From Idaho Nachos to Now: Why Dating Your Spouse Matters

Kathryn Pasker Ineck explains how time with your spouse without everyday distractions creates opportunities for meaningful communication, unity, and commitment. 

As a teenager, I was one of those girls who hung out with a group of guy friends. The kind who called your bluffs and showed up every week … no judgment, no drama. Our regular hangouts were generally made up of Blockbuster videos, fast food, and raids on my parents’ kitchen (fully stocked with pop, potato chips, Twinkies, and ice cream by the gallon).

It makes sense, then, that when I started dating (and later married) one of the guys on the periphery of our friend group, our college dates looked a lot like our high-school hangouts. We would take long drives and chat, study together, or — if we were feeling super rich — we would run to the local burger joint and order a cheeseburger meal with an extra burger, splitting the fries and drink or hang out at a truck stop and share a plate of Idaho nachos. [What are Idaho nachos? I’m glad you asked. They are spectacular. Fried potato slices topped with melted mozzarella and served with both salsa and fry sauce. Baked potato toppings, too, if you want to spend the extra cash.]

Today, nearly 30 years later, our dates look a lot different … and are even more important now than they were then. According to a report from the National Marriage Project at UVA and the Wheatly Institute, coauthored by Brad Wilcox and Jeffery Dew, regularly dating your spouse leads to better communication, unity, and commitment.

Communication

That makes sense: The more time you spend focusing on your spouse without an agenda — like running an errand or managing necessary household tasks — the more opportunity you have to strengthen your ability to communicate in the low-stakes conversations that happen naturally on a date. These exercises in communication allow better interactions during high-stakes conversations over topics like expenses, chores, and child management. Catholic Mom contributor Lisa Henley Jones weighs in: “Sometimes [on dates], we find ourselves daydreaming and sharing our hopes, dreams, fears, and plans for the future. It is amazing what can come out of those conversations when we relax and be together.”

Unity

Dating your spouse also builds the bond you share and creates safety and unity. When asking people in my own community for date night ideas, many of them declared that they do not need to date their spouses: going to the grocery store, making dinner together, and attending Mass together are all the “dating” they require. While this is admirable — and living life together is what being married is all about — studies suggest that these activities should not replace setting aside time to be together for the sake of being together. When you do not set time aside for one another, you continue leading parallel lives rather than uniting in shared and intentional activity.

Commitment

Carving time out of our busy calendars for each other also fortifies commitment to one another. Cox and Dew comment:

Date nights may solidify an expectation of commitment among couples by fostering a sense of togetherness by allowing partners to signal to one another — as well as friends and family — that they take their relationship seriously, and by furnishing them with opportunities to spend time with one another to communicate and to enjoy fun activities together.

Mary Beth George, a Gottman-certified counselor, explains that, because commitment is lived as a verb, it serves as an inoculation against the temptation to betray your spouse — in word or deed — and strengthens safety by turning toward one another.

In Practice

Because Jim and I have never been very good at scheduling regular date nights, I took to social media to find out what everyone else is doing. The answers ranged widely but one thing was common: food! Whether morning or evening, a full day or a weekend getaway, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert was often mentioned. I find it interesting that the celebration of Mass, too, is focused on nourishing our bodies!

Christine Strassle, Boise, Idaho, says, “This sounds pretty silly, but we are in our 80s and have been married 28 years. We call things like going through the car wash and grabbing drive-thru a date or picking up a bowl of heaven and bringing it home for Netflix.”

Lucille Hancock, Caldwell, Idaho, married 50 years, responded: “Favorite date night? We put on our favorite tunes, push the table in the corner, and dance the night away. We wear what we want. Sometimes we dress up … We have a disco ball in the corner. Honestly, neither of us cares where we are as long as we are together.”

Jennifer Borges, Eagle, Idaho, married 24 years, says a “fun thing we do together is walk (sometimes we bike depending on the weather) around the greenbelt or our neighborhood. Some of the best conversations we have are while we walk and chat.”

Celia Davis, Lincoln, Nebraska, married eight months, recently planned “Sushi Battleship” with husband Chris. They created game boards based on the strategy guessing game and used sushi instead of ships. Who says you can’t play with your food?!

Danielle Kent Green, Meridian, Idaho, married four years, says that ABC dates are some of her favorites: “You go through the alphabet and take turns planning. For example, ‘A’ could be axe throwing, ‘B’ could be bookstore, and so on.”

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Copyright 2026 Kathryn Pasker Ineck
Images: (top, bottom) copyright 2026 Kathryn Pasker Ineck, all rights reserved; (center) Canva