This article from the Evening Tribune is a good one:

“It is not only important, it is critical to a healthy marriage,” said Kristy Hemmele, a licensed clinical professional counselor at Counseling and Family Services in Peoria, Ill. “The divorce rate is, like, 50 percent. One out of two marriages end in divorce. You court before you’re married and you have that fun. Then you settle in life, and life begins to happen, kids begin to happen, bills. You become comfortable and you forget. You don’t feel valued by your spouse. You don’t feel respected. And when that doesn’t happen, a spouse has a tendency to wander to someone else who would make them feel important, make them feel valued.”

“If they don’t take time to spend with each other, they lose track of who they are as a couple,” said Leia Ogburn of Ogburn Counseling Services in Peoria Heights, Ill. “It’s so easy in this day and age with all the pressure we have from our careers, from all the activities that children get involved in, from outside influences such as our extended families, our friends. It’s so easy to lose sight of their relationship – the couple relationship.”

Click through, read the article. Then phone your partner and schedule your first date night. Because it’s important. One of the most important things you will ever do for your relationship.

If you can still think of great excuses why you can’t have a regular date night, maybe you should read this.

And if you do want to start your own reconnecting with your partner, here is a great place to start.

Happy Dating.

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And on Monday, Eliza Bern’s article in mX sparked even more conversation on the topic.

Bern suggested the way forward was through unconditional acceptance and same-sex marriage. I agree 100 percent.

Equality is not something that can be done in fractions. There can be no “mostly” equal.

This may sound a little free-love of me but I do wish everyone could just get along.

So what is stopping this country from joining the likes of Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa and Portugal in legalising same-sex marriage?

There are some very persistent arguments that seem to be trotted out regularly by objectors.

Step forward the most vocal: religious groups.

They have one of the saddest, and at the same time, most laughable arguments.

They say active homosexuality is wrong because it means sex outside of marriage. But they’re against the one thing that would solve the problem – marriage.

I don’t think we’ll ever get the religious institutions to agree. But the church is hardly scandal free and is fast becoming more irrelevant in marriage, even for straight couples, with more people electing a garden wedding or city hall over the constraining and antiquated ways of the church.

We were married in a Catholic Church (we are not religious; but it meant a lot to our family that we have a church wedding) and I struggled to find acceptable church passages, prayers and hymns that wouldn’t insult our guests who are in same-sex relationships, or openly gay.

Most readings from the church preach marriage as the union of a man and a woman (and more still that didn’t position women as subservient – thought that is another matter entirely). Which is a long way from the love, forgiveness and acceptance that God is supposed to be about.

Then there are the people who say legally recognised gay unions would threaten the institution of marriage.

How can allowing more people the opportunity to get married do anything but strengthen the institution?

As a recent Facebook post pointed out, philandering straight guys such as Tiger Woods and Jesse James are surely more of a threat – soiling the reputation of marriage with a blatant disregard for their spouses.

Non-famous heterosexuals are also doing a good hatchet job. A 40 per cent divorce rate? It’s a joke.

But that’s not as bad as the postman in Germany who married his dying asthmatic cat last month.

In the same week, a Korean man married his pillow in front of a priest.

And last year a Japanese video gamer married a video game girlfriend that lives inside his Nintendo DS in a legally binding ceremony in Guam.

Yet in Australia we won’t give two rational, adult humans – who love each other and want to be together – the opportunity to declare that to society in their own marriage, just because they’re of the same sex?

Civil unions or registered partnerships are a step in the right direction, but are still in that grey “mostly equal” zone. It won’t be enough until it’s bonafide, proper, legal marriage.

The gay community could never ruin the sanctity of marriage. If anything, it would revitalise a flagging, boring old institution that is in desperate need of a fresh breath of life.

There’s never been a better time than now. Legalize it so we can stop wasting our breath pushing rational arguments on a government that is clearly too blinded by their own religious prejudices to see clearly.

Related posts:

1. mX Column: Lessons from Marriage
2. Will Marriage Always Have a Place in Society?
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In it, she explains the brain chemistry of the stages of love, why we cheat, why women rejoining the workforce is going to impact romantic love and the role that our prescription-happy Western society may well have in the demise of romantic love…. It’s 24 minutes long, but it’s fascinating. Grab a coffee and sit to watch.

