Go on an appreciation dinner date. Before you take each bite of food or each sip from your drink, tell your spouse something you appreciate about him or her or something you appreciate that he or she has done recently or in the past.
Make decorations for upcoming holidays.
Make your favorite desserts.
Chose a music CD and pretend you are going to a concert. You can buy An Evening with John Denver from Amazon.com by clicking here
Adding a romantic twist to the board game Twister can be a lot of fun to play in the privacy of your own home.
Make a music video.
Recreate scenes from your favorite movies.
Read a thought provoking book like Tuesday's with Morrie together. You can buy it from Amazon.com by clicking here
Draw portraits of each other with crayons.
Make a video documentary of your home.
Sign up for a free long distance learning class together at the Barnes and Noble online university.
Pick a room in your house and describe your favorite memories that have occurred in that room.
Teach your spouse about your favorite hobby.
Work on a scrapbook project together.
Play board games and throw in creative rules to spice them up and make them romantic.
Do some family history research together. A good place to start is Ancestry.com
Play video or computer games together.
Finger-paint a masterpiece on your spouses stomach with pudding and whip cream.
Make a video documentary about your spouse.
Write a children's story together and illustrate it.
Plant an indoor herb garden.
Play board games together. Settlers of Qatan is a fun strategy board game you can buy from Amazon.com by clicking here.
Watch old home videos.
Come up with romantic variations of your favorite card games.
Write thank you letters to the parents of your spouse.
Play indoor tag. When you catch each other think of something fun you can do like kiss for 30 seconds, etc.
Play miniature golf with common household items.
Decorate your home for an upcoming holiday.
Read scriptures together.
Make a fort together and think of creative romantic things you can do in the fort when you are finished.
Watch a concert on video or DVD. You can buy James Taylor Live at the Beacon Theater from Amazon.com by clicking here
Order a meal from your favorite restaurant to be delivered and have a candlelight dinner somewhere in your house where you wouldn't normally eat.
Refinish a piece of furniture together. You can buy a book from Amazon.com that will teach you how by clicking here
If you are pregnant read each week from a book about your baby's growth. You can buy The Mayo Clinic Complete Book of Pregnancy & Baby's First Year from Amazon.com by clicking here.
Make cookies for your neighbors.
Run through the sprinklers.
Create a new kind of cookie.
Have a shower or bathtub date together.
Pretend you are a fashion photographer and do a photo shoot of your spouse.
Create a different ending to a tv show or movie that you just watched.
Brush your wife's hair and learn how to do different braids in her hair.
Choose one room in your house and do a clean sweep by organizing it. Visit the Clean Sweep TV website for some helpful hints by clicking here
Interview your spouse and write a biography about him or her.
Play hide and go seek. Think of romantic rewards that you can give to your spouse when he or she finds you.
Buy a ceramic item at a crafts store and paint it together at home.
Do a service project for your neighbor.
Go on a massage date.
Take photos of common objects in your house and make a collage.
Redecorate a room together.
Create a family website together.
Create a virtual garage sale by choosing items in your home you no longer need and putting them on eBay.
Watch a sunset together.
Go on a scavenger hunt in your own home.
Make hot chocolate and watch the rain or snow together.
Call friends and relatives and interview them together about their lives.
Have a romantic pillow fight.
Play a game of indoor basketball horse but use a small ball instead of the regular size one. Come up with creative and romantic things you can do each time you miss a shot and get a letter.
Create a collage of pictures of the two of you.
Find an online service project you can do together.
Make a blanket or quilt together.
Write a letter to the editor together.
Make a big ice-cream sundae and eat it together.
Feed each other a meal.
Create a water slip and slide with a long piece of plastic.
Give each other foot massages.
Make an evacuation plan, practice it and put together a 72 hour kit. Visit the Red Cross website for more details.
Paint each others toe nails.
Research where your ancestors came from and make a common meal from that country. Play a game from that country.
Write thank you notes to your kids.
Make a romantic post it note treasure hunt.
Earthquake proof your house. The Institute for Business & Home Safety has prepared a list on how to earthquake proof your home. Click here to visit their webpage.
Brainstorm creative dates you could go on with out leaving your bed.
Create original milk shake or smoothie flavors.
Make a lot of paper airplanes and have a paper airplane war. Divide a room in two and see who can fly the most airplanes onto the other person's side in a 1 minute time period. Think of a romantic reward for whoever wins.
Have a water fight.
Spend some time together brainstorming a simpler way for the government to collect taxes. A good place to start for some ideas is the fair tax website.
Play TV bingo or guess the commercial game. Draw a bingo board and write the names of various products on it. The first one to get bingo wins. The commercial game is played by seeing who can guess first the name of the product being advertised.
Pretend you had Bill Gates problem of having Billions of dollars you needed to give away. Do some research on the Internet to decide which organizations you would give the money to.
