Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] When life gets busy and routine, it's difficult to find time to spend together as a married couple. And sometimes it feels exhausting to try and make a big date night happen. And so most married couples just don't. Suddenly, years are flying by and in the blink of an eye you realize that you don't even know the person you're married to anymore. And there's a complete disconnect. In today's video, I'm talking about how to prevent that from happening and how to keep your marriage thriving and alive even without those big extravagant date nights. Stick around. Hello and welcome to the Warrior Kings podcast. I'm your host, Micha Riggs, here to assist you on your journey to living a fully optimized, leveled up life as a man. If it's your first time here. My name is Michael Riggs. I'm a full time author, artist and entrepreneur, husband and father of five. I know five kids. That's a lot of kids. And I teach men all over the world how to live fully optimized, leveled up lives and how to have happy, thriving marriages. So if that's something you're into, if you want to level up every aspect of your life and your marriage, subscribe to this channel. And it's super awesome to have you as part of this community. In marriage, especially if you have kids, daily life becomes very routine. You figure out what works and you stick to it. This is completely natural. For most men, the routine looks something like this. Wake up and get cleaned up. Get the kids off to school, go to work, work all day, come home and battle the kids until bedtime. Maybe you're lucky to have a couple hours in the evening to unwind and relax and then reset on the weekends. Hang around, relatively relax, drink beer and watch sports. One of the problems with this routine is that it actually works. And I call this the routine trap. It's a trap because it's actually holding you back from living an authentic a life that is true to your purpose and it's ultimately wasting your life. The reason why time seems to be going so fast these days and why years seem as quick as months is because every day is the same. Nothing is interesting and nothing is different. Because this routine, the routine trap, works, there's no reason to pursue a greater vision for your life or a higher calling. The routine trap is very comfortable and most men succumb to its comforts. You lose sight of the vision and the mission. When you first started seeing your wife, you probably painted a picture for her of a future of adventure and abundance. You had had grand plans for your life and where you were going. Then, because of the routine trap, you lost sight of those plans. Another part of the routine trap is falling into what you think adult men are supposed to do. And you find yourself pretending to like things that adult men are supposed to like. Football, video games, beer and golf. And there's nothing wrong with liking these things if you like them authentically. The trouble here is that these things become distractions. They're distractions from your higher calling and the purpose of your life. Another major issue with the routine trap is that your marriage and your relationship and connection with your wife becomes becomes routine as well. Maybe when the kids are finally in bed, you turn the TV on and you and your wife stare at the TV for a couple hours until one of you falls asleep. And this is the same routine every day. Maybe you even sit on opposite sides of the room. Maybe you even stare at your phones completely separate from each other and hardly talk to each other at all. When you're in the routine, and especially when the routine is actually working, you will be entirely unaware that it is ruining and wasting your life. I want you to want more for yourself. I want you to want more for your life. I want you to want more for your future and your wife. And back to actually spending time together when you can't have big extravagant date nights. The truth is, it doesn't have to be a whole big thing. Recall when you first started seeing your wife. What are the things that brought you together in the beginning? Did you used to hang out when life gets routine and busy? Things like hanging out take the back seat. Worse than that, maybe they're even in the trunk. But if you want to have a happy, thriving marriage with your wife, you have to start hanging out again. Hang out and just talk into the night like you used to when you were first dating. Laugh together, be funny and charm and make jokes like you used to do when you were dating. Actually listen to her when she speaks. Most married couples struggle to even ask how their partner's day went. That's an actual exercise that marriage counselors have couples do. Just ask your partner how their day went. And to make a habit of that. That's how disconnected average married couples are. Want more for yourself than that. One of the mindsets I think keeps most married couples from spending time together is the busyness of life. And a date night sounds like this huge time sucking, expensive burden. One, it's very difficult to find the time to make a date night happen. Two, if you have kids, you have to find someone to watch them. Three, you don't even have room in your mind to come up with interesting date night activities because you have a thousand other things to worry about. Four, interesting date night ideas cost quite a bit of money. And five, you don't want to have a boring dinner and movie evening with someone you hardly talk to anyways. It sounds exhausting. At that point, it feels like you might as well just plan an entire vacation, give the house away and quit your job. That might sound extreme, but if you're as busy as the rest of us, you know exactly what I mean. A date night sounds like a really simple thing until you consider all of the logistics and the time it would take to make it happen. In some dynamics, both people in the marriage are working constantly to pursue their dreams, and a lot of them work opposite schedules. This causes even more conflict when it comes to carving out time for things like date nights. And sometimes when you have that little bit of extra time, all you want to do is get some sleep. I get it. But the truth is, if you're blaming busy, chaotic life for not having any time to spend with your wife, it's possible you're just making an excuse. There's an old saying, if you truly want to do something, you'll make time to do it. And if not, you'll make an excuse. This is true for for everything. Sure, planning a whole date night might seem pretty impossible right now, but what about hanging out at home? It doesn't have to be this big extravagant thing. And if you think it does, you might very well just be making an