Dating My Husband

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Genesis 2:24

One of the first topics covered when Dave and I went through premarital counseling was the concept of "leaving and cleaving." At the beginning of our marriage, the hardest part for me was the leaving part, because I was someone who was very attached to my parents (especially my mom whom I considered to be my best friend and shared everything with). That said, I wasn't thrilled about moving to Maryland right after we said "I do,' but thought being with Dave was worth the trade-off and switching states was part of the deal. So, I went. 

While I am thankful that eventually we got the opportunity to move closer to family to raise our kids, I am also grateful for those first few years when God really separated us from everyone else and familiar territory so that we had that opportunity to cleave in a unique way that we wouldn't have otherwise had.

Now more than ever we are needing to put that biblical advice into practice as together we're trying to figure out the best way to raise our children, how to deal with the losses we've both faced recently, what steps we need to take to accommodate for my health limitations, and which ministries we should be participating in this current season. The problem is that finding those opportunities to cleave is much more difficult than it was in those foundational years of our marriage. With Dave commuting an hour to work, he is getting up extra early each morning, and by the time he gets home and we have supper, bathe the kids, and put the little ones to bed in the evenings, we are ready to hit the hay ourselves - leaving very little space for quality time together.

Back in 2012, I decided that since we'd been married six years, I'd like to celebrate by trying to purposefully get more time with my hubby. My goal was to get in six date nights that year - one in honor of every year we'd spent together as husband and wife....And we did it!...kind of, though half of those dates involved Reid tagging along since he was still a nursing infant. 

This year, I decided to try again, striving to get in seven outings together.

We started off on the right foot by celebrating our seventh anniversary with dinner at Joe's Steakhouse and a little trip to the bowling alley for what I think was our first date since Reid's birth.

While I'm not too bad of a bowler, this fella beat me twice that night.

And who kept the cuties? My Momma :)

In August, we had another opportunity to get out of the house alone. My friend Melanie and I decided to do a little swap for date nights last summer, so after I watched her daughter for her and her hubby to go out, Dave and I got our turn. This time we tried out a new Italian restaurant in town called Osteria, and afterwards, on a whim, went for a quick drive up to one of the overlooks on the Skyline Drive.

 

While we started out at a good pace, then came a lull. September through December were pretty hectic with Caleb starting school and bringing home lots of germs for everyone to share. Plus, Dave had a lot going on at work and needed to make several trips to the Midwest this fall to be with his mom and family. That said, dates just sort of fell to wayside for awhile. One day in January though, I really felt like the two of us needed some time to just get away with each other, and thankfully my mom was willing to come over and keep an eye on the kids so we could enjoy dinner together at Houlihans. We weren't gone long, but just enough to get refreshed and talk a little without interruption.

Happy about it!

For Christmas, I bought Dave tickets to a once a year dinner theater they do at Joe's Steakhouse, so a week after our previous date, mom took the kids again so we could have a bit more time together, savoring our meals and enjoying adult conversation instead of trying to keep Reid from wearing his food, having to talk Hadley into eating hers, and listening to Caleb's mile-a-minute detailed stories that we love but don't always let us get a word in edgewise. (Disclaimer: I do LOVE my kids, but I also LOVE those rare times with just Dave too.) 

Then, we fell off track again!...I attempted to plan a night out at one point early in the spring, but right after our pastor's daughter arrived to sit for us, I came down with the stomach flu and had to send her home. Thankfully though, things went as planned the next time I invited her back to try again so that Dave and I could go out to Houlihans and use the birthday coupon they sent me.

We didn't quite make it to seven dates to celebrate seven years, but we got in a couple more "just-the-two-of-us" outings than the previous year so that's progress, right?

As I did the math (after realizing that on each of these dates we were only out for about 2-3 hrs each time), I was surprised to discover we'd only spent maybe 12 hrs max the entire year out of the house as a couple. That might be typical for parents with young children, but reflecting on those numbers, it seems we still need to be working on creating more planned space with each other to ensure we keep a healthy marriage. With that in mind, I'm definitely motivated this upcoming year, especially now that our kids aren't infants, to try to prioritize more time together. Instead of letting our busy schedules take over and squeezing out that quality time, I might need to reserve a few nights on the calendar ahead of time the same way I do monthly with our family nights and special individual nights with the kids. Rather than letting my fears of leaving our kids with babysitters stop us from going out, I'm going to make more of an effort to pray through my fears, ask God to help me with discernment, and rely on those I do trust to help us more because it is important. And, despite those feelings of guilt that arise when I think about asking people for help or leaving the kids, I'm going to remind myself that God's Word commands us to cleave and take advantage of the resources He's provided so my husband and I can do so.