Make it an Event

I’m sure you’ve noticed how little girls and big girls alike love to play dress-up. It doesn’t matter how old they get, for some unfathomable reason, they love to do their hair, paint their nails, put on their war paint and get all dressed up. They don’t even have to have anyplace to go, just so that they can get dressed up.

Of course, the advantage for us is that we get to see them at their best. I have yet to meet a guy who doesn’t like his wife to be beautiful. Quite a few complain about the cost, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like to see the results.

Unfortunately for women, modern society doesn’t provide too many opportunities to get all gussied up like that. Of course, if you’re part of high society, those opportunities still exist; but for the rest of us, they’re sadly lacking.

That doesn’t mean that opportunities don’t exist at all, just that they aren’t all that common. At least, they’re not all that common if you don’t go looking for them. Other than New Year’s Eve, most of middle-class America doesn’t have much going on that requires owning a suit, let alone getting all dressed up to go out.

Once again, that doesn’t mean that events don’t exist. If you live in or near any fairly large cities, there are events. Even though they’re events that you aren’t used to going to. Classical concerts, ballet performances, Off-Broadway shows all provide opportunities to get dressed up and go out. You can add to that list openings (such as government buildings) non-profit fundraisers and political dinners. So you see, there are still events around which are ideal opportunities to get dressed up. All you have to do is look for them.

What’s that you say? Those events really aren’t your cup of tea? Well, I’ll have to say that I’m not surprised you’d say that. In many cases, I’d have to agree with you; they’re not my idea of a good time, either. Some of them are right up there with a visit to the dentist, for a root canal, without Novocain. Nevertheless, it’s not really about the event, it’s about getting to go out with my wife to something fancy.

You see, it’s really a matter of what you focus on. If you focus on the fact that these events are boring, they’ll be boring. On the other hand, if you focus on the idea of taking your wife out to someplace where she can get dressed up fancy (you’ll have to dress up too), then it can be fun. Focus on her, not the event.

Unless she really hates getting dressed up, she’ll love the opportunity. It’ll be like playing “high society” for a change. Make it a fantasy night, and have fun together. That’s what it’s really all about.

Getting Rid of the Week’s Stress

Well, Friday’s finally rolled around again. Time to shift gears, forget about work, kick off your shoes, stretch out and relax a bit. Ahhh! Everyone looks forward to Friday, the opportunity to stop being a functionary and start being a person once again.

You know, it’s a whole lot easier for most guys to shift gears and enter relax mode than it is for our wives. Women tend to get emotionally involved in everything they do, making it harder to just let go and forget about it. Even when they stop thinking about work, they’re concerned about the people who they work with. If a co-worker has problems in their marriage or with their kids, or a grandmother who’s in the hospital, they care about all that as well.

Even when she finally let’s go of work, she’s still got a bunch of things which she’s concerned about. The house has to be cleaned, the clothes have to get washed, and somehow she’s got to find an hour or two to run to the grocery store to stock up the kitchen for the next week. That old saying about a woman’s work never being done is true.

With so much on her mind, it’s no wonder that women find it hard to just take some time to relax. For us guys, it’s no problem. Let us collapse on the sofa with a drink in one hand and the remote in the other, and we just unplug. No problems, no worries, just chill.

Okay, so if our wives have so much trouble relaxing, wouldn’t it make sense that we help them out a bit? I mean, if we’re the experts, then we really ought to share our expertise with our wives and let them get some advantage from it as well. There are some things that she’s better at and some things which you’re better at. She shares her expertise with you and you should share yours with her.

Some time back, I recommended that you take Friday night as your date night. That wasn’t just because Friday is the traditional date night, but so that going on a date could set the tone of your weekend. When you start the weekend off together, you’re much more likely to spend the whole weekend together, even if you have chores to do. There’s nothing that says you can’t do those chores together.

Even if you don’t go out on a date on Friday, you should still set that time aside for the two of you. Friday evening needs to become your official “change gears” time. To do that requires relaxing more than anything else. Whether that relaxing involves going out on a date, going to the gym together, watching a movie together or soaking in a hot tub.