Related posts:

1. mX Column: Casual Sex? Not Always Casual.
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3. Men vs. Women on Love, Sex and Romance

The Daily Mail reported last week that: “More than six out of ten adults in a relationship admit there is a lot they could do to improve their love life – and four out of ten admit they have considered leaving their partner.

One in ten no longer even trusts their partner.

More than half of those polled said their partner was no longer the ‘affectionate and giving’ person they were when they first started dating.

And for 33 per cent acts of spontaneity – such as booking romantic trips away, cooking a favourite meal or bursting in with a bouquet of flowers – are all but dead-and-gone.”

People do try harder at the start of their relationships – that’s just a matter of hormones. We are given floods of spontaneity hormones and a drive to want to please our partners, courtesy of love-drugs such as dopamine and seratonin flooding our nervous systems.

But it’s not designed to last (we’d barely eat or sleep if it did!), Daters, which is why it naturally wears off over time, only to be replaced by more placid, comforting, bonding hormones that keep couples in longterm relationships.

Of course we all crave that initial excitement, for the rest of our lives. And with a little effort, even couples that have been married for years can recapture it.

But that’s the problem. That particular plan smacks of effort. And we humans are nothing if not inherently lazy.

So I say? 6 out of 10 people need to try harder.

The top 5 complaints about relationships were:

1. Lack of spontaneity
2. Lack of romance
3. Terrible sex life
4. No time to give each other attention
5. Lack of time to talk

Quite honestly, I feel ridonkulous even spelling this solution out for people because to us, it’s so blaringly obvious. It’s the same drum we’ve been beating for two years now, and will keep beating until people hear us.

To have a romantic, exciting relationship – to have a relationship where you can give each other attention and can talk properly on a regular basis – all of which will lead to a great sex life… it’s as simple as making time for each other and rekindling that dating couple that you used to be.

DATE NIGHT. Do date night. Regularly. Do new things every week. Take it in turns to do new things every week. Get inspiration from the ridiculously easy date ideas generator that we made especially for you!

If you don’t TAKE the time, you’ll never HAVE the time.

I’m sorry, but this is not Hollywood. Romance doesn’t “just happen”. It’s going to require some effort at the start, and then before you know it, it will become natural. You’ll be part of a loving couple. Get yourselves into the routine and stop bitching about it when you haven’t even tried to make it work properly yet.

Too harsh?

Related posts:

1. “Some People are Just Happier in a Relationship”
2. Living With Messy People
3. mX Column: Damn Smug Morning People

As you know, we’re all about relationships with intent here at $30 Date Night. Break your usual routine and make your partner’s day by buying them a sweet little something to lift their spirits and let them know you’ve been thinking of them.

Here are seven great suggestions to get you started.

1. Their favourite sweet treat
What is their favourite chocolate bar? Or perhaps their favourite cake or slice? Do they love pretty cupcakes? Custard tarts? Either pick one up from the store or if you have the time, make it especially for them from scratch.

2. A bunch of seasonal flowers
Some pretty tulips or romantic roses, or even a hand-picked posy of wildflowers is the perfect ‘I was thinking of you’ gift. Pop them in a vase next to your bed and watch them smile each morning when they wake up to their beautiful fresh flowers.

3. A new album
Pop into a music shop and pick them up the latest CD from their favourite artist, or get onto iTunes and download it for them as a surprise. Better yet, make them a playlist or a mixtape of songs that remind you of them.

4. A book or magazine
Buy, beg, borrow or steal (no, don’t steal. That’s wrong and you know it.) a book that your sweetie has been meaning to read or you know they’ll adore. If the latest issue of their favourite magazine has just come out, pick it up for them on your way past the newsstand.

5. Something to make their life easier
Do they love apples? Get them one of those apple slicer things that cuts all the segments and cores the apple all at once. Do they love reading but always are leaving their books face down to keep their page? Pick them up a pretty little bookmark. Do they like to take their coffee with them to work every day? Get them a new thermos to keep it piping hot.

Figure out something that will enhance your partner’s daily ritual in a tiny, little way.

6. An actual, real-life photo
All those photos you have on your camera and on your computer and none of them have escaped digital clutches? Print and frame a beautiful photo of the two of you that they can keep next to the bed or on their desk.

