wwarby / Foter / CC BY

One of the coolest characteristics of the couple who helped me realize how crappy of a husband I was is their date night.

Every Friday night.  For decades.

And everybody knows Friday nights are not available.

That's date night.  Don't even ask.

Very, very cool.

They probably have gone on more “dates” in 2013 than we have in the last three years.

Sad, I know.

Some of that is because of fear of commitments, not wanting the way and I'd have to cancel.

So I chose to passively disappoint my wife by planing and doing less.

And date night never was….

But now we're moving on.

To a new house.

With plenty of family around.

And a new gig.  (Note there's no link yet for the gig side.  I'll post and link to come when everything's final.  Still working out the details on this.)

With all this comes new opportunities to design the right lifestyle.

A new – and improved – me.

And a new – and improved – us.

I have several plans for the time we'll have because of the new gig and being closer to family.

I've been jotting notes about things I want to do with that time.

And I've been prioritizing them.

Number one:  Defending date night.  Ferociously.

For the last several years, “date night” has come up more than a few times.

But it was more of a theory than a practice.

“We should have more date nights,” one of us would say.

“OK, let's do it at least a couple times per month,” the other one would respond.

We'd get a babysitter two weeks later.

Have one date night.

Then back to normal.

No mas!

Here's the goal.  52 weeks.  52 date nights.  Starting tomorrow.

Full disclosure.  Tomorrow we have a wedding.  So it is kind of a “gimme,” since we planned on having this night without the kids for a while.  But that's OK.  Being together and able to focus on each other only is what this is all about.

If It happens to be a convenient day to start that's OK.

The important part is having time each week to focus only on us.

So I'll plan the day and the activity with my wife each week based on what we have going on that week.

Boom!  Date night.

Then I'll defend it.  Like a lion.

Be warned.  Mess with date night and you'll get bit.

Do you have date night?  How do you plan it?  Do you defend it?

I'm also accepting recommendation for fun date nights.  Simple, fun activities.