384. Date Nights: Why they Suck & How to Make them Great Glennon, Abby and Amanda delve into the nuances of salvaging a relationship’s spark or excitement and discuss the role of “date nights” in healthy relationships. Discover: -Why “date night” is NOT a panacea; -Jealousy’s role in our relationships; -Why many people have affairs; and -How to “unknow” your partner and what that means. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why do date nights often fail to reignite relationships?
Okay. I just promised a lot of things. Sister, do you think that we can do those things? And is that actually what this episode is going to be about? I mean, a good portion.
I think that, yes, it is using date night as a way to understand what the hell's going on in our relationship and as a way to get closer in our relationship and with anyone that we love. So- It feels like we all know date nights good. People are like, yay, do date nights. But over half of us are not doing any date nights.
And so whenever something like that happens, it's like, hmm, what's going on there? Because if we know they're supposed to be so good and everyone says you should have date nights, but over half of us are not doing date nights, something is afoot. And I think that that's because date nights are broken for a lot of us. And it feels like the prescription is date night.
That's the only prescription we have. So everyone keeps writing the same prescription for date nights, but it's not actually fixing our problems. Yes. And I have a theory about this, that maybe date nights are actually... making things worse. And that's why we stop doing them if we're not doing date nights correctly.
Yeah, I understand that because I remember in a previous relationship, we would go to like, okay, let's say the quote doctor, the therapist, because you said it's a prescription, right? We would go to the, and we would say, we can't connect. We don't have physical intimacy. We don't have emotional intimacy. And the therapist would say, would write out the little prescription of date night. And so-
We would go to a restaurant, which we couldn't afford, sit at a table and stare at each other, which only emphasized and made it more obvious and horrific that we had nothing to talk about, that we couldn't. It was horrible, actually. And also, there's so many problems just to start off with, like date night. Why does it have to be at night? I'm already out. Why not date afternoon? Right. Okay.
This is true. And I think what you're saying is exactly right. And in fact, when we started a therapy like 1 million years ago, that was on the first day. I was like, I swear to God, if you tell me to have more date nights, I will stand up and walk out of here. Because my problem is not...
the ability to plan a few hours every couple of weeks it's like what I need you to do is get us to the place where we want to have a date together and that when we have yes we'll be able to talk about things that are different than the things that we talk about every night when we're sitting at the table so the date night isn't an exact replica of what you do every night except 10 times more expensive because you paid a babysitter you paid for dinner and now you're like see
It's just as boring as ever. So let's not do date nights, which is why 50% of us don't do it. Okay.
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Chapter 2: What are the common misconceptions about date nights?
Let's just like set the table with that. No pun intended. The very expensive table that we paid a babysitter for. Okay. So 2020, they did a poll of 2000 parents of children aged five to 18 and three in 10 could not even remember the last time they went on a date with their partner.
Okay.
Three out of 10 can't even remember it. Then 52% of those spouses reported that they quote, never go on date nights with their spouses or only go on a few times a year. 48% had once or twice a month. Okay. Significantly spouses who have frequent date nights are 15% more likely to report being very happy in their marriages. Okay.
And one out of two who frequently go on dates report that they are highly satisfied with their sexual relationship. So we read those stats and we're like, oh, the answer is date nights. Look at all those things. They're happier. The data shows three out of four report being highly committed to their relationship and not having a divorce if you have regular date nights. And to that, I say like,
Do we forget that correlation is not causation? Exactly. So if maybe these people are already happier and more connected, therefore they want to go on a date. Maybe they're less stressed out about money. Exactly. So they make date nights more affordable and interesting. There's so many factors here that the date night is not the panacea that we are hoping for. And in fact-
They find that simply having this quality time together as a couple is not enough to prevent a relationship from getting stale. And as you said, this professor, Cheryl Harjamuk, I think is her name. She studies this stuff. And she said that if you're already bored in your relationship or your relationship is stagnant, your dates will be too. So it's the same thing.
