Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 98 | Tips for Dating Your Spouse

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Ep. 98 | Tips for Dating Your Spouse · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  If you just get some type of fire pit and I don't like all the work and real wood and smoke, I don't like all that. That's disgusting and bad and not good. And so I know, I know.
• 0:14
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:35
  What's up, guys? Jeff and Jeremy here. So we got another question from our membership community homeroom. Like we've mentioned before, that's our membership community. We kind of open up enrollment a couple times a year, but you guys are the best if you're listening. We love you guys. It's so fun walking in that group with you guys. And this is a Q&A episode, and one of those questions we got from homeroom we wanted to bring to the masses here on 5-Minute Fatherhood is...
• 0:56
  My husband and I have a weekly date night, but with a four month old, they are mostly date nights with him and we are running out of fun ideas. So it kind of sounds like the question here is how do we, how do we kind of keep date night fresh? How do we keep it new? How do we kind of do date night constantly with babies, et cetera? And, um, I was, I'm looking at the notes here that we have for five minute fatherhood and Jeremy's, the things they've kind of listed for how they kind of look through date night. It's very similar to me and Alyssa. So we'll just go kind of back and forth, um, and agree in that sense. But yeah, Jeremy, how would you start us off?
• 1:24
  Yeah. So, you know, April, I just celebrated our 21 year anniversary and I'm looking at this question. They have a four month old. They're probably a little bit further and they're already running out of ideas, which is totally normal, you guys. And so what that means probably is the paradigm around date night might be a little bit idealistic. And so what I, you know, when you're
• 1:48
  There might have been sort of this sense of like, oh, yeah, we got to put all this creative energy into it and stuff. And that may be really hard to sustain. But of course, when you're dating your mate, when you're married, man, it's even more important in some ways to have epic experiences. And so this can get really challenging because after...
• 2:04
  you know, eight months of trying to come up with cool, fun dates, you might be like, I'm running out of ideas, which is what this person is doing. And so one way I've thought about this is to put like in a different category. So, um, so there, there's really like three kind of categories that I think of date night. So April, I go on a date night every, every Saturday night. And we also have other, other cool stuff we do, but that's something we're pretty rhythmic about. Um, and so I would say that there are, and a lot of it just depends on how we're feeling and how I'm sensing sort of the week went. Um,
• 2:31
  And so, and what we really need, what nutrient does our relationship need? That's sort of the more of the, the thing that I, I'm trying to like, yeah, yeah. Try to solve or help or use date night for. That's right. What do we need? And so do we need to have fun? Like, like that, that not, we don't always need just to have fun. Maybe, but, but that's kind of, I think of like the shallow fun dates, shallow, meaning we're not going to get into some crazy deep conversation. Maybe we'll even try to avoid, you know, maybe we've had a couple of fights. Sometimes that's actually what you don't want.
• 3:01
  Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, sometimes you just need to like, go watch a movie, you know, do something that's just kind of relaxing together, spend time, play a game, something like that. Like, I remember once, like three weeks ago, we were coming to our date night, we were both just fried. There's no way in the world we were going to have a deep conversation. And so I just got a pack of cards out, we went out to a table and we started playing cards.
• 3:23
  And I just wanted to be with her having a shallow, you know, fun, like relaxing experience. So that's that's like the sort of shallow. There's three categories we're going to talk about. But you guys have a have an example. Yeah, so we do that one for sure, which is huge. And I feel like that usually tends to be when we need like a break or we're exhausted or we're tired or it was a long day with the kids. But we still because we like you said, we kind of keep a fairly rhythmic date night. We try to put one on the calendar every single week, but we don't decide if it's going to be like, you know, the serious one, the shallow one, et cetera. Tell kind of about that day because of like you said, we want it to serve what we need.
• 3:53
  And that's one way we do that. Another one is similar to what you put on here is a normal date night. So that would be if we get a babysitter, we go out to a restaurant. And our stage right now with toddlers, that's pretty rare. And in fact, we don't even really do that much anymore unless we just kind of get accidentally pushed there, meaning like the kids are already being watched for some reason and we're already maybe traveling in another city or whatever.
• 4:11
  you know, and I'm a foodies and then we'll try to look up the coolest places. So we do it in that context. Um, the one that I think is really important that I was going to say, and that you guys have it here too, which is interesting. It says, have a place to go either I'm guessing in the house and a food, um, or drink to, to kind of associate with that.
