Brad and I will be celebrating our 5 year anniversary in two weeks. We met a couple this week that inspired us. We met them while we were out on our date night. They are in there early 90s and have been together the last 60 years. When we spoke with them we each guessed their age to be around 67, when they told us 90 we were kind of in shock. During dinner they invited us to sit with them, so we did. They held hands just about the whole time. They told us they still go out to the movies once a week, to dinner another night and travel to another state/country for two weeks every 4 months! They still look at each other with love in their eyes. When we asked them what their secret is to staying so happy and active they laughed and said this. Date night. For the last 60 years they have gone out once a week, just the two of them. They told us even when they had brand new babies they made time for their date night and for each other. They told us that it’s what kept them together when all of their friends were getting divorced after 25 years of marriage once the kids left the house. They said their friends no longer knew their spouse, because they spent all their energy on their children and had forgot about what brought them together in the first place, so that once they kids left they were in the empty house just staring at each other. And this got me thinking, I have always been an avid supporter in social networks about making your husband your top priority, usually getting shunned by people who believe that children always come first… While, yes I agree that your children’s needs should come before your spouse’s wants, but your spouse’s wants should come before your children’s. Listening to this happy couple of 60 years with 5 grown children, 15 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, really proved to me the importance of this. You can’t lose your connection with your spouse. Marriage needs effort, by both. You need to make time for each other, and listen to each other and keep those date nights! The couple told us on nights when they were to broke go out anywhere that they just went parking! Something my husband is all too eager to do now LOL.
So whether you have been married for a year or thirty years nothing beats a date night with the one you love!
And 60 years from now Brad and I will still be going out on the town!
What a great story! My hubby and I will be married 14 years this October and I think the one thing we miss out on is date night. We live away from any family and still don’t know anyone who can watch our two kids so we can go out, but we are trying to work out with our neighbor’s college aged daughter who is home for the summer to let us have a movie night or two sometime soon. It will be the first time in a LONG time!