excuse. Because when it comes down to it, you don't want to hang out with her. Just a hard truth man. And you need to get to fixing that. One of the things that I love most about my marriage is that me and my wife make an event out of nothing, even if it's at home. And we often do what we call at home date nights. I know that sounds a little bit cheesy, but that's how we do it. And we are a little bit cheesy. I'll be honest with you, we would cringe you the F out if you or a fly on the wall. And these date nights usually consist of mostly me ranting and raving about whatever topic enters my brain, talking for hours, watching a movie that we pause a thousand times cuz I can't shut up or just playing a game together at the table. We always make some sort of cool snack like a charcuterie board or A frozen pizza, gluten free. Of course. We hang out all the time. We hang out every evening. I mean, what's the point of committing to spending the rest of your life with someone if you're not even going to take the time to know that person? That sounds kind of stupid in retrospect, doesn't it? And might I remind you that our time is very limited. We are here for a brief moment of beauty that we're supposed to recognize before it's gone. And there is nothing more beautiful in existence than sharing this crazy, confusing, nonsensical life with someone you can truly, honestly share it with. So you can't make a huge date night happen every week. What if you made a huge date night happen right at home during the couple hours that you have to spend together? That little bit of time that you get to be in each other's presence. What if you made every simple night, every regular night at home an event? Remember, time is passing, even in the waiting. Even if your putting things off and imagining some distant future where the conditions will be perfect and you will finally have time to be free together. Let's say it's when the kids are grown or when you're retired. And then you will finally get to spend time together. That time doesn't exist. The time is now. Make a point to spend time together right now and as much of it as you can get. Let's say you do have some extra time to go out, but you're not very good at coming up with what to do. But you also can't make a date night happen. Plan spontaneous day dates with the whole family. Most women love spontaneity. The more adventurous and outside of the norm it is, the more exciting it will be for her. It's the difference between I don't know what you want to do, then going to do the same thing you've done together a thousand times versus Saturday. We're going to a symphony orchestra and dinner at that place you always talk about. I already got tickets. And a babysitter. You see, it's spontaneous. And not only that, but you're handling it. Women love adventure and they crave a life that's full of it. She might seem okay with following the routine because like I said before, the routine actually works. But trust me, if you were to add some spontaneity in your relationship, it's going to improve every aspect of your connection together. It will also show your strength and will cultivate trust and respect because it will show that you can plan things and that you want to take care of her and give her the life of adventure that she deserves. One Saturday I woke up and for some reason a field of flowers popped into my head. I searched flower fields near me on Google and found a farm just a couple hours away that was doing an event where you could walk through sunflower fields. Over breakfast, I told my wife, that's what we're doing today. And she lit up with excitement. One of the best decisions that I have ever made and something that she will remember for the rest of her life. One morning I woke up and searched interesting places nearby and we ended up on a remote beach that's only accessible by foot, that's covered in whole trees of driftwood. They call it Boneyard beach. And it was like being on another planet. There were these massive trees turned over with their roots spiraling up into the air. And we explored the beach and walked around taking pictures and videos. You see, it's spontaneous. It came out of nowhere. It was unexpected, it was interesting and different and finding these cool, interesting places and these interesting ideas are like a Google search away. Spontaneity can be beautiful experience like this that are full of adventure and interesting places. But equally as exciting are those random nights that you decide to just make a pillow for it or pull a mattress into the living room and have a living room camp out like your kids or cooking breakfast in the middle of the night together. The key is to start having fun again. If it seems childish or stupid, it's probably going to be a lot of fun, bro. And she is probably going to have a lot of fun. In order for you to reignite the flame in your marriage and to have a true connection with your wife that turns into a happy, thriving marriage, you must, must step outside of your comfort zone and the routine and begin doing things spontaneously, randomly, and for no other reason than to have fun and build lifelong memories. Make the boring, routine, mundane life a thing of the past and start hanging out with your wife again. So that's two things that you can start doing right now at home. Date nights where you actually spend time together. Make an event out of nothing right there in your house and spontaneous adventures on your days off. Instead of focusing on distractions and things that don't even matter. Time is fleeting. Spend it with your beautiful wife and your your family and focus on the things that matter. If you want to dive deeper on how to have a happy, thriving marriage, I put everything that I know about the subject in my new book, Warrior Husband how to Be a Better Husband and save your marriage. That book is packed full of the wisdom that I've acquired over the years in order to now be living my dream life with my dream wife. After many failed relationships in the past, one of them being 10 years and two kids that fell apart and I had to learn all this stuff the hard way, I'm gonna put a link to that book in the description of this video and you can grab a copy of that to join thousands of men all over the 2025 leveling up their marriages again. That's Warrior Husband by Michael Riggs. I hope you got something out of this video. I hope that it inspired you to have fun with your wife and hang out with her again. If you have any thoughts or questions, leave them in the comments section. I always read them. I almost always respond unless they're super stupid. And I would love to hear from you either way. Now go give your wife some loving. I'll see you guys on the next one. Thanks guys. Bye.