• 4:27
  That one, I think, is the game changer. And we kind of have leaned into that hard since Lucy's been born. So we have a six-month-old. So for this asking, very similar. Because, yeah, it got harder to leave, but we needed that space. But there is a level at which just kind of, and again, because we're embodied physical creatures where room and space matters more than we think it does. So when you sit on the same couch you normally sit on, it's just like you're going to just be on your phone or watch a movie.
• 4:49
  Right. And so there's a level at which we kind of have to break that. And the way we do that is our backyard. We have a little kind of outdoor furniture and we have a fire. We have like a little fire pit with propane we can pull out of the closet. And so our thing is fire and s'mores in the same way that I think you said yours is popcorn on the porch. But yeah. And what that does is now it's cool because now s'mores associate like really deep talks with us. There's something about too. I'd encourage anyone listening. If you just get some type of fire pit and I don't like all the work and real wood and smoke, I don't like all that. That's disgusting
• 5:19
  I know, I know. So for me, and I don't want to have to start it and all that stuff. So like a little, a little propane one that I flip a switch guys life changing. And so there's something about fire though, where I honestly believe it. We've talked about this. It just kind of brings out like a vibe that just.
• 5:34
  Like you're talking, you're chatting way more than you would if you were inside on the couch, even though it's the same thing, just with a fire. So I would say get something like that. And so, yeah, how do you guys do that? But I think that's important to have a place and have like a treat and it kind of like, and then kind of escape to that place in the house. And then it's easy and free. So now we do that. That's like our go-to right now, almost every week. And it's easy and it's free. And we end up having really beautiful, rich, meaningful, meaningful time. And sometimes we'll still do that and then just read our books. Cause we'd like you said, that's like a shallow plus that at the same time. So yeah. What would you use? How do you, how do you guys do that?
• 6:04
  Yeah, I love that. Yeah, have that go to, you know, for us, for many years, like red wine and dark chocolate, sort of signified date night. We can go grab, we have, and I called you a wimp, but we do have exactly the same thing. I got to, you know, you know, I've got that sweet propane fireplace on my porch. I think investing in some kind of fire and you can just sort of relax around the fire and make sure that, yeah, something that would literally take five or 10 minutes to think about, or you could just have, you know, the supplies in your, in your pantry and,
• 6:34
  Yeah. The worst thing you want to do is not have to reinvent the wheel every week because that's when it gets exhausting. Yeah. And that's what I think this question was sort of saying. Now, there is a third category. So we've talked about like sort of the shallow fun. We talked about sort of the normal, have the supplies in the pantry, be able to trigger that fun, just hang out conversation. Then I would say there's a third one, which is like where, you know, you've got some deep.
• 6:56
  work to do. There's some deep stuff you need to talk about. Like you've been kind of in the same pattern for a while. And I know that this is not something you want to do for every date night, but there were date nights where I felt like, Hey, if we don't talk about this tough topic now, when are we going to talk about it?
• 7:12
  And so one way we would do this is, is I would go to, we go to a, like we, we plan some time at like a restaurant and, but before we get there, we get our journals and go to like a park or something and take about 15 minutes journal, how we're doing, you know, we know that there's some tension, there's something going on. Maybe it's in our relationship. Maybe it's just something that we're each dealing with. It's sort of even outside of a relationship, take 15 minutes journal, go to the restaurant and slowly, carefully, thoughtfully listen to each other. Really listen.
• 7:41
  really like dial into each other's hearts. And that's a deep, epic, you know, date night that's really about, you know, getting some real relational work done. But I think that that can be really helpful too. So there's times that that's the trigger that you might need. But yeah, thinking about this and those categories, I think have been really helpful. You guys, date nights and really taking time at least weekly for your relationship is absolutely critical. If
• 8:05
  and the test of time. So these are just some ideas that might help you guys make sure that it's getting diverse enough, but not so diverse that you're burning each other out with high-level expectations of epic date nights every week. So hopefully that's helpful for you guys.
• 8:21
  Hey guys, one of our favorite places to hang out on is the family teams, Instagram. That is where you will find tips, quotes, tricks, and a bunch of other conversational things to help you build your family team on mission. If you're on Instagram and you want to get encouragement as you do this and build your family team, just head over to Instagram and follow us at family teams.