Ideas for dating your wife:

Gentlemen, I want to create a place where men can offer up their own ideas and experiences for creative, kind, and/or considerate dating
ideas.

Know your wife –This is a major key!  The more that a gift communicates intimate knowledge of her – things that only you can know – the better the gift is.
See, for men and women (but. I think women in particular) it actually is the amount of thought and preparation that counts.

In therapy, I often hear about dates and gifts that husbands thought were huge flops, but the wife was overjoyed with!  The thought and effort is what made it so good.
Once when I challenged a husband to take his wife on a special date.  So, he remembered that she had always wanted to visit a restaurant just outside of town and there was a concert he knew she would enjoy.  When he came in after the date he was crushed – they drove way out to the restaurant only to find weeds growing in the parking lot.  It had been closed for months!  Now they had to rush back to town and ended up eating fast food.  They got to the concert to discover it nearly sold out and they had to get seats not next to each other, if I remember correctly.  They ended up sitting at a coffee shop to discuss their individual experiences of the concert!

He was almost too embarrassed to tell me about it.

She came in a few days later and described the same date as one of the best events of their marriage!  She loved it and gushed about him taking her to the restaurant she had mentioned long ago – and never mentioned to me that it was closed!  Then she was so impressed that he had researched the concert and she loved it, and she loved debriefing everything after the coffee shop too!

Why was their experience so different?  Because their definition of what made a good date was completely different.

His was: did it go as planned?  Was it a date he could brag to others about it?
For her, it was:  “Does he know me well, and was he thinking about me when he planned it?”

These can range from actual date planning strategies, like a

Type I  schedule and plan for an entire date, or a great addition to a “normal” date (see Bookstore) to a…

Type II habit to develop with your date planning (“does the restaurant have TV’s all over the place to distract me from her?”) or even to a…

Type III specific opportunities or recommendations (“skip _______ movie, it stinks” or “Cowen Center in Tyler has some pretty sweet opportunities” http://www.cowancenter.org/)

Men:  if you try an idea or have tried one in the past that was good (or maybe a bad one could be fun too) PLEASE offer it up here as a comment.
We are all in this together and we are all better husbands than each of us can be.

Ladies:  if there is an idea that you think would be a sweet idea for a husband to do, please post that in a comment too.   If you think an idea one of us men put here is good, needs a tweak or is bad, let us know about that too!  Plus, you might have a cool date idea for other women to read to use with their husbands.  Most of these ideas are not gender specific anyway, but we men tend to be the one who needs extra help.

Truly, all, I want this to be a spot from which I can steal ideas, and the rest of us can too!

So, here are just a few that I have in my head:

Type I:  In the past, I have purchased a card or candle or flower and delivered it to the restaurant before we arrive and ask them to bring them (it) to our table soon after we are seated.

Type II:  Always write in a card – don’t just sign it.  Even just one special thing you appreciate about your wife makes a card a keeper.  You paid $4 for the dumb thing, it might as well be worth something to her!

Type I:  When the weather is nice, try a picnic.  Avoid anyplace that is at all creepy if you are going for an evening picnic.  Picnic can mean just something to drink, a blanket to sit on and snacks or it can be a full meal you prepared or picked up.  If evening, then a candle or two is a must.

Type II:  Nice is good, but don’t try to purchase her affection with cash… dates don’t have to be too expensive.

Type I:  Schedule a night away in a cabin on a river – no tv, limited cell.  Focus your attention on her.

Type II:  Keep an eye out for local opportunities.  I am never endingly amazed at what even small towns can offer in the way of concerts, plays, etc.  Keeping your eyes out means you are thinking about her!

Type II:  Generally, try to remember to hold doors and pull out chairs, etc.  This is not some macho trip, but she will probably appreciate it.  If she doesn’t, use the opportunity to find out why – maybe you don’t need to, or maybe you need to more faithfully once she understands you think she is worth more than she thinks she is!

Type I:  Take her to a bookstore, go to the children’s section and find your favorite book from childhood.  Read it to her and then have her do the
same.  Cool memories can be found here.

Type II:  When you are walking (maybe a Type I idea there), try to remember to hold hands.  This simple gesture used to take your breath away, and now is a sure way to communicate you just want people to know you are together.

Type ?:  read out loud or at least at the same time together.  I will list soon all of the books that I have read out loud to Ginger (or her to me) over the almost 18 years of our marriage.  I wouldn’t trade this for anything.  Plus she scratches on me while I read!

Type I:  Borrow or rent a fun car.  Even a simple date can be livened up with a convertible.

Type I:  go shop for a game and play it.  This can be a whole family date too.

Type II:  make your cell phone as invisible as possible.  ‘nuff said.

Type II:  don’t use your wife as a bad example.  I don’t know why we do this – maybe it is hanging on from pushing a girl in the mud to let her know we like her, but it isn’t cute anymore.  I hear about this all the time.

Type I:  itunes hunt for the best songs from your generation.  Go somewhere with fast internet and a $20
itunes card.  Go nuts.

Ok – who else has some ideas?

Ladies (this means you, Ginger)  – if you happen to read this list, and your husband finds out about it and does something he reads here, don’t criticize or comment that it wasn’t his idea.  Most, if not all, of the things you do in your marriage have been done before and were someone else’s idea… weren’t they?