Today I was reminded that one of my favourite things is to hold The Mr’s hand.
Sometimes it can be a long time between hand holding.
My hands are often so full of other things. When we go out as a family, I have small little hands nestled in mine, or a pram to push. At home I am cooking or cleaning or ferrying things from one place to another. My arms are full of pudgy bundles of babies. My fingers spend more time caressing the computer keyboard than they do curled inside the soft, warm, all encompassing hand of my most favourite person.
And how did I find this out? We spent time together (ALONE!) and had a long walk ahead of us. Perfect Hand holding time!
Why is the hardest commandment to follow also one of the easiest/most enjoyable?
A year ago I had an epiphany from someones else ephiphany.
She wrote this on her blog Lucky Holly (sorry its a private one)
Just now I was thinking about my husbands comment yesterday in gospel doctrine class at church. In essence it was that we need to continue to experience the feelings of the holy spirit and not to rely on our experiences of yesterday.
My thoughts merged in to the fact that it is the same with marriage – love and romance also. To continue to let those loving and romantic experiences take place so that our “testimony” of our spouses love can grow and develop further.
Unfortunately I didn’t understand before why we were supposed to go on dates etc. I am not anti date by any means however having a small crowd of children can make it difficult even for the most experienced babysitter. Too much hassle? Don’t want to put good friends out.
I get it now, why it’s important and all that. Can you have a testimony of dating? Of your own husband that is…?
Now that is one testimony I definitely want to have.
The parts of the proclamation that I’m focusing on here are : Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other …. and wholesome recreational activities.
How could one of the most fun commandments (well ok, “advice”) be one of the hardest to keep??
It’s ridiculous really. I need to rearrange my timetable to fit this in. Who doesn’t want to go on a date?
We recently have realised that a weekly date is NEVER GONNA HAPPEN.
Obviously. As last year we only went on a few.
So this year we made goals.
A goal of one date a month and one temple date a month.
Some months we are good. Some months not so good.
But we HAVE THE DESIRE NOW!
I like to keep this quote below in mind. There can be no NEGLECT or DELAY in looking after ones relationship with their spouse. It is IMPORTANT to not let it get beyond repair. Sometimes when our relationships are GOOD we think we can forgo things like dates, alone time, being there for each other.
Love is like a flower, and, like the body, it needs constant feeding. The mortal body would soon be emaciated and die if there were not frequent feedings. The tender flower would wither and die without food and water. And so love, also, cannot be expected to last forever unless it is continually fed with portions of love, the manifestation of esteem and admiration, the expressions of gratitude, and the consideration of unselfishness.” – Spencer W Kimball)
And another quote I found in the ensign
Just as the dating and courting period serves the very real purpose of helping a couple get to know each other, so do special husband and wife dates serve a very real purpose in assuring that we continue to know one another and grow together
Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other. Solemn! It makes it sound so serious. So obviously it is! I am going to take this to heart and remember that I have several responsibilities in my life and that my husband is one of the top ones.
So now that I am converted to the importance of spending time with my husband leave some dating ideas in the comments box!
This Girl Loves to Talk is wife to The Mr, mother of 4 girls and lives in Australia! She started blogging two years ago and hasn’t looked back. She dabbles in many crafts but isn’t expert at any of them which is why blogging appeals to her so much. She loves life, laughter, family and fun and she loves to TALK!
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I love this post! As a mother of 3 children (which to some means i had 1 too many *eye roll*) I know how going on a date night is just impossible too! My husband and I have been married 11 years (which is a “record” among our circle of friends), but we may have a date once a year, if lucky. Maybe we need to rethink what “date night” could mean, and esp as our oldest becomes old enough to looking after her 2 younger siblings, even a hour walk alone might be do able.
Anyways – sorry for rambling! But this one really has me thinking….
lol Kris.
We have also taken to having a date on monday night (at home) after FHE with the kids, The Mr and I sit down and plan our week and chat and talk and tell the kids they are not to interupt us!
Most are asleep by 8pm, but one or two might still be wandering around. Monday night 8pm is our time and it is starting to kinda feel like a date! how sad is that!!
Solemn. You have convinced me. Thanks for spelling out so clearly why this is a “commandment” and why it is important to our marriages!
Date ideas:
Play games together
Make something together (other than a baby?)