7. Accessorize them!
Perhaps you’ve noticed they could do with a new scarf or mittens, or a pretty new pair of costume earrings or a bangle. If you see something that you think they’d like, pick it up especially for them.

Related posts:

1. 6 Fruit-and-Flower (4th) Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas
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3. 8 Paper (First) Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas

Below, Steve Cooper tells us a little bit about his website and gives us some marriage advice. Steve and his wife Jessica have been married for two years, but together for twelve.

When did you start Hitched Media?
I came up with the idea for Hitched in the late 1990s. It was originally going to launch as a print magazine and website, but we decided to scrap the magazine and launch exclusively online. The website officially launched July 1, 2006.

What inspired you to start Hitched Media?
I grew up in a stable and loving family with two working parents. In addition, just about all my friends came from families where both of their parents were together. When I moved away for college, however, it seemed just about everyone I met came from a divorced family; that’s when I saw a need for a marriage magazine. At the time I was studying journalism and began doing research to find out what kind of help and resources were out there. I also began to research the effects broken families had. There were obviously lots of books, therapy, and the like, but I saw an enormous need for an ongoing resource to not try to save broken marriages, but to address the happily ever after part. There were (and still are) a lot of publications that discuss marriage, but none focused exclusively on how to be happily married. I found it amazing that there were so many resources helping people land the perfect man or woman, how to plan the perfect wedding, how to be a parent, yet nothing focused on how to be married. So, I got my degree in journalism and eventually launched Hitchedmag.com with the help of life-long friend and co-founder Gabriel Lefrancois.

How can couples make the most out of the resources you’re providing them?
One of the things I take pride in is the fact that Hitched is for men and women. In fact, 48 percent of our readers are men, which surprises a lot of people. Both men and women want marriage to work, they just don’t always know how. So if some women think their husband won’t read it, they’re probably mistaken. So the first thing is I highly recommend sharing our content.

Second, our tagline is to “entertain, educate and inspire.” For people to take full advantage of Hitched, I’d recommend not to use it just as a resource to fix problem (although we have lots of great information for that), but also a place to get ideas. I refer to Hitched all the time to get ideas of things to do in my own marriage. It’s amazing how all the little things can add up over time. Obviously as the editor, I see every piece of content we produce so I can’t help but absorb what we do. For others, we try to make Hitched as accessible as possible from the articles, podcasts and the Married Life social network to our newsletters, Twitter and Facebook pages. I’d recommend that couples sign up for one (or all of these things) and check the site often. We’re constantly adding new sections and launching new features.

Lastly, I’d recommend that couples share this information with their friends and family. I believe things like good relationships are contagious. When your friends see that you and your spouse go out on dates and rave about how fun they are, they’ll want to follow suit. Marriage and relationships are very intimate so for many they don’t discuss it with others. I think you can gain a lot of support and motivation when you open up and get the ball rolling.

What is your most valuable piece of advice that you would like to pass on to couples about marriage?
If I had to offer one piece of advice it would be to maintain constant respectful communication. With the nearly 1,000 articles we have on our site at the core of most of them is open and proper communication. Of course there are many other facets to relationship issues, but being able to communicate properly is a huge first step. Of course, I also encourage couples to have fun and do what works for them as a couple. I know that if I recommend people to have a date night every Friday, that won’t work for many couples.

What do you think is the most difficult part of building a marriage?
I actually don’t think having a successful marriage is that hard. I think where most people fail is in deprioritizing their relationship. For too many couples, they give greater attention to their kids, cars, work, pets, you name it. I think too many people take their spouse for granted and then only make an effort once things have really gotten bad. To keep a marriage strong couples need to continue to appreciate and court each other. They need to make time to connect with each other, plan and execute goals. They need to also play together.

What strategies do you use in your own marriage to ensure you and your wife stay happy and loved-up?
One thing my wife and I deeply agree on is that we’re still individuals who need to do our own things. For example, I play poker with my friends on the weekends and my wife never gives me a hard time because she knows how much I enjoy spending that time with my friends. In fact, we both encourage each other to pursue our hobbies and interests. It’s these individual interests that make each of us who we are. It gives us things to talk about. As long as we continue to make time for each other and stay courteous in the process, this system has worked really well for us. Knowing that my wife is encouraging of my interests just makes them that much more enjoyable.

