Date Night Disasters

Why is it that dating my husband is so much harder and involves much more mishap than it was during our pre-marriage days? I’m not saying that our pre-marriage dates were always fantastic because many times they just involved dinner and a movie, but dating my husband takes an extreme amount of effort. You have to decide on the day, arrange for a sitter, plan the outing so that you are not completely exhausted the next day, and the date never seems to live up to all the hype-although it does make for a good blog post…

When my kids were smaller, we didn’t try to go out-with both of us working, the guilt of not being near our kids during our off time was just too much too bear, and we did everything together as a family. Then as our family grew and the kids got older, the stresses of family life and the workday naturally increased so my husband and I tried to incorporate little “breaks” from the kids a few times a year. Yes, you read that right-we still had trouble leaving the kids. We are more relaxed about things now, but both kids are in school so it makes things much easier. Besides, they both cheer when they hear we are leaving them with a sitter.

But while we overcame the leaving part, the actual dating part has, well, been interesting. At first, I chalked up our dating experience as just a case of bad luck-I mean, sometimes things go wrong no matter how much you plan. But then I started noticing a pattern and realized that we must be the ill fated victims of some type of tribal curse that affects only married couples, and we are destined, like in the movie Ground Hog Day, to suffer continued dating disasters.

For instance, let’s look back at when the dates started going sour-my husband and I decided to get a nice dinner and finish our Christmas shopping. I was so looking forward to this but as the date grew closer, and money spent on Christmas gifts started flying through our fingertips, we decided on a sandwich joint instead-we used the fact that we would have more time to shop as a way of softening the disappointment. Things started off well because we were able to get most of what was on our list, but then it was time to eat. We stopped off at a favorite hang out of ours-one we have been to a thousand times-and we ordered our usual choices. But things took a bad turn after I had finished my last bite-I had a peculiar feeling in my stomach. I had eaten more than I usually do so I just thought I was overly full, but oh how wrong I was!

I remember that we were in the car and my husband was relating some story involving something at work, but all my concentration was on the sick feeling in my stomach. I mentioned that I wasn’t feeling very well and may have to use a bathroom, so my husband nonchalantly said I could go at the sitters. That seemed plausible enough until my hands and feet started to itch, and we're not talking a little itch here-I’m saying that if I could have scratched my skin off, I would have done so that night!

I turned the dash light on-I had monster hands and feet, all red and swollen and I had blotches on my face. I remember my husband uttering “whoa” when he snuck a peek at me-I was that hideous. Then the nausea increased and I begged my husband to get me to the nearest bathroom. One of the county parks was nearby so he pulled up close to the public bathrooms, but it was getting dark and the bathroom had no electric lights, so my husband kept his headlights on so that I could find my way to a stall. Let me tell you that these facilities were only one step up from a porta-potty, and the stench alone could have made me wretch, and wretch I did do, several times in a scope of about 20 minutes. By this time my husband’s headlights went out and I had to endure my miserable state in pitch black, but then I heard voices. The parks close and lock their gates at dark, so a park ranger had come by to see what was up, and to make matters worse, we both knew the guy!

After completely emptying my stomach of all of its contents, I tried to feel my way out the door and walk nonchalantly to the car, but the ranger shined his light (he shouldn’t have) before I could crawl back in. We made it to the sitters but my husband went in alone to get the kids. We figured that the restaurant had added something new to the dish and that I had a nasty allergic reaction to whatever it was. A little Benadryl and a good nights rest set everything right again, but like I said before, that one date was the start of a trend!

Now I would be lying if I said that every outing where I was alone with my husband ended badly, because there were a few times this year when both of us were off but the kids had school, and those couple days were wonderful. But these were spontaneous outings, with no planning involved, so they ended much better than anything we ever planned. So I decided to compile a list of all the bad luck that has happened on our dates of late to prove my curse theory:

·At a recent outing, we were forced to entertain a co-worker’s drunken husband.

·We attended an evening wedding that left us wiped out that night and for the rest of the weekend, and I became the designated driver...

·We decided on a new restaurant but had to wait 45 minutes for a table, 30 minutes for our food, and 20 minutes for the check. There were no happy thoughts on the way home.

·I was so excited about meeting my husband at a nearby restaurant-of course traffic was terrible and I was running late. I glanced at a nearby eatery but didn’t see the car in front of me slam on their breaks-I totaled our 6 month old van and got a ticket! My husband met me at the crash site instead and dinner was, um, canceled.

·Before another date my husband and I got into an argument about whether we were going to a movie or just out to eat. Well, we had a bad meal, no movie, and we barely talked the entire time.

So you see, we are cursed and it seems the only sure way to have a good date is to make sure that the date isn’t planned. But with two kids, sports practices, and work, this is next to impossible-were talking the earth-moon-sun angle needs to be 180 degrees with a full moon at midnight… But tell me, has this same blight affected you, or have you mastered “date night” at your house? I sure hope this malady isn’t contagious…