Write down a list of family history questions and send them to your oldest living relatives.
Plan your dream vacation together.
Create a daily exercise plan and do it together.
Go on a dinner cooking date by cooking dinners for the next week and then freezing them.
Work on a scrapbook of dating memories together.
Buy potted flower pots and deliver them to older neighbors.
Decide on a political issue to write your elected representatives about and do it.
Bake your favorite cookies and give them to your neighbors.
Go to the White House website and rewrite the budget together.
Go on a meditation date. Put on some relaxing music and slip into a deep meditative state.
Wash your car together.
Plan a weekend getaway together. Then plan your dream weekend getaway.
Have a water balloon fight.
Bingo night
Group Date: Cereal night, every couple brings a box of their favorite cereal.
Poetry night- each come up with a poem, and have a poetry read (this would also be a fun group date).
Have a Puppet show
Upside Down puppet show- This is when you lay upside down on the couch and cover your eyes and nose with a cloth. You then put eyes on your chin.
-Have a game night playing some of your childhood favorite games! Take time to talk about certain memories you have from your childhood. We are all bound together from our families. This will help foster more mutual understanding between one another and it teaches us more about our families of origin; why we are the way we are.
-Go for a run together, then make homemade smoothies. Physical exercise helps the endorphins in our bodies to refuel, just like a marriage needs refueling. Make goals together to make more time for exercise, and list objectives on how you’ll achieve them.
-Have a picnic in your family room, top it off with candles and your love song playing in the background. Make sure to say 3 important things you love about your one true love during dinner.
-Go to a library and pick out books which describe that person’s character traits or personality, then talk about it with one another. Then you trade books and read them.
-Create a scavenger hunt of different things you love about your spouse. You can even do the scavenger hunt at home. Make it a time to be romantic and don’t forget to communicate feelings!
-Make a video that you would want your children to see one day on the legacy you lived. Share certain morals you’ve both learned being married and raising a family. If you were to pass on anything important what would that be?
-Cook childhood recipes together. Each think about a certain recipe you remember your mother/grandmother cooking that you especially loved when you were a child. Have fun cooking together and really spending quality time reminiscing about the “good old days!”
-Date drama: Search for a t.v. show script and act out a scene, guess which show it is from. Take time to ask each other 3 questions, they can be anything. The thing is to talk to the other!
-Be superstars in your family room: choose a favorite song and look up the lyrics online, spend an evening at home by learning to sing the song together, but aim for playfulness not perfection! Ask your spouse why they picked that song. You can pick a song that describes why you love them.
-Forget your age! Date from a different generation older or younger. Eat ice cream cones and rollerblade, or eat applesauce, play bingo and watch a black & white film. Depending on which generation you pick, talk about your past family history and learn about what they did on date nights.
-Create a happy 100 list- to stay positive in your marriage ask your spouse to write a personal happy 100 list of things that inspire their happiness. Make sure to take note when reading the other’s on ways to rekindle that joy which started it all! Keep the list and reference it often.
-Surprise date adventures- each spouse takes a turn to surprise the other on what that evenings date night will be, don’t spill the beans but it must involve a memory that you’ve shared together and it needs to be free! Spontaneity refuels that flame and helps couples grow closer.
-Have an at home spa filled with massages, facials, etc., anything that can keep you relaxed. Intimacy is so important within a marriage, when time gets in the way that is when different problems occur. Make sure you reconnect on an emotional or physical level.
-Tour open houses in the Houston TX area and find your dream home together, but the catch is you each have to agree on one! Then make a list of what needs to be included in your dream home. Why are those specifications important? Talk and figure out something new that you didn’t know before.
-Photo memoir: each spouse finds a set of pictures from their life together (dating, wedding, new baby, fun adventure, etc.) then take turns showing the photos and remembering those memories by sharing them together. Each needs to pick one that was important to them in one way or another. Pop some popcorn and make into a fun evening!
-Take pictures like a tourist would in your local area. Spouses should play as if they don’t know each other. Husband should pick up his wife at a hotel or restaurant, act like you don’t know one another and let your imaginations run wild! Pretending to “re-meet” for the first helps couples remember why they picked them in the first place. Being playful reignites the flame of love.
-Go on a walk in the park, bring a camera and each take turns taking pictures of something that is beautiful to them or brings back a specific memory that the couple shared. Then later on share why you found those things beautiful and relive the memories. Couples need to remember those moments that brought them closer together, make it a meaningful night.
-Spend an evening creating a bucket list of various things you want to do before you die! But five things need to incorporate why you love the other person and how you want to cherish the years to come.
-Take time getting to know the other’s love language, take the love languages quiz. Once each spouse knows their love language, figure out what your spouse's love language is. Spend the next week doing things tailored to their love language. See if your love grows over that week!