Do you two do date night? What’s your favourite thing to do together?
Yes, we do date nights all the time. At minimum we schedule a secret date night once a month where we rotate planning a secret date and surprising the other person. We even budget for these dates.

We’ve been on a lot of great dates over the years so it’s hard to pick out a best one. My wife and I both love sports and a few of my favorites involve sporting events. One date my wife won tickets from her work for box seats for a hockey game. It also included valet parking and money to spend on snacks. I was already a hockey fan, but my wife had never been to a live game before and she really enjoyed it. Another sporting event was a live mixed martial arts event–yes, my wife is a huge mma fan, as am I. We’ve been to lots of movies with dinners and walks, had a night at the arcade, played laser tag, gone to amusements parks, played miniature golf, tasted new restaurants, experienced Medieval Times, raced go-carts, gone to an art show, taken a stroll along a local lake, and more. Now that I’m thinking about it, one of my favorites was taking our entire date night budget and going to a local cheese shop and purchasing a spread of cheeses. When my wife came home from work I had already laid out the cheeses, lit candles and had some Dean Martin playing in the background.

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Okay, I’ll stop being snarky now.

Because it’s great.

It really is great that we have yet another solid testimonial for our date night philosophy.

Before their date night adventure started, Tracy said she “honestly can’t remember the last time Russ and I even had a proper conversation. We are like zombies on autopilot.”

The couple are only in their twenties and seven months into their marriage, but unfortunately as we all know it doesn’t take long for things to get a little stale. They have two children together and they put all their energy into making the kids happy.

But guess what?

If Mum and Dad aren’t getting along, the kids aren’t happy either.

Dubious as they were that it would help, once Russ and Tracy had done a picnic, a dinner date, cooked dinner at home and gone to a salsa class, they had sufficiently rekindled their connection to the point where they were talking, laughing, having great sex again and have even started planning their next night out.

The article is a good read, you can see it here.

So what will it take for you to give date night a whirl? Does a one month challenge sound too intimidating?

What have you got to lose?

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“We love your body. If we’re in love with you, we love your body. Your potbelly, everything. Even if you’re insecure about something, we love your body. You feel like you’re not this or that? We love your body. We embrace everything. Because it’s you.

Speaking of your body, you don’t understand the power of your own smell. Any woman who is currently with a man is with him partly because she loves the way he smells. And if we haven’t smelled you for a day or two and then we suddenly are within inches of you, we swoon. We get light-headed. It’s intoxicating. It’s heady.

We remember forever what you say about the bodies of other women. When you mention in passing that a certain woman is attractive — could be someone in the office, a woman on the street, a celebrity, any woman in the world, really — your comment goes into a steel box and it stays there forever. We will file the comment under “Women He Finds Attractive.” It’s not about whether or not we approve of the comment. It’s about learning what you think is sexy and how we might be able to convey it. It’s about keeping our man by knowing what he likes.

We also remember everything you say about our bodies, be it good or bad. Doesn’t matter if it’s a compliment. Could be just a comment. Those things you say are stored away in the steel box, and we remember these things verbatim. We remember what you were wearing and the street corner you were standing on when you said it.

Never complain about our friends — even if we do. No matter how many times we say a friend of ours is driving us crazy, you are not to pile on. Not because it offends us. But because it adds to the weight that we carry around about her.

Remember what we like. When I first started dating my husband, I had this weird fascination with the circus and clowns and old carnival things and sideshow freaks and all that. About a month after we started dating, he bought me this amazing black-and-white photo book on the circus in the 1930s, and I started sobbing. Which freaked him out. I thought, Oh, my God, I mentioned this three or four weeks ago and talked about it briefly, but he was really listening to me. And he actually went out and researched and found this thing for me. It was amazing.

We want you to order Scotch. It’s the most impressive drink order. It’s classic. It’s sexy. Such a rich color. The glass, the smell. It’s not watered down with fruit juice. It’s Scotch. And you ordered it.

Stand up, open a door, offer a jacket. We talk about it with our friends after you do it. We say, “Can you believe he stood up when I approached the table?” It makes us feel important. And it makes you important because we talk about it.

