Great Date Ideas for Married Couples

great date ideas stock photoOne of the first things you lose in a marriage is your sense of humor. That’s why we recommend that you do things as a husband and wife, which will help you to laugh together and enjoy being with each other. So, we looked diligently for some great date ideas for married couples to help you.

If you are anything like my husband Steve and me, you need help in infusing laughter into your marriage. Life can get way too serious. Sometimes we just need to lighten up so we can approach matters in a healthier way. But it takes intentionality in finding ways to laugh together.

Need Date Ideas?

Sometimes when life and our different approaches to it, are toppling in on us, we have an important choice to make. We can turn on each other and tackle matters in oppositional ways. Or we can back up, join hands and make the “serious” choice to find healthy (and even fun) ways to go forward as a team.

To do that, it works best if we have been active beforehand in stockpiling good feelings about each other. Continuing to date each other. Finding the time, and making the time to laugh together after the wedding is important. Having fun can involve getting down to “serious” business sometimes. Well, not “serious” business, but lets say, it makes a positive difference when we take pro-active steps so laughter and enjoying being together isn’t pushed out of our relationship.

Now, you may not have many original ideas of your own in how to make that happen. You may be romantically challenged in that way. But you can grab onto the ideas of others and use them. That’s what we offer you here (and throughout the Romantic Ideas topic).

Great Date Ideas for Married Couples

Below you will find 10 great ideas for dates to help you and your spouse enjoy being together in different ways. If one or more won’t work for you, think about adapting them so they do. Or move onto the next one. We hope you find the following ideas to be helpful:

1.  Have an indoor snowball fight.

No, it isn’t about chipping “snow” from the sides of your freezer, and throwing it at each other. It’s about making some soft snowballs in another way. And then just enjoy the sport of racing around and throwing them at each other.

The following idea can be used as a family activity as well. But how about sending the children off somewhere else and using it for an indoor (or outdoor, in your backyard) activity together? It might provoke some real laughter. And isn’t that great “medicine” for your life together? You can even plan meals and snacks to enjoy together that goes in with this wintertime theme. Be creative!

This idea comes from the Justonemomtryingblogspot.com web site:

♥  HOMEMADE SNOWBALLS FOR AN INDOOR SNOWBALL FIGHT

2.  Go on a Shopping Mall Date.

At first thought, you may not think that could be much fun, but this has a different approach to it.

Tom and Debi Walters of Theromanticvineyard.com web site, came up with this idea. They are two of the funnest and most romantic couples we have the privilege to know. They really enjoy spending time together, in ways that most couples could never imagine. And yet a lot of the fun times they enjoy together are actually quite simple.

Are you curious as to how you can go to a shopping mall and make it a date without spending a lot of money? Try the following:

THE 10.5.1 MALL DATE

3.  Play a clean version of Putt-Putt golf.

This idea also comes from our favorite romantic web site, Theromanticvineyard.com. You can change any of the rules to adapt it to how you and your spouse wants to play this game. But actually, Tom and Debi Walter’s version is quite fun, as well:

WIN OR DARE PUTT PUTT DATE NIGHT

4.  Make fast food romantic.

Yep! Your read it right! This is one of many date night ideas:

“The next time you and your spouse dine under the golden arches, bring a tablecloth and a candle. This bold move shows off your creativity and adds an element of fun and romance to your otherwise ordinary date.”

Be creative in this. Bring a surprise gift for give each other and/or get dressed up. Hold hands, stare into each other’s eyes and find a few questions you can ask each other as you’re dining together. (We have some Creative Questions and Fish Bowl Conversation Questions listed in the Communication Tools topic of this web site.)

For additional ideas, such as the one above, you can find them at the Focus on the Family —Canada web site:

GREAT DATING IDEAS: 100+ Great Dating Ideas

5.  Make and then read Love Letters with a sweet twist to them.

Here’s another idea from the Justonemomtryingblogspot.com web site. In this idea, Emily (“just one mom”) suggests this for a wife to make for her husband. But actually, this is easy enough for husbands to put together, as well. Come on guys… it’s a challenge. But it’s a great way to tell your wife that you are willing to go outside of your comfort zone to express your love.

You can either make them and have your spouse read them on one dating night event. Or you can even give your spouse one of them on your date night. And then give one at a time for several nights afterward. (Place them somewhere that is easy for her/him to find.) This could make a great anniversary week. Or it could be a birthday week or a week of any type of celebration.

And your spouse will be oh, so pleased:

DATING AT HOME: LOVE LETTERS

6.  Watch movie trailers together.

Here’s yet another idea from the Justonemomtryingblogspot.com web site. Emily’s web site comes up with some great ideas for the whole family, including ones designed just for a husband and wife alone!

Now, as I see it, you can do this, and another idea is, that you can find a funny topic on Youtube (we have links to funny clips sent to us quite often—we even have a few humorous ones posted in the Marriage Videos topic) and watch one after another starting with one funny clip and clicking into other ones that are suggested. Just be careful, because some of the “suggestions” that Youtube makes can be pretty raunchy. Keep it clean, for a good, clean, and healthy dating time.

