Research by the UK-based Marriage Foundation has revealed that
married couples who go on an occasional date night have 14 percent lower
odds of their relationships breaking down.
When date nights became a weekly event they lost their benefit.
Eleven percent of couples who had date nights once a week or more
often were no more likely to stay together than those who never made
time for date nights at all, suggesting a degree of spontaneity is a key
ingredient in a successful date night.
Commenting on the report, a specialist in marriage and relationships
counselling with Accord (the Catholic Marriage Care Service) said that
it was healthy for a couple to identify, in advance, space and time to
be together in order to maintain and enrich their relationship.
“As contemporary couples are so invested in their busy family and
working lives, it is critically important to etch out and plan for time
together so as to appreciate each other’s company,” Mary Johnston told
CatholicIreland.net.
“It is, of course, for each and every couple to determine when best
suits them to spend time together in the context of other
responsibilities in their lives. This is no mean feat when the care of
children and maintaining a home and family life are factors, but
nonetheless it is worth the effort and has the potential to pay
dividends in terms of healthy and satisfying relationships.”
Many couples who look for help in their relationships have communication problems.
A couple’s work schedules, family and other commitments and circumstances will influence how much time a couple spend together.
“Sometimes it will be easier to schedule time together, at other times it will be more difficult,” said Ms Johnston.
“It is important for couples to be mindful of keeping their relationship healthy throughout their lives together.”
What a couple does on a date night is not particularly important.
“Some might like to socialise, some may have common hobbies and
interests and some might take turns in partaking in each other
hobbies/interests. It is good for relationships when couples can talk
and share with one another about all the things they would like to talk
to one another about.”
Ms Johnston said that if a couple needed to talk about a sensitive or
difficult matter, it was important to chose a time and place where they
could listen well to each other and have “the appropriate time and
privacy to do so”.
Although monthly date nights for married couples gave them a 30
percent lower chance of splitting up, the research found that date
nights for cohabiting couples made no significant differences in the
odds of splitting up.
“So for cohabiting couples, on average, date nights make no difference whatsoever,” said the authors.
The Marriage Foundation research found that the highest predictor of
whether a couple would stay together or split up was marriage.
The odds of married parents splitting up were 57 percent lower than
for cohabiting parents.
Relationship quality also plays an important
part, independently of marriage.
The odds of splitting up among couples who agreed that their partner
was “sensitive and aware of their needs was 43% lower than those who
neither agreed nor disagreed”.
Other important components keeping couples together were education –
with graduates having a statistically lower odds of breaking up and age,
with a general tendency that the older the couple the greater the
chance of staying together.