Friday nights are date nights in our home. For years, date nights also meant my husband and I would eat whatever we want. My husband and I would get all dressed up. Before you picture us all fancied up, my version of dressed up is mostly clean (okay, maybe a little bit dirty) jeans, a cute top, and some wedges. Then my man and I would head out to our fave Mexican restaurant, which overlooks beautiful landscaping and a little man made lake. We would sit outside overlooking the lake, order our cherry cokes, and feel the stress from the week melt away as we gorged ourselves on chips, salsa, and my favorite meal. My fave meal included carne asada taquitos topped with extra melted cheese and guacamole, refried beans topped with melted cheese, and Mexican rice. Did you identify a theme? Cheese was my favorite food group. I would order the same thing every week, eat away my cares from the week, and my hubby and I would just sit and rehash the highs and the lows from our week. Sure, we ate ourselves sick. Sometimes I would even top my dinner off with the most delicious flan you can imagine. After all, technically it was all gluten free. And hey, it was just once a week. It couldn’t hurt me…right? Wrong. It did hurt me. While it may not have been healthy for my husband, it did not hurt him the way it hurt me. You may be like me. I did not even realize how much it hurt me until I made the heart-breaking decision to cut it all out. That may sound dramatic, and for me it was. This was a weekly habit I had for years. It was not easy to go to my husband and tell him that I felt I needed to change our date nights because I knew it was hurting my health. Oh and by the way, I was not strong enough to go and just watch him eat. He may have been disappointed, but he showed me he loved and supported me, and we revamped our date nights.
Rather than focusing our date nights around food, we began focusing on activities, simply being together, talking, and laughing away our cares. It has been months and months since our last visit to our favorite Mexican restaurant, but our new habits crowded out the old, and I rarely think of those carne asada taquitos anymore. I can honestly say I do not even miss them anymore. At all. I share all of this with you not to tell you to give up your favorite foods and not visit your favorite restaurants anymore, but simply to make you aware that your favorite foods may be hurting your health. I also share this with you to give you hope. If I can give up my cherry cokes and Mexican food, and be happier than ever, you can too. Nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels. We do not have a new favorite place we go every week for date night. Instead, we change things up. We try new things. Sometimes we nail it. Sometimes it is a fail. Regardless, we are together, building our relationship, strengthening our marriage, and nourishing my body to allow it to heal.
“A perfect relationship isn’t ever actually perfect. It’s just one where both people never give up.”
-unknown
“Do what you did in the beginning of a relationship and there won’t be an end.”
-Anthony Robbins
“Life had broken her; just as it had broken him. But when they got together, their pieces became whole. And they continued on their journey, together, mended as one.”
-Steve Maraboli
I’ve shared a little about our date nights. I would love to hear a little about your date nights! If you are open to sharing, please comment and share how date nights help you in your life.
