5 Educational Date Night Ideas

Yes, it’s possible to use date night as a chance to learn more about yourselves and actually improve the health of your relationship!

As nerdy as it might sound, it’s a great way to be proactive and build up relationship capital that can pay off for years to come.

Here are 5 fun and simple ideas to try for your next date night, all of which can be done at home within 2 hours or less.

Idea 1: Play an “Intimate” Card Game

How about cards that can actually help save humanity?!

World renowned therapist, Esther Perel, created an easy and fun way to deepen your relationships all around whether it be with friends, family, or colleagues.

Try this game with your partner for date night and get to know each other on a whole new level with creative prompts that you may not think to ask yourself.

Get Where Should We Begin – A Game of Stories.

Idea 2: Discover your own attachment style

By the nature of being social creatures, we all have an “attachment style.”

“Attachment” in psychological terms are the emotional bonds we develop with others.  Your particular style is determined by your life experiences, mainly your childhood bonding experiences with your parents or main caregivers.

Knowing your own style and that of your partner can be hugely transformative! 

Once you learn more about attachment theory and attachment styles, you’ll be able to view your relationship through a whole new lens.

You’ll even be able to see how it impacts your wider relationships with family, friends, and even coworkers.

Use your next date night to identify both of your attachment styles and talk about how this shows up in your bond together.

The attachment style quiz available from The Attachment Project is designed to help you “explore how childhood conditioning manifests in your adult relationships.”

Take it here: Attachment Style Quiz

Idea 3: Take a Relationship health Test

The internet is filled with tons of crappy low-quality “relationship tests” designed to grab your attention and get you onto someone’s marketing list. But you really shouldn’t trust the vast majority of these! Most of them are no more useful than a horoscope reading.

Consider using your next date night to take a high-quality relationship health assessment designed by top relationship researchers and based on real social science.

I recommend taking one of these 2 options:

Option 1: Couples Checkup

For those seeking relationship feedback within couples therapy, I’m a trained Facilitator of the Prepare-Enrich program and offer the full version of this test through special access.

However, you can use a lighter version of the assessment called “Couple Checkup” at home without the help of a trained Prepare-Enrich Facilitator.

Once you get your results, you and your partner can look over them together and open up a loving dialogue about what areas are working well in your relationship and what areas you hope to see improve.

Find the test here: Couple Checkup

Option 2: The Gottman Assessment

Another great test option…

You and your partner can take the relationship health test offered by The Gottman Institute, one of the top relationship science institutes in the world.

With this 100+ question test, you get the option of taking it together and afterward receiving an overall relationship satisfaction score plus details of how healthy your relationship is in areas like friendship, intimacy, and trust.

Find the test here: Gottman Assessment

Idea 4: Watch a Relationship health Documentary

Do you and your partner get into arguments over household responsibilities?

Are you both working outside of the home while struggling to keep things afloat inside of the home?

Then, this show might be for you!

This film, inspired by Eve Rodsky’s New York Times best-selling book, Fair Play, looks at the uneven division of labor happening in millions of American homes.

Specifically, it makes a strong case that there’s a heavier house workload which falls on women in modern (heterosexual) relationships, even when both the man and woman have full-time jobs outside of the home.

Fair Play looks illustrates the unfairness of domestic labor, sheds a light on the invisible work done by women that many families take for granted, and delves into the negative impact on BOTH sexes between otherwise happy couples.

If you decide to watch this for a date night, just know that it’ll will almost certainly generate a lively relationship conversation! Try to keep your initial conversation light-hearted and approach it with curiosity instead of judgement.

As a couple, you may decide that there’s an issue to be explored in more depth at a later time but don’t ruin date night with negative energy or problem-solving.

Find the trailer and links to the film here: Fair Play Documentary

Idea 5: Play an “ADulting” Card Game

If you and your partner decide to try Idea 4 above, you might consider using a later date night to play the Fair Play card game.

Carve out at least an hour during date night to play this game.

This card deck includes 100 tasks that make up the “invisible” work necessary to run a household.

Like a more realistic version of the game “The Game of Life,” this is designed to help you two learn what’s really happening in your home and if it’s fair based on your values and circumstances.

You might just be surprised what by what you learn!

Get the cards here: Fair Play Card Deck