Week 1: Presence: Commit to intentionally spending time together. Dream-storm and share what you hope to accomplish.
Fitz committed to the idea of participating in and giving unfiltered feedback on the 52 Cheap Dates Challenge this year, mainly because I was excited about it and he was being supportive. He knew enough to not want to see the list. He thought it would make him anxious. He’s right. But, aside from not increasing his anxiety, what did he want to get out of this?
Fitz and I spent three days off together around New Year’s really focusing on us. He remarked that it reminded him of our time living together while I was in grad school. At that point, our relationship was still fairly new and we had moved out of state, away from friends and family. We didn’t know anyone and had to rely on each other. They were good years. Though he didn’t come right out and say it to me, as he talked about this project with others over the phone, his main goal for doing this is for us to get back to that place where we were relying on each other and spending more time together as a couple.
What do I hope to accomplish? We would say it differently, but I agree with Fitz. We love each other, but wouldn’t it be amazing to have that feeling of falling back in love with each other? What if we could explore our town and our relationship at a deeper level? Couldn’t we at least laugh at the shared experience of dates we hated and appreciate that we attempted them together? Heck, if we’re dream-storming, I’ll take a full life, a strengthened relationship, no debt, a decluttered home, a balanced partnership, and the daily opportunity to feel gratitude and abundance. In the end though, I would be stoked if we just spent more intentional time together.
We have failed for years to date each other. I don’t think we’re unique in this regard. With many of my friends, not dating your spouse is because raising a family is a full-time job on top of full-time jobs that provide paychecks. However, we don’t have kids. Shouldn’t we be able to manage a date a week? Well, we haven’t.
Several years ago, Fitz and I each worked about 80 hours a week, sometimes more. He was a cook and I was an elementary school principal. We worked opposite ends of the 24-hour-day and when we did see each other, it looked like a scene from the zombie apocalypse. We just needed sleep. We would go out occasionally, but with limited free time, our time out together was spent with a common group of friends, so we barely even talked with each other while we were out.
With a change in jobs, we finally had more time to spend with each other. Problem solved. Except, it wasn’t. Even though I calendared in a “Wednesday date night” each week, we were spending more time at home near each other but not really together. It was making me resentful of date night because I was purposely reserving the time, not going to a concert or not staying late at work, and then we spent time at home not really doing anything together.
Fitz and I are opposites. Like the Yin and Yang, we complement each other and each of us has an element of the other, but if you picture the symbol, the dots representing core similarities are quite small. We don’t have much in common when it comes to how we like to spend time. Fitz loves to read and watch TV or movies. I like to listen to music and take pictures. Fitz likes the city life and I want to be in nature. Fitz hates crowds and I love experiencing live music. Fitz loves detailed descriptions. I want just the facts. He’s more romantic and I’m more robotic. What in the world would we to do together? I looked at ideas online and kept thinking, “These ideas would induce arguments instead of bringing us closer.”
I wanted us to focus on strengthening our relationship, especially during activities where one person would be excited about it and the other would dread it. I needed to keep it simple so my husband wouldn’t think it was some “psychological-mumbo-jumbo.” I read quite a few research articles and in the end, went with 11 Qualities Every Truly Happy Relationship Has In Common, a compilation of qualities that marriage therapists recommend couples develop to maintain happy, lasting relationships. Yes, it was from Huff Post. No, I’m not proud. The peer-reviewed research was too full of psychological terms.
I picked a variety of activities that I thought most people could do regardless of location, relationship status, and budget, and attached a relationship focus based on what I anticipated to be possible conflicts or vulnerabilities that could show up during that activity. If I have to attempt a new sport, I want my husband to be mindful of showing compassion during that date. If he has to observe animals in nature, I will be present with him and not focused on getting great pictures. If we both have to go to a damned parade, we will need to keep a sense of humor. Knowing your own partner, if you want to select a different focus from the 11 qualities based on a particular activity, go ahead!
Here’s to attempting 52 Cheap Dates in 2019. We’ll keep you updated and come December, we’ll look back and see how we did. Will we come closer to just spending more intentional time together or will we meet our dream-storm version of a strengthened relationship where we rely on each other and feel grateful for an abundant life? Feel free to place your bets on this challenge. I think people still owe us money for taking bets on how short our marriage would last. We’re up to 15 years.