What Does It Mean to Date Your Wife?

What does it mean to date your wife?

I don’t like this cliché piece of marriage advice. You rarely get enough information, because we all know what dating is and means. Dating means turning up the romance knob, glancing at her with that shining light in your eyes. It means sacrificing for her. It means pursuing her and courting her. Dating means big displays of affection and proclamations of undying love. Dating means over the top gift giving and trip taking.

Amid all of this is another key aspect of ‘dating’, one we cannot recreate no matter how hard we want to. Those little things called hormones. Specifically dopamine.

“Why does love fade? Our brains are programmed to crave the unexpected and thus to look to the future, where every exciting possibility begins. But when anything, including love, becomes familiar, that excitement slips away, and new things draw our attention. The scientists who studied this phenomenon named the buzz we get from novelty reward prediction error, and it means just what the name says.” -D. Lieberman & M. Long

I suppose this is the main reason I dislike this suggestion of ‘date your wife’, anytime I go searching for relationship insights. Not to mention we are not seventeen anymore. We have been married for over a decade and have spent all of that time raising children. Been through financial crisis and other major life stressors. Made our vows and through countless tribulations have reinforced our commitment to those oaths through our efforts.

How are you supposed to ‘date’ someone as if your goal is to enrapture them and marry them? Your intent is to build a family and experience all of life’s wonders with them, when you already have. Amnesia?

Well, these thoughts led to me pondering this prescription for some benefit. I believe I found a few pieces that this cliché guidance can facilitate that will improve your relationship with your bride.

Mutually shared experiences can foster connection.

Weather miserable and difficult, or fun and easy, experiences together form memories. Those recollections produce shared meaning and talking points that can be re-visited and re-experienced through recollection with your wife. Dating can be a a process of creating those encounters. Go places and do things.

To place and even finer point on this, partake in shared obsessions, invite her to experience new ones and ask her if she would like company in some of hers that you have yet to experience. This does not have to be as drab as movies and dinner. Actually, engaging in physical activity during these encounters involves more of your senses and enhance the memory formation.

Where focus goes, energy flows. What you spend time on will improve, what you neglect will wither.

Another way of saying this, what gets measured gets managed. Or simply be willful about your relationship. Life’s daily mundane currents can overpower the best of us. So many couples both work full-time jobs, go to school, care for children, care for animals, engage in hobbies and spend time with friends. We, as husbands, must be purposeful about our activities we partake in to strengthen our marriage with our wives. The simple thing to do is to ignore this, to go through the routine of daily life and hope for the best.

You will grow together, or you will grow apart. If you are not calculated, she might slip away. Humans are social animals and we all need attention and love.

Adding just these two frameworks to your relationship should serve you and your spouse. I think not undertaking these subjects will eventually lead to heartache. So, date your wife. Initiate the plans for experiences and be premeditated about how you direct your energy and love toward her.

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Previously Published on medium

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