Here’s Emily’s suggestion:

DATING AT HOME: MOVIE TRAILER REVIEWS

7.  Chocolate Tasting with your Sweetie!

Yep! This is anything but a low-calorie idea. But it sure is fun (especially for the wife). Now, when you first click into the following Justonemomtryingblogspot.com web site link, you may think this idea is a bit too simplistic. You could even mow through the chocolates fast. 10 minutes and the date is done.

But it’s not as simple as that. Read through the additional web site linked articles Emily provides. You’ll see that if you take this dating at home experience seriously it will take longer than you may at first think! Try it. You may like it:

DATING AT HOME: CHOCOLATE TASTING

8. Here are a few more date ideas:

You can either play Chess or Scrabble together. Here’s an idea for how you can play Chess as a married couple work:

“Okay, this is just like a regular game of chess but with a few exceptions. Whenever a player over-takes the playing piece of their partner, they say ‘Bless me!’ That player is then entitled to be blessed with a romantic treat of their choosing. A romantic treat could be anything from a french kiss to a foot massage but should not last longer than 2 minutes.

“The winner of this chess game is entitled to a one hour romantic treat of their choice, which must be redeemed before the end of the night.”

These ideas came from the Christian-marriage-today.com web site. It can be adapted to the liking of BOTH spouses. It can even involve a different board game, such as Scrabble. Be creative. But don’t fight over the rules. If you want specific ideas for playing the game of Scrabble, here’s one with a romantic twist to it, given by The Romantic Vineyard:

CLOSE FRIENDS (Spouses Playing Scrabble Together)

Now, you can use their rules, or enjoy making up your own TOGETHER, by mutual consent. Remember, this is to be a fun time!

Also, here’s another idea from the ministry of Christian Marriage Today:

The Kissing Game

“How it Works: Remember those kissing bells at your wedding reception? Every time someone rang the bell, you and your sweetheart had to kiss? The concept is the same here except the trigger is not a bell but a word. The two of you will choose a movie to watch together, preferably a romantic movie. Each time the word is said in the movie, the two of you must kiss. The word can be whatever the two of you decide.”

9.  A romantic picnic for two on your lounge room floor or in your backyard under the stars.

“This could easily be moved to a local park or a reserve away from home if there are children to be babysat.”

“I did this one afternoon and baked some pizza, a few little cakes, and purchased a few special chocolates to share with my hubby, who had come down with a cold and didn’t want to leave home for our planned picnic. He raved about our picnic in the lounge for months!”

The above idea comes from a woman named Sheridan and is posted on The-generous-wife.com web site (another great one). For many more romantic ideas (which came from various wives, but can also be adapted by husbands for fun dating surprises for their wives), please click onto Lori Byerly’s The Generous Wife’s web site to read through:

DATING IDEAS

And then here’s the last of these date ideas:

10.  Read or view something that will make you laugh together.

Steve and I love to laugh together. So, because our budget isn’t big, simple ideas are more do-able for us. One of the date ideas that we like to do is watch a funny movie or a TV show together. The following is a link that takes you to some Christian comedy routines that could make you laugh:

♥ FUNNY MARRIAGE COMEDY CHRISTIAN VIDEOS

Additionally, we like to read a funny books together. I’m not talking about some kind of a novel —although that may also work for you and your spouse. But we love to just cuddle up on the couch together or in bed together and read some type of book that has a collection of cartoons in it. They can include books like Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, HERMAN, FoxTrot, Close to Home, etc.

It’s not that we flip through a whole book at a time, so this gives us several nights worth of laughter together. And this is a pretty inexpensive time we can spend together. Plus, each of these books has different editions to them. We read through these books at different times when we need a few laughs. We enjoy it. And you may too.

I hope these date ideas will help you. If you have any additional date ideas for married couples, we sure would appreciate it if you would “join the discussion” and let us and others know about them.

Cindy Wright of Marriage Missions International wrote this article.

Print Post

Filed under: Romantic Ideas

Join the Discussion

Please observe the following guidelines:

  • Try to be as positive as possible when you make a comment.
  • If there is name-calling, or profane language, it will be deleted.
  • The same goes with hurtful comments targeted at belittling others; we won't post them.
  • Recommendations for people to divorce will be edited out–that's a decision between them and God, not us.
  • If you have a criticism, please make it constructive.
  • Be mindful that this is an international ministry where cultural differences need to be considered.
  • Please honor the fact this is a Christ-centered web site.

We review all comments before posting them to reduce spam and offensive content.

Comments

4 responses to “Great Date Ideas for Married Couples

  1. (USA) Thanks for this article on great date ideas! Can I promote my first app I just released called Date Envy!? It’s for iPhone and iPad and I wrote it because I am passionate about being creative and fun (and even inexpensive) on dates! I’m still single but my parents (who are also Christian) has shown me what a Christ-centered relationship is, and yes, it includes really fun dates like taking long bike rides and walks on the beach!

    Anyway, the app is free in Feb 2013 (http://bit.ly/dateenvy_itunes)

  2. I totally love night out! In a perfect world I’d love for us to go out on the town more than once every month. My hubby and I put the children to bed the previous evening and were conceptualizing imaginative FREE night (http://thewomenstrend.com/free-date-ideas.html) out on the town thoughts that we could do together, notwithstanding when the assets aren’t there for our standard supper and a film.