Date Night or Date Breakfast?
Written by Penina Taylor
Date Night. We’ve all heard about the importance of it for a relationship. But is it really that crucial? Isn’t it just important to spend time together no matter where you are? Isn’t being home enough? And doesn’t whole-family time count? What is it about going on a date with your spouse or partner (or even best friend for that matter) that is so magical?
The “magic” is in what is called, “sacred time”. Sacred time helps us create an island in time that is outside of all the mundane pressures and patterns that we get stuck in, in life. Most people, if they’ve ever heard the term “sacred time” have probably heard it used in the context of meditation, yoga or a retreat, but it’s so much more than that.
The word sacred, which is often used in religious contexts, actually just means something that is set apart for a particular purpose. Yes, time set apart for religious observance such as prayer services or Shabbat qualify as sacred time, but anything you set time apart for can be sacred time. The key to fitting the definition of sacred time isn’t as much that there is a specific time that is set apart for a specific purpose as much as it is about the fact that this time is considered time that cannot be encroached upon. Sacred time is time that nothing, short of an emergency, can interfere with. Time we set apart for ourselves as well as time we set apart for our family, should be sacred time. Unfortunately, that is not usually the case.
Long before I got married I had heard about the importance of having a date night with my spouse. It’s supposed to be a time to put away all the cares of the world and just focus on “us”. It’s supposed to be a time that helps us get back to the kind of intimacy we developed when we were getting to know each other – the environment that caused us to fall in love. Back then the environment was devoid of obligations that married life naturally imposes; all we had to worry about was each other.
But even before children enter the picture, things crowd our schedule and start impinging on that relationship and time we spend focusing on it. When we are young and just starting out, work demands are often high and we tend to think that since we already spend all of our non-work time together, a date really isn’t that important. So we skip out on them.
If children come along (and even if they don’t there are other things that we could call our
“children” because they demand time and money resources) their needs take priority. It seems selfish and foolish to spend money and time on ourselves when the children or other obligations need both, and so once again, date night goes by the wayside, a victim of things more important.
If we happen to be fortunate enough to reach a point where the children are old enough that they don’t consume all our time and money, we find another phenomenon which threatens that sacred date night time – energy. We are still working hard but as we age that work takes a bigger toll on our body and by the end of the day, the last thing we feel like doing is getting dressed up and going somewhere in public. It’s easier to just eat dinner in front of the TV.
But easier doesn’t mean best. Especially when it comes to relationships.
Over time, long-term relationships develop a rhythm and a dynamic of being that becomes automatic. It defines how we interact with each other and what our “we” looks like, both to us, and to the outside world. And like a bank vault, it can be incredibly hard to break out of. When we spend all our time together within our own “four walls”, we interact with each other on autopilot – for the good or the bad – and our relationship gets monotonous, stale. Doing activities and going places that we aren’t usually together in helps us turn off the autopilot with each other. That’s why even couples who don’t have children or whose children are grown and out of the house, still need date night as much as those who are in the middle of the chaos of raising a family. It allows each partner to focus and connect rather than just coast. Yes, it takes more energy to really be present with your partner, but the return on investment is astronomical.
My husband and I have grown children and we both work from home. It’s very easy for us to think that we don’t need that sacred time. But we do. Unfortunately, for us though, the biggest obstacle to going out is that by the time we are
done working for the day we are both way too tired and lacking energy to go out. In fact, it often feels like it’s more work than it’s worth. So we recently tried a different tack.
Instead of doing date night once a week, we decided to do a date breakfast. We live in Israel and our weekend is Friday and Shabbat. But for most of the time we’ve lived here, Friday has been spent entirely on chores and cooking to get ready for Shabbat. This has essentially stolen our feeling of having a weekend. We work really hard on Friday, coast through Shabbat dinner and then collapse into bed. In the summer, by the time Shabbat is over, we are really ready to go to bed again, even though we slept a lot on Shabbat. And then that’s it – it’s time to start the work week again on Sunday morning.
So what we’ve done is we’ve resigned ourselves to buying some parts of our Shabbat meal prepared, making simple, quick dishes for the rest, and doing as much as we can on Thursday. Now, our Fridays aren’t as packed and so we’ve carved out our weekly sacred time for Friday morning. Instead of date night, we have date breakfast, and it’s wonderful. With nothing to do but talk to each other, and in a completely different environment, we break out of the autopilot and really connect. It also means that I go into Shabbat much more relaxed because I’m not on my feet the whole day.
For those of you who live in countries where the weekend is Saturday and Sunday, carving out time to go out for breakfast on Sunday mornings may be a good alternative to the date night that never quite works out. You might have to go early to get it in before all the activities with kids and community, but at least you’ll be awake!
Carving out sacred time for your relationship is an essential part of keeping it healthy – as important to it as eating right, drinking enough water and exercising is to your physical health. Whether you do it one evening per week or one morning, it’s not a luxury, it’s essential. You might think you can’t afford to do it, but the truth is – you can’t afford not to.
Carving out sacred time for your relationship is an essential part of keeping it healthy
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