I agree with you that I think that meh dates are actually hurting our relationships instead of helping it. Because if you're like stuck in this routine and this same like old patterns over and over again, and then you go into all the effort and expense to try to get unstuck, but you end up recreating the exact same thing on your dates.
Isn't it just confirming your worst fear that you can't connect in your board? Yes. If not even a date night, not even all of this money is going to help you connect. So it's very tricky. So I've dove into all this research and I think that this is the answer. There are a few elements. One really main, main element that you have to have if you're trying to do this differently. Okay.
The big idea is that the point of dating early on is to get to know someone. The point of dating long-term into your relationship is to try to unknow them. Oh, that's good. Because if we already think, which many of us who have been with our people for 10 plus years, Literally, what is the point?
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Chapter 3: How can novelty and surprise improve your relationship?
And that is what we want in our partnerships, like the stagnation and the, we already know everything there is to know is the problem.
So how do we unknow our people? I love that framework. Let's figure out instead of the prescription of date night, how it's been done, which does not help us unknow our person. How do we create time and experiences that help us unknow each other? Exactly. Exactly.
And if there's not a particular person in your life, like a partner, or if you have a partner that is unwilling to do any of this with you, the really good news is that what Abby said is exactly right. It is the introduction of novelty and surprise and excitement into your life that is a factor of change. So if you can get it within your relationship when both parties are having it, amazing.
If you can't and you bring it into your own life, that then affects you and your relationship. So you can do any of these things on your own. Or with your kids. They don't have to be with your partner. Or with your kids or with your friends. Exactly. Okay. So these are some of the ideas that people had.
First of all, if you've fallen in love at some point with your partner, you can go back to what that was that you used to do. There's like a memory spark. There's a whatever. You can go back to the original time and like recreate what you used to do together. That is something that if you have that. The other thing, something that has some excitement to it, something that has some risk.
So physical things like ice skating, snorkeling, roller skating, camping, even things that seem ridiculous, like throwing a ball back and forth and just talking. It's like something to shake you out of your normal routine. The vulnerability piece of trying something new together that you don't
already do like painting or drawing or pottery class or even going on a hike so you're seeing different things that they're not in your normal purview they had the idea of a surprise date where one person plans it and surprises the other person I mean for me the elements are physical moving my body in a different way than I normally do. That changes things up for me.
And having out of my comfort zone physically and or out of the predictable from a conversation perspective, standpoint, because I just check out, like I'm not even here anymore if it's not interesting. So we got like cards to ask questions. It's not like, oh, I'm coming up with them or he's coming up with them.
It's just like a neutral third party has made this thing because honestly, even bad surprises, I think are a net benefit. Totally. Totally. Is that true for you? Like when you're like, I'm surprised and I don't even like that thing about you, but it feels better than feeling like I know everything there is to know about you.
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Chapter 4: Is shared vulnerability key to a successful date night?
And then like little moments of connection and spark come and it's so precious. You can see it happening, but we forget that. Like I'll never forget when my kids said, I used to think when we need to have a serious talk or any kind of real talk, like a family moment where we got together, we should all sit down on the couch, stare at each other, call it a family meeting.
And nothing shuts down my family more. The second I sit everybody down on the couch, they start going, are we getting divorced? Is somebody getting divorced? Like it brings up trauma of the hard conversations in the past. It shuts down people, especially if you are a person who's struggling to connect with your partner. Both partners know that.
That is the underlying like thing bubbling in the relationship. So when you sit down at a table and stare at each other, people panic and you don't even know you're panicking, but you see it as a test of your relationship. Yes. It's not loose. It's not free. The person who thinks that they're the reason they can't connect panics more and can't open up because they're in fight or flight.
So I think if we measured all of the, bless their heart couples who are out to dinner, we would see that their nervous systems are frozen. We would see that all their shame is rising up and we would see how disembodied it is. Yeah. What you're talking about with like the movement and the walking, you know, how they say every emotional problem can be solved physically.
Like it's makes sense that movement parallel play would foster the conditions to let the connection come instead of the forcedness of staring at each other in the eyeballs.
