Jim Bob and I purpose to go out for a lunch or dinner date weekly. When our children were younger, precious Grandma (Mary) Duggar helped us to keep our weekly date for many years by baby-sitting, for which we are extremely grateful! We also purpose to never allow the sun to go down without resolving conflicts.

Sometimes we’ll go for a drive and just park and talk or take a walk and talk. It’s so nice when it’s quiet and there are no interruptions. We really enjoy that because we’re not around a lot of people then, and we can catch up with each other. Other times, we’ll go out for a coffee or ice cream, which is my favorite weekly sweet treat, or occasionally a nice meal. It’s not uncommon for our dates to get bumped around because of our busy schedules. If we’ve got something happening on our regular date night, Jim Bob usually will just call me up on a weekday and ask me out on a date. It’s really sweet, he’ll call up and say, “Hey, can I come and steal you away for a date?”

Then he’ll surprise me and take me for lunch between his office work and my work at home. Jim Bob is so much more spontaneous than I am. I like to plan ahead and think about it for days and always have my ducks in a row. But I’ve learned to just jump and go; it’s so much more fun that way.

Two different personality traits can be a challenge, but you really do need to be flexible with each other and spontaneous in your relationship. For a while it was really hard for me, because I’d think, “Wait a minute, we can’t do that. I’m not prepared. I’ve got to get all these things done.” And I realized that was squelching Jim Bob’s creativity and fun spirit—both things that I really love about him. I had to let go of that urge to plan everything. And when I did, it brought such a wonderful new dimension to our marriage.