Go for a drive to look at fall leaves
I think I need to work on my list…
when our children were younger We had an agreement with another family once a month they would watch our children and once we would watch theirs. Then we go to go to the temple. we made it a sleep over thing. As we lived near washington DC traffic was crazy to go to the temple on a Friday night. So we would go out to eat somewhere, then let the traffic clear up on the Beltway then go to the temple around 8 oclock.That’s why we made it a sleep over baby sitting because it was late by the time we were out of the temple.
The kids looked forward to their sleepovers every month.
Then we had other date nights where we rented a Movie and stayed home while the kids were in Bed.
Or played a game together No answering the phone, or anything.
Now that our kids are grown we just need to remember to make it a date. so we joke around that going to walmart and lowes by ourselves is a date. It does get easier when the children are grown. But I have fond memories of our stay at home dates.
I fully agree, dating is hard, but dating is crucial. I remember we went away for a few days after many years of marriage, and I thought to myself, oh yeah, I remember, you are fun, I like you!
It’s easy to get caught up in keeping up!
5 kids, SAHM, and no money. I learned very early that a date takes many forms…but without kids. A sneak run to McD when the kids were in bed. A private moment in the bedroom with the door closed (and btw, my kids new that our bedroom was NOT the family gathering place…or the room to be invaded…it was sacred to the parents). A special dessert shared. A walk around the back yard, behind the garage, in the garage.
We have couples who refuse to go to a church meeting because it’s ‘date night’. I am always chuckling over that one….the fact that one night can be so sacroscant that they miss the bigger picture. The more important moments…the ones that last beyond a big weekly OUT.
Bottom line….hold the hand as suggested. Often
We like to go browse the local bookstore. Helps us to remember our own, non-kidcentric interests and generates some good discussions too.
I really needed to read this today! Thanks!
Date night became “sacred” in our home a few years ago when we realized that we didn’t really know who we were as people anymore. We were just two people who had jobs and once in a while saw eachother over the table.
Truly it is an inspired “commandment” for us to date our spouses. I loved this post.
a wonderful post! I love our dates and after so many years of not being able to have them, I take this time seriously. Some weeks it’s the only time we have together.
Thanks for the reminder!
Thanks for the reminder. Even when we KNOW how important it is, it’s easy to let things slip through the cracks.
This is a hard one for us – mainly to the fact that I don’t really like to figure out a babysitter! Really I am waiting for my oldest to arrive at that magic age of 12 so she can babysit. Most of our “dates” are here at home once the kids go to bed. But when we do get out alone I want it to be something special, something planned! We do need to work on this! Thanks for the post!
I have such a hard time finding a baby-sitter, sometimes we have our ‘date’ after the kids go to bed. Play board games together, work on a project, etc. The important thing is spending quality time together!
Dates are so important. We found ourselves skipping them more as the kids were older and involved in more evening activities. We missed them and the closeness they bring, so we started doing mini-dates more often, a picnic on his lunch hour, a walk, a drive etc.
A walk is our favorite, and the most simple. Also on our free list is music at the park, tennis or even a jog or hike. We have learned to grab the moment when it presents itself…you never know when the planets will align and an opportunity will present itself..be willing to use it!.
One of the most romantic dates my husband arranged was a daytime one. We tramped through the snow in the woods to our cabin, cooked lunch over a woodfire and tramped back again. Then we drove home in a meandering not in a rush way, and stopped for a cup of tea in a cafe. We were home to cook supper and get the children back from Grandma by 5pm. What a wonderful day and a heartwarming memory. Gill.
We have also come back to the realization that dating is very important to our marriage health. We recently used one of the GreatDate formulas which listed questions to answer over the appetizer, then a new set of topics for the entree and yet another set for the dessert. Oh so fun and fresh. I learned some new things about the man!
Excellent Advice!
Wonderful reminder! I only have on kid so far and he is 3 months so we take him with us still. But we do try to make time for eachother and talk about our days and really listen. Somedays I need to listen better! But hand holding is so simple and can be done almost anywhere. Even at church for a few moments. 🙂
Jocelyn’s idea about making something together besides a baby cracks me up!!! And it is so true!!! ;-D
I have an idea that I’ve been meaning to implement for a year now and — now that #3 is on our doorstep and #1 and #2 just turned 2 — I am done idea-ing and just going to do it this week! When I attended a Women’s Week or Education Week or something at Ricks with my mom as a youth, there was a lady there who talked about making a date folder (for her kids who were in that 16-18 dating age, of course). So as I was thinking about dating on THIS side of the teenage dating scene, I had an idea to do something similar for/with my husband.
