We have made it to Hump Day! Most of us start counting down to the weekend and making plans for our date night with our spouse.
As I do every Wednesday, I like to give you some ideas to help jump start your planning and thinking about date night with your spouse. This week ideas are tailored around the Marriage Communication series.
As we read in earlier posts this week, communication is the sharing of information and this sharing is important in marriages. It helps husbands and wives to bond!
Just holding a conversation is easy but communicating effectively with our spouse is sometimes a challenge. Men and women speak and hear differently; these differences can lead to conflict and hurt feelings. Our job is to learn and understand our spouse communication style and incorporate it into how we communicate and express ourselves to them.
This week date night ideas will give you and your spouse opportunities to work on, practice, and learn each other communication style. These should be really fun!
5 Date Night ideas:
- Charades (nonverbal skills): Take turns acting out different aspects of what you have done or experienced in your week. Set a timer and the spouse guessing can guess as many times as it takes before the timer is up.
- Pictionary (nonverbal skills): Same concept as Charades except you are drawing out your clues. Purchase an easel pad & markers! Have fun guessing & drawing!!
- Jigsaw puzzle: Divide the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle amongst the two of you. Take turns blindfolding each other. The one not blindfolded will have five minutes to communicate to your spouse where and how to place the puzzle piece. The spouse that is communicating can only use words, no touching of your spouse hand to guide them to where to place the piece. (This game helps with understanding if you are able to communicate clearly and effectively to your spouse.)
- Guessing game: Sit back to back. Each has a piece of paper and pen/pencil. Take turns describing in detail things in your house. Your spouse will draw exactly what he/she hear you say. This is a great game to understand how we interpret what we hear our spouse saying.
- Story time: Share an event that happened in your life. Communicate the story to your spouse, using descriptive words and make sure you share how you felt. Afterwards, your spouse is to repeat/paraphrase what they heard. This is a great exercise: 1. You are sharing something about yourself 2. It helps to reinforce listening skills.
Bonus idea from About.com:
- Communication Poker: This game for encouraging communication between couples requires a deck of playing cards, paper and writing utensils, such as pens or pencils. First, each player needs to cut out at least 10 scraps or strips of paper, on which the players should write out their wishes or desires. These papers serve as the game’s poker chips. Before each hand of poker, each player antes or puts-in one of the papers, face-down; the winner of the hand collects both papers. At the end of an hour, or however long couples wish to play for, players can flip over their papers and then redeem the wishes or desires written on those papers at their convenience. Examples can include, “trip to the park,” “cuddle time” or “folding laundry.” The game provides a fun, non-verbal way for couples to communicate what they want from each other.
Have fun! Communicate and learn your spouse communication style. Please learn from these activities and incorporate them into your everyday communication with your spouse. Mastering effective communication will help you guys overcome hiccups and disagreements in a healthy fair way.
Join me tomorrow as we continue in the Marriage Communication series. Tomorrow topic is: Problems in Communicating: He not listening/She not listening!
Which game would you and your spouse play? Do you have a date night idea that would be a great communication builder? Share your thoughts below.
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katy says
Great ideas and communication is key! We have a crazy schedule but realized we could spend time together most nights. we jsut have to put the effort in….and it’s so worth it 🙂
Making Our Life Matter says
Hubby and I have a blast playing Apples To Apples!
Still Dating My Spouse says
Jen,
I never thought about Apples to Apples. Thanks for the suggestion.
Pamela