Our Date Night With No Sitter Is Twenty Minutes on Wednesday

Last Wednesday I had both hands in a bowl of flour at recipe testing when one of my friends asked when David and I had last been out. She didn't mean how were we doing. She meant out, with a door and a restaurant and nobody under twelve. I said I'd have to think, and then I thought out loud for longer than was polite, and she just waited with her mixer going. The last real answer I could find was somewhere in the spring.

We're fine, and I say that first because it's what people want to hear, but the question rode home with me on top of the foil plate. We do keep something going most weeks and I'd never given it a name. In July I wrote about eating dinner on the back step when we couldn't get a sitter. That was one evening. This is the routine that came after it, now that school is back and the calendar has filled in.

Choose the night that is already half yours

Start by writing out the week and crossing off what's taken. For us Monday is family home evening, Tuesday is baseball practice with David coaching beside Caleb until the light goes, Thursday is his work-from-home day with the walk, Friday is pizza and a movie, Saturday is games and Sunday is church and the roast. That left Wednesday, and I'd love to say I chose it for a good reason. It did have one thing going for it. I'm out of the house all afternoon testing recipes, so I come home with a covered plate, and a plate of something is a perfectly good excuse to sit down. Last week's brown butter cornbread was better cold.

Then get the clock right, because the clock is what kills these. Our evenings run on a schedule I can't move. Ben has been asleep since around seven. Family prayer is at 8:15 and Lily goes up after that. Caleb's door is closed, which at eleven tells me nothing except that he isn't asking for anything. So we start at nine, in the garage by the space heater while David sands whatever he's building, or at the kitchen table with the plate between us. In September it was the front porch, but it gets cold by nine now.

Twenty minutes, then he's in bed by 9:30.

If your youngest goes down at six-thirty and your oldest at ten, your clock is different from mine. The point is to find the gap after the last small person is down and before either of you is asleep on the couch, and to name it as a time, not a hope.

Give the kid talk its ten minutes

Most couples I know say the talk shouldn't be about the children, and I understand why. Mine tends to be about nothing else if I let it, so I give the logistics a ten-minute allowance and a stop. Who needs a ride Saturday, whether Lily's boots still fit, what Caleb said at supper that I'm still turning over. I say it fast, David says what he needs to, and when we've both gone quiet that's the edge of it.

What comes after is small. What he's working on at his desk, since I get only the version he tells over dinner. A hymn I'm planning for the Sunday after next, because I'm the ward music chair and half my brain is already in the choir seats. Whether he's sleeping. Once, for most of the twenty minutes, whether the neighbor's tree is on our side of the fence. It doesn't have to be a conversation anybody would repeat.

What can you say when you're both too tired to talk?

We've kept maybe five Wednesdays out of the eight since school started on August 19. The other three went to a stomach bug, a night Ben got out of bed four times, and a problem at David's work that wouldn't wait.

The harder nights are the ones where you both show up and neither of you has a word. Agree on a sentence ahead of time. Ours is "I've got nothing tonight," and the other one answers, "Okay, can I sit here anyway?" We split the cornbread and look at the wall. It took us a few tries to believe the other person meant it kindly.

When there's a little more in the tank I use three questions. What's been heavy this week that I can't see? What do you need from me before Saturday? Is there anything I said that you're still carrying? The third costs something, so we skip it most weeks. About one time in four David has an answer, and I would rather hear it at nine in a garage than in November.

The Family Proclamation says husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children, and that fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Equal partners means a tired husband isn't lagging behind a rested wife or the other way around. We're both just tired, and it helps to say so.

Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.

Doctrine and Covenants 42:22

That one is short and plain, and it says nothing about a restaurant.

Swapping nights with another couple

On paper this is the best answer for a family on a budget. Each couple keeps the other's kids at home one night a month, nobody pays, nobody drives a sitter. If I were setting one up I'd put the first date on the calendar before leaving the parking lot. Whoever hosts first, the visiting kids come in pajamas so the pickup is a carry to the car. Skip "we should." The couples I've watched make it work have a standing night.

We haven't, I'm sorry to say. The ward couple and I said "we should" again in September, and both our calendars are full, and the two households haven't been free on the same night since May. So I count it as a plan and not a practice.

Using the temple recommend interview as a reminder

I'm not going to describe what's asked in a recommend interview. That's between each of us and the person across the desk, and it's an individual interview, not one we do together. What I will say is that when one of us has an appointment on the calendar, it makes me look at the other person. I wonder what's been going unsaid between us this month, and so the Wednesday before an interview I'm more likely to ask the third question. It isn't a marriage check-in and I'm not claiming it is. It's a date on the fridge that happens to make me pay attention.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Church say married couples have to go on dates?

I haven't found anything that says so. The Church teaches that husband and wife are responsible to love and care for each other, but nobody hands out a night of the week or a budget.

How long should a talk like this be?

Ours is twenty minutes and I wouldn't go longer on a school night. Some Wednesdays we run out at twelve and that's fine too. If a subject needs more than twenty, give it its own night and not a bigger Wednesday.

What if one of us wants to do this and the other doesn't?

David was the reluctant one, for what it's worth. He thought a scheduled talk sounded like a performance review. I told him it could be in the garage while he sanded, and he came around when he saw he could keep his hands busy. Find the version where the reluctant one doesn't feel watched.

Is it selfish to put the kids to bed so we can talk?

They're going to bed anyway. I'd feel differently if I were hurrying a hard bedtime to get to it, and on those nights I skip the talk and try again the next week.

Wednesday is our night, but I'm curious how it goes in your house. What do you say to each other on the nights when neither one has anything left?

with love, Melissa