Everyone has something that helps them relax. What you need to do is find something that helps the two of you relax together. If a workout at the gym helps you relax, but your wife hates it, that’s not going to do much good. If shopping helps her relax, but you’re gritting your teeth the whole time, that’s not going to do much better. It needs to be something that’s relaxing for both of you. Even more so, it needs to be something relaxing that you can do together. That’s why making it a date night works so well.

The other important thing to do to help her relax on Friday night is a massage. Massages are a great way to relieve stress and help anyone forget the stress of work and life in general. So, maybe you should make a Friday night massage part of your weekly date routine. Get home, go in the bedroom, turn down the lights, and give her a massage. Where it goes from there is up to you (and her too). 

Another First Date

Do you remember your first date with your wife? Most of us do, if only vaguely. Of course, our wives usually remember it in great detail, down to the clothes we wore and what we ate. Their memories tend to be better at things like that then ours are.

Well, there’s no reason you can’t have another first date, or at least pretend to. You know, play acting can be as much fun for adults as it is for kids; especially when we do it with our spouses. It’s a harmless outlet for fantasies, adding a little spice to your relationship.

The normal problem with fantasies is that they either involve someone besides your wife or they involve doing things that your wife wouldn’t do. The first one is clearly wrong and the second can cause one to be dissatisfied in their marriage. That’s not saying that all fantasies are bad though, we just need to be careful about how we fantasize and who we fantasize with. There’s nothing wrong with fantasizing about your wife, nor is there anything wrong with acting out those fantasies (assuming the two of you are in agreement and it can’t hurt either of you).

So, if you’re going to have another first date, you’ve got to do the whole shebang. Call her up and ask her out on a date. Once you’ve got her agreement, explain what you’re going to do, pretending it’s your first date once again. If you can recreate any part of that date, like the place you went to, so much the better.

What did you do on your first date? Isn’t that, more than anything, a time of getting to know each other? So, whether you pick her up or you meet someplace, do it as if you don’t know each other. Go to a restaurant and tell her about yourself, get her to tell you about herself, ask questions, learn to know each other once again.

This can be a great ice breaker if you feel that you’ve been growing apart. At times, as the years pass, we feel as if we don’t know each other anymore. Well, if that’s the case, it’s time to start learning about each other once again. Even if it isn’t the case, I’ll bet that you’ll end up telling each other things that you didn’t know. That’s part of the fun, getting to know each other more.

Where it goes from there… well, that’s up to the two of you to decide.

A Drive-in Movie

It’s Friday night again, date night for all the teenyboppers out there. You do have a date night with your wife, don’t you? If not, you really need one. Why not go back to your youth, and make Friday night your date night once again. Just because all the teens out there are doing it, doesn’t mean that you can’t as well. After all, they learned that by watching adults, not the other way around.

Did you ever go to a drive-in movie as a teenager? You know what I mean, the kind where you drive your car into the lot and they’ve got the movie on a big outdoor screen. Instead of watching the movie, you sit there in your car, smooching with your girlfriend.

Well, drive-in movies are fading into the past; there really aren’t that many of them left any more. Nevertheless, you can still find them here and there. In another 20 years you may not be able to, but for now there are still a few around.

Somehow, drive-ins have always had a romantic connotation to them, much more so than a regular movie theater. Maybe it has something to do with sitting in the back seat of the car smooching, instead of watching the movie. Regardless of the reason, they’re considered romantic.

So, why not take your wife to a drive-in to enjoy a movie? Now, if you’re going to do this, you’ve got to do it right. This isn’t the time to go see Rambo 7 (or whatever number they’re up to). You want to pick something that’s going to be romantic. If you can’t get a love story, go for a drama or at least a comedy, but definitely avoid the action stuff.

Why not make it a real drive-in night and go to a drive-in restaurant to eat while you’re at it? There’s still a few of those around as well. In fact, I’d have to say that there’s been a resurgence of drive-in restaurants in the last 10 years. Between the two, you ought to feel like teenagers again. Have a good time!