I'VE BEEN MARRIED for 14 years. You'd think I'd be able to get a date.
New restaurants get great reviews. Broadway plays come and go. Rock groups tour. Blockbuster movies hit town like tidal waves. All sorts of people have parties.
I have an obliging escort, one who will go anywhere with me because he doesn't want to hurt my feelings. But I haven't been out at night in so long I'm not sure I can still drive in the dark.
My husband and I got married because of all the things we liked do together, and it seems that we haven't done any of them since. Not since we had kids. I am afraid they are going to leave for college, and he and I will feel as if we are on a bad blind date.
Who is this person?
The national divorce rate dropped, if infinitesimally, from 1992 to 1994, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But anecdotal evidence from marriage counselors and other professionals suggests that divorce rates spike when the first child leaves home.
Clinical research into the dynamics of married couples demonstrates that those who maintain their friendship through the battle-scarring years of raising children are likely to stay married. Even happily married.
But you have to spend time together to maintain that friendship.
"Couples let all of life and careers crowd that time out, and yet that is the stuff that fuels a marriage," says Scott Stanley, psychologist and director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver and co-author of the book "Fighting for Your Marriage."
"The part that bonded them is slowly dying."
We are so dedicated to being parents and workers that we let our marriages atrophy. We assume that if we are co-existing without conflict our marriage is good. But we are not static. We are changing in the crucible of work and child-rearing, and if we aren't careful, we will not recognize each other when the gunsmoke clears.
All we need to do is spend a little time together, and it is the one thing we do not do, the first thing we sacrifice when the calendar gets crowded.
"When both are working, they don't want to take any more time away from the kids. So they put the marriage on hold until the kids are gone," says David Arp, who, with his wife of more than 30 years, has developed a book and video titled "10 Great Dates to Revitalize Your Marriage."