Yes. Yes. If you can't figure out how to enjoy each other, you can both parallel play, enjoy something together and you are doing something together. I remember such a fun quirky thing. John planned a date one time where we live outside of Washington DC, like two miles. And he planned a date where we took the on off tourist bus all over Washington DC. And it was so much fun. And
And, you know, there was people from India and Texas and whatever. They're like, where are you from? We're like, see that house. We're from right there. And it was so fun. And we learned all this stuff about our city that we'd never learned before. It was so cheap and it was great. We both came back like so happy and we're just sitting beside each other.
Like, it's not like we were talking about anything. So yeah. There's fun, fun things that you can do that way.
You unknew your city. You dated your city.
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Chapter 5: How do you 'unknow' your partner to spark new interest?
Okay. So one of the things I feel like that's a challenge for us.
Us meaning you and me?
Yeah. And maybe all couples is that there's usually like a realm where one person is way more vulnerable and the other person is not. Okay. So for a very obvious example, I would give you throwing a ball back and forth. When you say that to me, I'm like, okay, I can tell who will be really vulnerable.
And I, as a person who did not during the early years of my life, learned to have a lot of agency in my physical prowess. I'm joking about it, but it's real. It's like, if I'm at a soccer game and the ball comes to me on the sideline as a mom, I have a full on
internal panic yeah I don't know how to kick this back and not look like I don't know what I'm doing also my ideal date would be like going to a museum there is a vulnerability in that that Abby has but I wouldn't you know so like I get confused about for whom sometimes the vulnerability is only for one person based on the kind of date you're choosing
Yeah. No, that's a really good point. So you have to either try to pick something that is neutral ground, especially if you have a power dynamic issue in your relationship, it certainly wouldn't fit to have the one person bearing all of the novelty and the vulnerability. So either something that is brand new to both of you or something that is more balanced.
It also brings up another point, which is that I can buy the prescription for date night for this reason. And you touched on it earlier about like the expectation.
So the research shows that often the ineffectiveness of date nights comes from it being a one-off thing because it's like so much pressure that we think we're going to go on one date night and it's going to do these wonders for our relationship and it's
that the benefit of having it be like a set thing in your life is that it, one can be kind of a dud, but you're not looking at that as confirmation that you shouldn't do date nights, that it's a regular part of your life. So you're not setting it up to these unrealistic expectations. And it can also be a way that maybe you alternate.
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Chapter 6: What are some creative date night ideas to try?
Yeah. I can't do that.
That's cool. You know, like I needed to see him do something different.
better than I was doing and that was good that tracks that's really cool I also like the tip of it not having to be at night truly that sounds silly but it's also anything that feels prescriptive and doesn't fit you like how many of us are not at our best at nighttime. Like that is just a totally arbitrary, this can be date breakfast. It can be date mid-afternoon. It can be date 3 p.m.
And then also one of my favorite suggestions, which is less, a little bit less relevant now to me, but was always the, this, maybe this isn't a problem for anyone else, but it's like the anticipatory mandatory make-out session after a can kind of put this weird pressure on the whole thing, especially for couples that have intimacy issues.
So if that's a goal I really like, this is so crass, but the fuck first. It's good. It's called fuck first. It's like, yeah, if that's an important part of it and there's like kind of a loaded thing around it, just if it's important to you, just do it first. then go off on your thing without that.
Gotta get back in time because else it's gonna be like one o'clock in the morning by the time I get to go to sleep.
Yeah, and then it's like, are we connecting enough during this to make that feel natural? Is this successful enough to make it feel like it's the cherry on the sundae or is this even a sundae enough to make the cherry? It's too much, you know?
I also think that just underscores the fact that we think that date night is a silver bullet. And if that isn't happening, If it feels obligatory and then it's the wrong type of date night. Yeah. Also, if that really is the point, if that is your ritual that you do that after date night and the date night isn't happy for either of you.
Then maybe you could just not do the date night and have the conversation and say like, wait, are we just doing this to like mark the calendar essentially for when we're going to make out? So like, why don't we just make out and then decide what we actually want to do?
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