{"id":1610,"date":"2012-02-06T06:52:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T11:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/?p=1610"},"modified":"2012-03-03T09:58:20","modified_gmt":"2012-03-03T14:58:20","slug":"5-ways-to-make-a-date-night-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/02\/5-ways-to-make-a-date-night-work.html","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways To Make A Date Night Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Couples trying to improve their relationship satisfaction often find that spending time together does the trick. In fact, that is the idea of the Date Night Challenge. Take your partner on a date and have some fun.<\/p>\n<p>But the mundane dinner and movie may not be enough to do the job. <em>How you spend time together matters<\/em>. Here are 5 tips:<\/p>\n<p>1) <strong>Ask your partner about his or her thoughts, feelings, dreams, likes, dislikes, etc.<\/strong> Think Newly Wed game -how well do you know this person? This helps you build a &#8220;love map&#8221; with that person. Love maps are important to building marital friendship, the foundation of a strong relationship.<\/p>\n<p>2) <strong>Tell your partner what you appreciate about him or her<\/strong>. Expressing affection, fondness and admiration also contributes to marital friendship.<\/p>\n<p>3) <strong>Turn towards your partner when he or she emotionally needs you<\/strong>. Be there emotionally and listen to what he or she is saying and be understanding. This is another building block of marital friendship.<\/p>\n<p>4) <strong>Do something novel in order to re-ignite romance<\/strong>&#8211;take a dance class, a walk on the beach, redo your very first date, picnic at the park, cook together, etc. Novelty gets the brain chemistry kicking in to romance gear.<\/p>\n<p>5) <strong>Share intimate details for half an hour, stare deeply into each other&#8217;s eyes without talking for four minutes.<\/strong> When Dr. Arun studied people who fall in love, he had complete strangers do these two things. Many of the couples felt deeply attracted to each other after the experiment ended, and two subjects later married!<\/p>\n<p>Start your engines&#8230;and get our there people!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Couples trying to improve their relationship satisfaction often find that spending time together does the trick. In fact, that is the idea of the Date Night Challenge. Take your partner on a date and have some fun. But the mundane dinner and movie may not be enough to do the job. How you spend time&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[913],"tags":[920,128,957,300,937,953,956],"class_list":["post-1610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-couple-relationships","tag-couple-relationships-2","tag-couples","tag-date-night","tag-love","tag-marital-relationships","tag-romance","tag-valentines-day"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>5 Ways To Make A Date Night Work<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/02\/5-ways-to-make-a-date-night-work.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 Ways To Make A Date Night Work\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Couples trying to improve their relationship satisfaction often find that spending time together does the trick. In fact, that is the idea of the Date Night Challenge. Take your partner on a date and have some fun. But the mundane dinner and movie may not be enough to do the job. How you spend time&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/02\/5-ways-to-make-a-date-night-work.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-06T11:52:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-03-03T14:58:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"5 Ways To Make A Date Night Work","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/02\/5-ways-to-make-a-date-night-work.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"5 Ways To Make A Date Night Work","og_description":"Couples trying to improve their relationship satisfaction often find that spending time together does the trick. In fact, that is the idea of the Date Night Challenge. Take your partner on a date and have some fun. But the mundane dinner and movie may not be enough to do the job. 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Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. 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