We believe it is important to have little rituals in place to keep our marriage exciting and to give us something to look forward to. After getting married, we committed ourselves to having weekly dates on Friday nights.
We commit and prioritize to this ritual of ours, no matter what. It is important for us as part of maintaining a healthy marriage life. We need these Fridates to share each other’s individual lives, including our dreams and goals (both work and Church-related), and to know whether we’re on the same page and whether we’re on track.
Of course, there have been challenges. Many of those hurdles would be unpredictable only a year ago. With the advent of the pandemic, there were many times when we had to stay at home due to lockdowns.
Still, we continued to have our dates, even while obeying health regulations and being responsible towards our society. Instead of going to a restaurant, we would order something special via delivery. My husband would not let me cook even if I wanted to!
Last Fridate we ordered a sushi platter and a bottle of white wine. After dinner, we would finish our date by watching a great movie at home.
Another challenge pertains to Lent: for Catholics, Fridays are holy days of abstinence. We should not have meat on Lent Fridays. This is why we ordered sushi. It is special and yet remains a simple meal.
Of course, one might ask if we could have given up our weekly days for Lent, but we thought that would run counter to our word of commitment. We give up on something else and that too is a way of commitment.
These dates are one of the things that help maintain the spark alive. Having great conversations with each other, or by simply being with each other, even in silence, is very important.
Fulfilling this commitment of ours has had a very positive impact in our married life. Sometimes, it gets challenging, but every commitment does at some point. What matters is to strive in our goal to be consistent with it and to be creative as to the best way to achieve it without sacrificing anything else that is important.
