate the environment that fostered that connection.
We decided to still have dates, but we understood that those dates would look a little different.
Thus began our “At-Home” dates. In this article I will lay out how to do them well. Keep in mind, my kids are elementary school age, which means they can be somewhat unsupervised for small snippets of time. If you have children who are considerably younger, like toddlers, you might have to adjust slightly to accommodate for that.
My wife and I have two versions of our at-home dates: evening and lunch.
Our evening at-home dates are usually on “special” days. I’m talking Mother’s/Father’s Day, birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day and stuff like that. However, periodically we will do an evening at-home date “just because”!
More regularly, we do at-home lunch dates. These occur on the weekends when we are mostly just bumming around at home.
Probably the most important thing to remember to execute a great at-home date is that you need to be enthusiastic about it!
If you (or your wife) are a little lukewarm about doing it, it will feel silly and cumbersome. You may not feel motivated to take the time to do it if one of you knows the other might not be 100% into it. That means that you need to jump into it with both feet!
Be excited! Express enthusiasm at the thought of doing it! If you’re all-in, it will help your wife be all-in.
If your wife suggests you do an at-home date and your response is “Uh, yeah ok. If you want to, I guess” how do you think that’s going to make her feel? On the other hand, if you respond with “Yes! What a great idea! What kind of cocktails should we make?” it will create excitement and happiness around the whole endeavor.
Next, since the date will be happening at home, you will need to put in some effort to make it feel special and different than every other dinner you have at home. That means you should “set the mood” a little bit. I’m talking all the corny stuff like lighting candles, putting on some music, and, for evening dates, getting dressed up.
The “dressed up” part is the most important part of the whole ambiance when it comes to evening dates at home. You don’t want to be having a nice dinner with your wife while wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt.
Nothing about that says “special”.
Nope, you want to be in a jacket and a tie!
YES! For evening at-home dates you need to go all-out and put on a proper jacket and tie. Will it feel a little silly the first few times you do it? Yes. But it will eventually feel comfortable and fun!
The trick to pulling this off is making sure you always have a pressed (or passably pressed) shirt hanging in your closet, ready to go. We all know the most time-consuming part of dressing well is ironing a shirt. Don’t allow needing to iron a shirt to become an impediment to you dressing well for your evening at-home date.
A few months ago, my wife (out of the blue) said “Hey, let’s do a date tonight!” I enthusiastically accepted and was able to get dressed in about five minutes later that night because I had a crisp, white shirt hanging in my closet.
I also like to wear loafers during our evening at-home dates since they are easy to slip on and off.
Now, this brings me to another super-important aspect of executing the at-home date. You need to be cognizant of TIME. Let me explain…
If you are doing an evening at-home date, you need to put the kids to bed early. I’m talking 7:00pm with 7:30pm being the absolute latest.
You might balk at that. Depending on your kids’ usual routines, between 7:00pm and 7:30pm might seem way too early. But think of it like this… every extra minute your kids are awake is one less minute you get to spend, uninterrupted, with the beautiful love-of-your-life. That should motivate you to get those kiddos’ teeth brushed and into their jammies pronto! Also, this time of year is perfect for getting the kids into bed early, since the sun has already set by 7:00pm! It’s a little more difficult during the height of summer when it stays light until close to 9:00pm.
On evening date nights, it’s totally ok to give your kids less-than-stellar dinner foods. Chicken nuggets, burgers and fries, PB&J. Anything they will reliably eat so they’ll feel sufficiently stuffed before heading off bed.
If you are doing a lunch date, though, you are going to want to make sure the kids are thoroughly entertained for the time you’re having your date. That means setting them up with lunch and a movie. Make sure you don’t start that movie until you and your wife are ready to sit down at the table! Don’t want to waste precious minutes prepping lunch or drinks while the movie is playing and your kids are distracted.
Now, in order to get your kids into bed early, or to have them sit quietly in front of a movie for two hours, you are going to have to plan ahead a little bit. Run them around and get them a bit tired earlier in the day.
This past Saturday, around mid-morning, I took my boys outside and had a snowball fight and wrestling match in the snow. They got tired and sweaty… and then sat like vegetables on the couch later while my wife and I had our lunch date. It was amazing!
That’s the trick. Tucker them out and they will be more likely to go to bed early or relax and not bother you while you have your date.
Also, when it comes to being cognizant of time, make sure that what you are making for food or drinks is easy to pull off quickly. Unless you want the cooking and prepping to be part of the date, don’t spend precious time in the kitchen when you could be relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.
That means make things that are easy and quick. For me, a steak and some sauteed green beans take about 10 minutes. For a lunch date, my wife and I will do some baked brie and French bread. Super delicious. But also super speedy to get on the table.
I like having our favorite food and drinks on hand, so the date can be executed quickly. Honestly, there are very few weekends where we have nothing to do. Often times we are running errands and stuff like that and have to specifically plan our days around the dates. It’s really helpful having all the “fixins” ready to go in the fridge/cabinet to get the lunch on the table in as little time as possible.
Ok, so at this point, the kids are either in bed or otherwise distracted, you’re sitting opposite your lovely bride enjoying the fare.
The preparation went swimmingly, didn’t it?!
But you still need to do a couple things in order to ensure you have truly successful date.
During our dates, I like to talk about “cool stuff” with my wife. Sure, we could hash out the upcoming weekly pickup schedule or something like that, but I don’t like to use our dates for talking about the mundane day-to-day grind.
No, we like to discuss ideas and plans for the future. FUN stuff! Stuff that we wouldn’t necessarily share with the kids.
You certainly CAN use your date time for the nuts-and-bolts kind of conversations (the conversations that need to be had between a husband and wife to keep the household running smoothly). But you can do that anytime. Talking about the fun stuff will help the date feel more special.
Lastly, one of the most important things to remember in order to have a great at-home date is to STAY OFF YOUR PHONE!
Your phone shouldn’t be anywhere near you while having your date. This isn’t like going out and needing to have your phone on the table in case the babysitter calls.
Nope. Since you’re home, the only good reason to have your phone near you is to take pictures to commemorate the evening.
That’s it.
Don’t check Instagram or TikTok. Don’t check your email. Don’t check sports scores. Don’t answer phone calls.
If your wife sees you distracted during your date, it will signify that you don’t really care about it. It will make all the effort you both just put into the date seem silly. It will take all the air out of the night.
It really all boils down to enthusiasm and preparation. If you have those two things, you’re going to have a really great time.
Even though my wife and I do at-home dates, we still jump at the chance to do actual, normal out-of-the-house dates whenever we can! But those times are relatively few and far between (and usually only when my in-laws are available to watch the kids for the evening).
But since we do so many at-home dates, there is no pressure to make the regular dates “perfect”. A lot of couples with kids find their regular dates to be stressful since they don’t get to do them often and they want everything to run smoothly. Padding the calendar with at-home dates relieves a lot of that pressure.
It might seem a little silly that my wife and I put so much energy into our at-home dates. After all, how fun can they really be?!
A LOT of fun, actually!
Honestly, it’s the part of the week I look forward to the most! The more you do them, the more fun they’ll become because you’ll get better at them.
And want to know something funny? Everyone we’ve told about our at-home dates goes, “Wow… that’s a really great idea!”
I’m telling you, give at-home dates a try. Just make sure you go all-out!
Remember, “enthusiasm and preparation” and you’ll have a wonderful time!
