Let’s face it. With almost everyone impacted by stay-at-home orders, getting a babysitter to help make date night happen is going to be a bit tricky. In fact, it’s probably impossible and not recommended, either. Yet, a regular date night is important to help maintain a healthy relationship with your Partner.

Here are some ideas to help you when your regular date night options are shelved due to COVID-19

What to Eat on Date Night?

For many of us, date night means getting out of the house and eating out at a favorite restaurant or exploring the cuisine options of a new neighborhood. Both of those are harder to make happen with dining-in no longer an option. One solution, of course, is to turn to take out. It’s a great way to preserve part of your date night routine and help out local businesses if you order from non-chain restaurants. Many are offering contactless pick-up, so that date night doesn’t feel like a game of Russian roullette.

Take-out and delivery aren’t options for everyone. Maybe your health circumstances make you want to really minimize outside contact or the stay-at-home orders have impacted your financial well-being. In either case, you can still make date night special. During your next grocery run or delivery order, throw in a frozen version of a date night favorite or look for copycat recipes on the internet. Love a blooming onion (i.e. an entire onion deep-fried in batter)? You can make it at home.

Your date night creations may not look like they due in the restaurant (they might even qualify as Pinterest fails), but the act of cooking and preparing something special for your partner can strengthen the bonds of your relationship.

Since the local liquor store is considered an essential service, you can stock up on some interesting drink choices. Try your hand at mixing a cocktail or set up a beer or wine tasting for yourselves. Remember, when you are stuck at home, you don’t need a designated driver!

Entertainment? Yes!

Going to movies is out right now, but there are plenty of ways to stay entertained at home. Turn your family or bedroom into a movie theater with home-made or microwave popcorn (if you really want authentic, spill some soda on the floor!). Use a pay-per-view or a video-on-demand service to see more recent movie releases. Tired of Netflix? Check out the digital streaming services at your local library. Even Broadway shows are being streamed online, plus lots of popular music artists have been streaming live concerts from their own living rooms.

Playing a game with your partner is another way to add some entertainment to date night. You can even set up a double date with another couple and play a game online. A special date night-only puzzle can be fun as well. Check out my post of teleparties for kids for other ideas. Here are a few more ideas:

• Take a museum tour together. Visit a museum that you’ve always wanted to go to or one that is a personal favorite.
• Enjoy a spa treatment at home together
• Go dancing! Create a Spotify playlist of your favorite music.
• Pick a Pinterest project and see who can make it right and who wins the #pinterstfails award.
• Go stargazing.
• Get the firepit or fireplace going and lounge around it.
• Watch your wedding video.
• Celebrating an anniversary or special occasion? Get dressed up (at least from the waist up) to make it feel nicer.

Talking to Your Date

Date night is also about renewing our bonds with our partners and finding time to talk with the kids not around. This can be trickier if you are worried about your kids wandering down the steps at an inopportune moment. Use date night to share about your hopes and dreams for after the stay-at-home orders are lifted. Plan a fantasy vacation with each other or even a realistic one. Open up to your partner about your concerns and ask them what’s on their mind. Talking can strengthen and deepen a relationship, particularly when it is being stressed.

What are your date night ideas? Share them in the comments below.

The post Making Date Night Work When You Can’t Leave the House appeared first on Dr. Ari Yares - Licensed Psychologist.