Making Time to Spark Romance? It's a Date

Along with "in sickness and in health" and "for richer or poorer," marriage vows should include "despite laundry and piano lessons." After all, a relationship's greatest challenges often are rooted in its most mundane routines, the tasks that can make spouses feel more like co-workers than lovers.

"Date nights" are supposed to be the antidote, suggested by everyone from marriage counselors to Brides magazine. The ritual got a recent boost from Barack and Michelle Obama, who have had several date nights since moving into the White House. They've slipped out to Washington restaurants and taken in a show on Broadway -- just another middle-aged couple with busy lives, young children and a desire to keep tallying wedding anniversaries (16 and counting).

Jay and Ilene Goldberg of Edina suspect that one reason they are at 32 anniversaries and counting is that they have made a priority of going out together once a week -- although they've only begun calling it a date night in recent years.

"We always went out on Saturday nights, always made sure we had a baby-sitter," Ilene said. But the impetus wasn't so much about reconnecting as about having a child-free meal, Jay added. When the youngest left the nest in 2002, the family dynamic shifted a bit.

Jay, a tax attorney, can easily clock 60 to 80 hours at the office in the winter. "There would always be more than enough work to do, so I finally told my staff not to schedule anyone past 4 p.m. on Fridays, and said it's because it's date night," he said. The Goldbergs' Saturdays out thus shifted to Fridays.