No shorts that go below the knee. The ones almost like capri pants, the ones that hover somewhere between the kneecap and the calf? Enough with those shorts. They are the most embarrassing pants in the world. They should never be worn. No woman likes those.

Also, no tank tops. In public at least. A tank top is underwear. You’re walking around in your underwear. Too much.

No man should be on Facebook. It’s an invasion of everyone’s privacy. I really cannot stand it.

You don’t know this, but when we come back from a date, we feel awkward about that transition from our cute outfit into sexy lingerie. We don’t know how to do this gracefully. It’s embarrassing. We have to find a way to slip into another room, put on the outfit as if it all happened very easily, and then come out and it’s: Look at me! Look at the sexy thing I’ve done! For you, it’s the blink of an eye. It’s all very embarrassing. Just so you know.

Panties is a wonderful word. When did you stop saying “panties”? It’s sexy. It’s girlie. It’s naughty. Say it more.

About ogling: The men who look, they really look. It doesn’t insult us. It doesn’t faze us, really. It’s just — well, it’s a little infantile. Which is ironic, isn’t it? The men who constantly stare at our breasts are never the men we’re attracted to.

There are better words than beautiful. Radiant, for instance. It’s an underused word. It’s a very special word. “You are radiant.” Also, enchanting, smoldering, intoxicating, charming, fetching.

Marriage changes very little. The only things that will get a married man laid that won’t get a single man laid are adultery and whores. Intelligence and humor (and your smell) are what get you laid. That’s what got you laid when you were single. That’s what gets you laid when you’re married. Everything still works in marriage: especially intelligence and humor. Because the sexiest thing is to know you.”

Taken from Esquire. If you head over there, you can see some damn fine pics of Christina in a nifty little slideshow.

The woman oozes pure class and I’m pretty sure most every lovely lady on the planet will agree with what she has to say. I especially love her note on marriage at the end… husbands, it is not enough to simply grunt at us and expect it to be turned up. Put some damn effort in as if you were wooing us all over again.

That is all.

Related posts:

1. mX Column: The Rise of the Cougar
2. Newsflash: Couple Dates Each Other, Finds It’s Good For Relationship
3. Will Marriage Always Have a Place in Society?

We’ve waned from our usual Wednesday night date night, which means some weeks go by with us forgetting to schedule a date night… and while we’ve had lots of quality time spent together, that’s really not what it’s all about.

It’s served to really reinforce to us again that if you don’t have a schedule and structures in place, date night will never happen. It’s too easy for us to fall off the wagon and end up in front of the TV every night (the fact that Den gave me the entire Sex and the City Box Set for my birthday also hasn’t helped matters any!).

So.

We’re getting back on the date night horse. (It’s a fancy horse, too!) We’re recommitting to date night with each other again. And if you’ve forgotten all about your own date nights too, we recommend you do the same.

Remember the rules?

1. Pick a night every week.
That is your night together. Don’t schedule anything over the top of it. If you absolutely have to, then you can negotiate in advance with your partner to move it to another day for that week only.

Wednesday is our date night.

2. Take it in turns to organise.
It is no fun for one person to continually be the instigator of date night every time. If you’re stuck for ides, guess what? We’ve done the hard work for you. If you head to $30 Date Night and set up an account, you can even save a list of the date ideas you love the sound of so that you can refer to it when it’s your week to organise the date.

3. Mix it up.
Humans are creatures of habit. If you don’t consciously choose to do new, fun things with your partner every week then you will end up at the same favourite restaurants (think about how many times you go to the same place to eat out, or order takeaway from the same Thai food shop…) or doing the same, comfortable activities again and again.

You may love doing those things, but your relationship will not thank you for it. Remember, it’s been proven that doing new things together as a couple sparks the same hormones as when you first fell in love! Bring back the butterflies by doing something fresh and different every week!

And remember, it doesn’t matter if you have kids, or your budget is tight, there are ways around all those things and that is essentially what $30 Date Night is all about. Don’t make excuses. Don’t wiggle your way out of it. Just do it.

Who’s with us?

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2. A Week of Beauty on $30 Date Night
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From “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s way it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Sigh. Don’t mind me as I wipe away a small tear… hope that brightened your day.

Related posts:

1. Getting Back on the Date Night Horse
2. “Me? Oh, I’m Naturally Gorgeous…”
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