You know you need a date with your husband/partner when...

You know you need a date (as in a night out) with your husband/partner when your current definition of "date" is sitting at the computer deciding who gets to pay which monthly bill.

I'm the step-parent of a teenage daughter (Pip) from my husband's first marriage (she resides with us), we've been married for two months shy of 12 years, and I honestly can't remember when we last had a date.

My husband had a bit of a life change three years ago. He quit his old job (Thank you God!) and got a new, much less paying career. He's blissfully happy with his new position, but it pays half of what the old one did. To help make ends meet, he's picked up a part-time job. I've told him that at any point he can quit the part time gig, but so far he keeps plugging away at both. This leaves us precious time to actually GO somewhere as when he's not at one job, he's at the other.

He's free to take time off from the part-time job, but I feel that it's more important for him to take time off to attend his daughter's choir concert, her school play, and her dance recitals than to go out on a date with me I don't complain. After all, you only have the first 18 years of your child's life to leave a good, parental impression.

The 'spark' is still there for us, it's just that we don't often have the time or energy to fan it into flames--if you know what I mean. Things were easier when Pip was 7 years old and went to bed at 8:30pm. Mommy-Daddy time (that blissful time of day when parents can actually talk to one another without keeping things Y7 in ratings) could start at 9:00. Now it's 10:30 for bedtime (although I'm pretty sure that at 10:30, the lights go out and the IPod goes on...), news at 11, falling asleep on the sofa promptly at 11:20pm. If we need an alert, adult conversation our best bet is either to call one another at work or send an email.

From time to time I think back on our dating days. He--a dashing, soccer-playing part-time minister in Louisville, KY and I--a fun-loving, fashionable hairstylist in Canton (a suburb of Detroit), MI. We got to know each other through friends, the phone lines, and snail mail. (Al Gore hadn't 'invented' the Internet yet.) We would get together every other weekend, alternating who drove to meet whom. It didn't take long to realize that we'd each met our soul mate in the other. We made long-distance dating work then, we'll make phone calls and emails work now!

Besides, when I look into his eyes, I still see the young soccer player and I know that he still sees the fashionable hairstylist.

Not to mention that college starts in Fall of 2008. I know that it's a long time to go before we can reinstate date night, but my hubby's worth it!

This post is part of a Blog Blast sponsored by E-Harmony Marriage, a new online alternative to marriage counseling (cool, right?) and Parent Bloggers Network. If you'd like a chance to win a $100 Amex Gift Card for a date out with your spouse/partner plus $100 cash for a babysitter, then write your own post "You Know You Need a Date With Your Partner When...." anytime today, send the link to parentbloggers@gmail.com, and they will pick a winner at random. Click here for more info!