When you are a blended family date night as a couple takes on a whole new level of priority. As the family first comes together, there are the days of figuring out how two households do this as one….and your couple hood matters….its like a freshly planted sappling…if its not watered carefully and tenderly cared for, it can be uprooted before it grows.
Les and I have understood from the beginning that date night for our marriage was important. We often had financial issues in the beginning as he moved from a higher paying job to my state with additional children and responsibilities, but even then, we chose our relationship to be as important as any thing else we focused on. I believe that choice was a wise one.
When we first married, the children were often jealous of the new spouse. The truth was that as happyas they were we were marrying, and they were….they didn’t want anyone or anything to remove the attention from their parent they had had. For both of our oldest children, this was almost as traumatic as anything else they went through, when you are a single parent, you and your oldest child usually become very close….a new spouse may change how that closeness works….in our case for both of our oldest children it very much did.
Seven years down the road it is almost funny what we have had to do to make date nights happen. From quick trips to Sonic for a 15 minute time out and couple time to literally parking the car and walking at the park….and oh the rules we enacted along the way….”no talking about the children” “no talking about the exs” “no family talk at all regarding extended family” which some nights left us very much in one of two modes….silence or searching for conversations that didn’t involve the others! 
As we enter year eight one of the best decisions we have made is choosing date night. We selected Friday nights when its not football season and Tuesday nights when it is. We often do not leave until close to bedtime and often the dates do not last but an hour or two, but that time is something to look forward to, something to dress up for, something to plan for and that has made such a difference in our marriage.
God is so good, marriage is important and in a blended family, its essential to spend time with both!