-Set up a photo booth in your family room- dress up in silly ways and take photos. Search for your inner childhood side again, we can’t be grown ups all of the time! Then collage all the photos. Hang them up somewhere where they can be seen to remember the happy times you have together!
-Instead of eating dinner, make a dessert only dinner. But you have to cook together! If you haven’t had much time together in a while, take this time to reconnect and grow closer. After dinner write a letter to your spouse or create something that shows why you love them, then share them together.
-Have an egg dinner. It’s a great way to reconnect, after all, breaking bread is a means of sharing and often sparks good open communication between individuals. If you light candles and set the right mood, it can also become a romantic evening!
Reconnecting emotionally:
Married ouples have to make sure that they are taking the necessary time to ask questions to each other that way they can develop more closeness and reconnect on an emotional level before engaging and entering into physical intimacy. Males have a harder time with opening up emotionally and sharing those feelings. It is much harder for them to show and even express their emotions because they think that they will become less of a man, and "only women have feelings," is often a common misconception that most men have. In order for men to be able to open up all the way to their spouse they have to be doing something that interests them. A mutual understanding from sharing in an activity together will help a couple to re-find that spark again, since they are each tailoring to the needs of their partner; get physical bit by bit.
Ways that men can connect:
-Start off with having the male partner pick something that is appealing to them, and then the trade off would be the female partner gets to pick for her too. By having him go first it lets him feel like he is free to pick whatever it is that intrigues him (like any of the 5 senses).
-Use the five love languages to explore a little deeper the emotional connection of their love.
Each couple will take a turn to answer the series of questions, but if you want an even deeper way to do this, it would be like this: If the wife is going first the husband will read off the questions to her, and vice versa. This way they will be communicating and interacting more emotionally, along with seeing the other's expressions throughout. That can help you to determine how they are feeling.
Once the love language is determined spend time digging deeper to find that love connection. This can be through physical touch and it doesn't always have to be intimacy (kissing, cuddling on the bed or couch while talking, holding hands while laying down, and stroking the others body are a few examples)
So, if physical touch is one love language, then the husband or wife would have to figure out a way to be “physical” with the other. If you do not hold hands enough, take some time to work on this component of your love. The person who has this for their love language would appreciate having their hand held because it shows you love them. This emotional connection can help a man to feel more willing to engage in emotional intimacy.
For women this can be done by the husband taking some time to talk with his wife and opening up to her through understanding how she is feeling, how her day actually went, what is she feeling, or what’s on her mind. This will allow her to feel that connection she needs in order to be physically intimate with her spouse.
Home Versions for building an emotional connection:
1.) There is a path of rose petals in a very dimly lit level of a house that leads to a series of questions, once they reach them there they would need to have answered all of the questions in order to proceed. Then more rose petals would lead to the next section of questions (this should be ending in the bedroom or anywhere else you would like to end up). These questions can consist of articles of clothing to remove, something physical to do to the other, or something like giving a massage or spooning together.
2.) A couple can take a bath together. Before they take a bath they will take some time to look into each other’s eyes and then they will close their eyes while they help take off the other’s clothes in order to take a bath. Couples have to make sure that when they are engaging they can whisper one thing they love about them in their ear while taking their clothes off. Couples should take some time to ask the other how it feels taking the time and energy that was set aside to appreciate the meaning of their relationship. A question to ask: How can you each be more frequent with the love you share?
3.) Give one another a massage. This would be one way to create a spa right from the comfort of your own home. Start with playing relaxation music in the background that can help of you to relax and become centered with yourselves. The atmosphere needs to be romantic, and you can use things in your home to make this night unforgettable. (Note: this version would be good for a spouse to plan for the other a surprise to make it more spontaneous.) Make this meaningful by figuring out what it is you know that gets your spouse attracted. Tailor to their pleasure comfort level and indulge in the romance that you both share. A question to ask: What helps you to relax and unwind? What gifts of love can you give to each other? (think deeply)
4.) Have a romantic dessert in bed. Think back to a time when you felt really close and connected with your partner, a time when you felt emotionally intimate with him or her. Think about a time when you felt light and playful with your partner, or a time when laughter flowed easily. Maybe it’s even a time where you felt you could tell your partner your deepest secret and it would be accepted. Now, take some time to ask the other how they could maintain that wonderful intimacy together throughout the years to come. Then each share a moment where they remember the relationship being the sweetest (it can be from when you first met, started dating, or during early marriage, etc.) Is there anything that you both find sweet?
5.) Set up a blanket in front of the fireplace and have sometime laying together and creating a warmth between the two of you. You could even make it a heated blanket that way you have some added warmth. The idea is truly connect through the busy schedules and lives, and have a period of time where it is just the two of you, reconnecting. Enjoy romantic music and take some pictures together. Talk about your dreams and spend time creating some goals that can foster more excitement and less boredom. Accomplish these by making them objective enough in order to reach the end result together, not separate.
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