Laundry Night is NOT Date Night

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The other day I opened my "daily couples horoscope" and it actually said, "even laundry night is like date night," when it came to spending time with my "honey." And that left me thinking: WTF are these people thinking?! I'm married, and laundry night is NOT date night.

Maybe I was being a little bit sensitive about the whole thing since my husband and I had a talk about this subject a couple months previous. It was a nondescript Wednesday but for the fact that this conversation ended up getting tossed around. My husband brought up some issues he was having and I believe the words "lack" and "passion" ended up in the same sentence.

Photo by Lindsey Turner.

To this news, I was incredulous. I was absolutely beside myself. How in the world can a person request passion without romance?! When -- I asked him -- was the last time he romanced me? I want flowers... which he says are a waste of money. I want him to cook dinner... of which his version is chicken nuggets and corn (and I wish that were a well-placed joke, but it's not).

This is the point -- romance begets passion and vice versa! They are a self fulfilling prophecy. In my relationship, there has always been passion, with a sprinkling of romance. I am not the frilliest of ladies... I am high maintenance in some ways, sure, but not in the department of romance. I can generally get by. Or at least I could, until my husband said those two words in the same sentence.

Only at that moment did it dawn on me that perhaps my eh-hem of eh-hem is because my needs have changed. What worked before doesn't work anymore. I mean, for gosh sakes, I am nearly 10 years older! What in the heck have we expected... to go with status quo in this particular department forever?! Well, yea, I guess we did. My bad!

The relationship is getting older. It's about to turn 8 years old in a few weeks, after all, and as we grow together, we know that things are changing, but we don't always know the remedy to the portions of the changes that we don't like. Frustrating, I know, but not the most unfixable problem in the world. What I do know? Laundry, especially at this stage of the game, is not romantic, and it certainly isn't a date.

Laundry, for me, is pretty much a solo sport. I'm not complaining, it's just one of my departments. I can get a stain out of pretty much anything, and I am proud to report that I can separate loads like a bandit! I no longer mix tie dye and whites or towels and clothes. I'm great at it, but it ain't sexy.

Dates are romantic. Dates have dresses and make-up and dates have "sexy." Dates tell you that you can order anything on the menu. Dates think that your flaws are beautiful and that your body is perfect. Dating is like a great game of grown up "make believe" and that is what I love about it. When you're married, though, dating is not the same, which is why it makes it so much more important.

I am not sure whether I should thank my horoscope for this revelation or if I should hate it for calling laundry a date for those women who might be in the beginning of a relationship and actually mistake laundry night for date night... like in those movies, where couples are folding each others laundry in the laundry mat. Either way, I want to be a great date to my husband, and I want him to be a great date to me.

That horoscope was a swift kick in the psyche to remind me that being romantic wasn't a one way street and that settling never was (nor is it now) an option. We should be passionate. Sometimes life is overwhelming, sure, we get that. But we've gotta dig it out... and dig it we did!

While I worked on making more room for that marital passion, he worked on the other because, as with any good relationship, ours is a work in progress. For us, maybe it's a little bit easier because our canvas is love and paint is desire, but by discussing these things, we have broken out of the normal old routine and into something more special. And one thing is for sure: no one in my home is calling laundry night date night!

