More often than not, with the busy schedule and demands of being a parent, husband and wife tends to forget that there is a relationship between them other than being a parent to their kids.

May I ask you, when was the last time you go out with your partner? Or the last time you simply talk about things other than your kids? I have to admit, it took us a while before we realised that we really need some time together, alone. That we should enjoy each other’s company without the kids. For a big family like ours, having our alone time together can be very challenging. It can be quite difficult to leave the kids behind. And after years and years of sneaking, our kids finally understood that mommy and daddy needs to date. And now, I am sharing you some of the things we enjoy as a couple.

Drinking coffee together
Every morning (and sometimes in the afternoon and in the evening) we have a few minutes to ourselves to talk about mundane things. The kids know that it’s mommy and daddy’s coffee time so they seldom interrupt our small talks. We discuss what happened during the day, talk about some future plans or we just tease each other about anything.

Playing bingo
This is our guilty pleasure! We both love playing bingo. He loves playing because it’s a number game. I love playing because it reminds me so much of my childhood. When we have a chance, we go the nearest bingo centre and play an offline game, but there are also some great online versions of bingo at sites like Coral. These feature the fast gameplay that means you can win real money in a highly entertaining manner! We usually win but it really doesn’t matter to us. Having fun is much better than winning!

Street food date
Another activity we both enjoy together is eating street food. At least once a week, he’d go home early so we can go to our favorite street food vendor and have a feast on chicken intestines and pork barbecue.

Grocery shopping without the kids
Here’s one activity that sometimes I am guilty of doing with only the husband on my side. But grocery shopping with the husband is really fun! It’s more relaxing since we don’t have to look after the kids while picking the best product for our house. We also got to concentrate more on what need.

Driving around the city
And the most relaxing activity that we do together is drive around the city. Even with the worst traffic, everything seems so peaceful. And we have the liberty to talk about intimacy and make plans about it!

I have to admit that it’s really hard, especially on my case (which he corrected, the feeling of guilt is the same for both of us according to him) to leave the kids behind. So how do we manage not to feel guilty whenever we spend some time together?

For one, we try not to go to places that our family enjoys. One time, we made a mistake of eating on our favorite restaurant and we felt so guilty that the next day we brought the kids there! Lesson learned, try restaurants that are not kid friendly. We also make sure that we bring something for the kids when we got home and lastly, we try to make them understand that we, as their mom and dad, needs time to be alone to strengthen our relationship.