I bought a box at the dollar store, recovered it with cute paper I got from a scrapbooking giveaway, and put magnets on the back of it to put it on our refrigerator. Inside, I have 3×5 cards (mostly empty right now — but this week that will change!!!) and on them, I am going to write one date night idea. There are 51 cards — one for each week of the year and then an open spot for our anniversary. And I divided it up for our budget, so a certain number of them have a $1 budget and some have $5 and some have $10 and some have $20 — and then there’s the reserved whopper for our anniversary (no dollar value as of yet)!!! The best part about it, though, is to include your husband. Because he will have ideas of things that HE thinks would be fun that you wouldn’t think of on your own and vice versa. So then you both are doing new things with the other person that they also enjoy — and it makes the mystery of what card you are going to pull and what you are going to be doing THAT much more fun!!!
I also thought about how our relationship — like us individually — is multifaceted. You grow intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and physically — and your relationship needs to as well. So you further divide up your activities (either by month or by week) to include things that focus on your growth TOGETHER in each of those areas. So intellectually could be researching something on the internet together or reading a book together or going to a bookstore or library together and learning something separately (for a limited amount of time, cuz you don’t want to be apart for your date night) that you then come back and share with your spouse.
You can find TONS of date ideas on the internet — even sites dedicated just to dating (I did a dating file for a friend’s bridal shower and had ideas there for people with brain freeze that couldn’t think of any on their own).
The other part of it is that a $20 or $10 date night could include a babysitter, but the other nights we have to get more creative, which also makes it fun.
I know this might sound complicated, but really it’s only complicated for the one or two weeks you are putting it together. The rest of the year, you just draw a card out of the box and implement it! And you can take the work out of it by having a combined date night with another couple (or a few others) and breaking up the invention stage and then copying the ideas down and VIOLA!!! You have even more diversity and half (or a fourth) of the work load!
Anyway — I just got called as the Activities Chair in our new ward, and I have been thinking about this whole dating and keeping the love alive thing for a while now and realized during a Relief Society activity last night that it isn’t just for newlyweds — in fact, I think some of those who have been married for 20+ years could use a good dose of dating more than the ones that have been married for two or five!!! So I’m thinking that maybe we need to have a Family Proclamation Ward Activity with dating as the primary focus . . . for everyone!!!
Thanks for a great post!!!
Date night is HARD! I hate calling around for babysitters who want $10 an hour. It IS worth it though and very necessary.
Thanks for the post!
I can’t ever remember the last time my husband and I actually went out on a date. But we find other ways to enjoy our time together. We usually have a book, that we read aloud to each other, going. We sometimes play a game at night after the kids have gone to bed. Often we just lay awake in the dark chatting about life, kids, and what ever, just to catch up and be on the same page.
For us it is just not easy to actually go out on dates. We figure that is for another season of our lives. But for now we do find time to do things together it just isn’t outside the house.
to the person who mention day time dates you are so right! the last couple of dates we had, we made on a saturday afternoon. The babysitter didnt have to put kids to bed, or feed them or have a crying baby to hold.
we went for a bike ride for an hour or two and the sitter said the kids were perfect. The older ones watched a movie while she held the baby… just an idea different to stressing out over trying to go out on a friday night
and I always want to swap with a friend because babysitters are too expensive ( I cant afford weekly sittter plus the cost of going out) I even asked friends but either my kids are too bad noone wants to do it, or they said they just dont go out themselves and are ‘waiting’ for their kids to grow a bit older first…
Love this post, any you are so right!! I bought season tickets to the theatre (nose bleed seats in the “cheap” section). We see 7 shows a year for a matinee show. It has been a way for us to make sure that we have a date. After all, I can’t cancel when I have already spennt the money!! We love our time together and it is something that is so precious to us. Sometimes it seems as if everything in our lives revolve around kids. It is so nice to take a little time for ourselves. We come back as better parents and better spouses to each other.
We very much need this. We are bad at dating. We try, but are now getting back to doing dates and finding, like someone mentioned, that we do like each other.
Wow, I like those ideas. I read them aloud to my husband and he came over and kissed me. 🙂 So glad you are doing this celebration of family!
Thanks for writing this. And I’m really loving the ideas people are giving.
I have two children old enough to babysit now. It has been a life changer. We put the younger kids down for bed and then head out TOGETHER on a DATE. We’re talking at least once a week. Anyway, eventually date night does get a little easier.