Being happily married means keeping things fresh. Dates are great opportunities to escape from the everyday, methodical routine of life.  These special nights are reserved times to talk, laugh and remember the love that gets overlooked during the weekly schedule.  Time together is essential for connection.  Going on a date is a great time to look your best, flirt with each other and have POSITIVE conversation.  Dates are designed to reignite the chemistry, to remember you are man and woman (not just a Dad or Mom, a boss or an employer).  It’s a night to add deposits to the marital company. 

1. Dress Up.  There is nothing better than getting a little gussied up to feel beautiful inside and out.  I think a new outfit just may be better than Prozac.  Dressing up is a statement of your value.  When you feel good and smell good and so does your partner it increases self-confidence and your idea of feeling sexy and seeing your partner as sexy. 

2. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone:  Go somewhere new.  Save your regular local restaurants for another occasion. Date nights are about keeping things new and fresh.  One of the most bonding things you can add to your marriage is creating new memories together. 

3. Keep Things Light:  Keep the conversation about the night to the night. Stay in the now-moment.  Do not focus on the children, what happened that day at work (unless you had a sexy success then this is great night to celebrate).  Keep things light-hearted and focused on the love you feel for you for each other.

4. Be Gracious:  An aura of gratitude that you are with someone wonderful and that you feel you are someone wonderful, brings a romantic essence into the date.  Verbally affirm each other in positive ways to show the love you feel.  If you are in love, you are so very lucky.  Remember this and bring this energy into the date.

5. Love Yourself:  The most important ingredient.  Keep in mind that people will reflect back to you whatever the feelings you have and are directing towards yourself. If you are feeling love towards yourself, you are going to attract feelings of love towards you from others.  Love yourself.  It’s that simple and all that love will be reflected back to you.  The more confidence you have in yourself, the more your partner sees you as self-sufficient and independent with a mind of your own, the sexier you will be. 

6. Take a bath:  There is not a better way to end a great date.  After coming home from a delicious dinner and a glass of wine, get in the bath.  Add some salt, dim lights and light some candles.  Some of the best conversations occur in the bathtub.  It is intimacy time (not intercourse time). It is a time to rest, relax, talk and be in the verbal intimacy of connection.

7. Have Sex:  Sex is the next level of intimacy to end the date with.  This is where things come full circle.  You have gotten beautiful, shared in positive and light conversation.   You have held hands, snuggled kissed and laughed.  You have loved and felt loved, taken a great bath and now you can bring all those pieces together physically.  A marriage without sex is a roommate situation.  Sex brings people into the part of a relationship that makes them married.  Enjoy each other. 

There’s nothing like a shared good time to relieve the friction that is part of every marriage. Love each other. We actually forget to do this in our marriages which so ironic because it was the feelings of love that got us to marry each other in the first place.  Dates are one of the best ways to act out that love, remember that love and to further create that love. 

Little Life Message:  Dates are nights to remember you are a man and a woman.  Love each other. 

Dr. Sherrie Campbell is an author and a licensed Psychologist with more than 19 years of clinical training and experience. She provides practical tools to help people overcome obstacles to self-love and truly achieve an empowered life.  She is featured regularly on national online media and has a successful practice in Southern California.  Get her free article on Five Ways to Make Love the Common Ground in Your Communication.  Receive free insights from Sherrie through her Facebook community. For more information, visit www.sherriecampbellphd.com.