Who Says You Need a “Boys Night Out?”

All through growing up and as an adult I’ve heard of the infamous “boy’s night out.” It seems that a lot of men think that they need one night a week where they get away from their wives and kiddies to go hang out with their buddies. It doesn’t matter if that night is their bowling league or club or poker game, it’s as regular as clockwork, an important part of their week.

Wait a minute! I don’t know about you, but I didn’t marry my wife so that I could “get away” from her. I married her so that I could be with her. Why should I take one-seventh of my nights and make sure that I’m not with the person that I married to be with? That doesn’t make sense at all.

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have friends; nor am I saying that we should never spend time with those friends. What I’m really talking about here is priorities. It seems to me, with as much trouble as most couples have in trying to find a date night, that having a night out with the guys every week just makes it harder to be with the most important person in my life.

Of course, you could argue that we all need recreation. I agree, I need recreation just as much as anyone, and definitely don’t get enough of it. But, I can choose the types of recreational activities that I choose to do. Specifically, I can choose whether those activities include my wife or not. So, if that choice is mine, then I’d much rather choose activities which include her, rather than choose ones that exclude her.

Before my wife and I got married, I went hunting, fishing and camping like a lot of men. I rode a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle to work whenever I could, rather than drive my car. Those were things that I enjoyed, so I did them. But then I married my wife. She doesn’t enjoy hunting or fishing. The one time we went camping was a disaster, and she was afraid of my motorcycle. I had to make a choice.

A lot of guys would say that I made a great sacrifice in giving those things up. Really, there was nothing about sacrifice in it. What happened was that when I married my wife, my priorities changes. Since she was so important to me, those other things paled by comparison. So, it wasn’t so much that I gave them up for her, as they just sort of fell off my list of priorities. If it came down to being with her or fishing with the guys, I’d rather be with her. Besides, she’s much better looking than my buddies were.

It’s easy to get to the point in life where we have too many priorities. Unfortunately, adding priorities doesn’t add hours to the day. Every time we add a priority to our lives, we have to take something off the list. That’s what happened with me. But, the opposite can happen just as well. I can add priorities to my list, which prevent me from being with my wife and cause me to treat her like she’s not important.

If there’s anything that’s the opposite of being romantic, it’s sending the message that she’s not important. That’s the last message that any of us want to be sending. But, if we’re not careful to make sure that we don’t send that message, it can creep in when we’re not even looking.