TFT: dating

I'm hesitant to tackle this topic this morning, as I have very limited time and I'm afraid that means I might butcher what I'm trying to say. But I wanted to get this out there and won't really have time later today... so take it for what it's worth.

That being said, I should also preface this post by saying that I am in no way criticizing my husband... I'm not complaining, feeling sorry for myself, I'm not mad at him nor am I truly upset by any of this. I'm simply observing outloud and looking for ways to improve one lacking aspect of our relationship. That's not even lacking, per say, but you can always make things better, right?

I want to talk about dating. As in "dating" your husband or your long term significant other. Do you still go on dates? Years down the road? Who takes the initiative? Is it an equal thing, does your spouse plan things and make it a priority? Is that just a girl thing?
Here's where I'm coming from today...
Our anniversary is this coming Saturday. My problem is two-fold (and again, it's not so much a problem as just what I'm letting myself focus on right now). For one, Ryan is wonderful at remembering special occasions... he remembers everyone's birthdays, he would never ever forget our anniversary, and even remembers each year the anniversary of when we met (awww). But remembering is a broad based term in this area. Yes he remembers... days and weeks ahead of time in fact. But he doesn't remember until the last minute, or even after the fact. He just puts it off and puts it off until the very last minute. He'll remember his mom's birthday is coming, and talk about "remembering" it for weeks. But will he get a card sent out ahead of time? Nope. If he's good, it'll be in the mailbox the day of. Now normally, this type of thinking doesn't affect me. I could care less whether he buys my birthday present weeks ahead of time or goes out the night before. I don't live long distance, so it doesn't impact me! LOL! I know he thinks of it, I know he's a great and thoughtful gift buyer... in fact, he usually has exactly what he wants in his head way ahead of time; it's just still sitting in the store until the last minute. I could care less when he does it, the point is- he does it.

So to the example at hand... our anniversary is Saturday. Ryan brought it up like a month ago... we commented on the fact that it was hard to believe May was here already and wow, it's almost our anniversary again, and he asked what we should do, I had no clue, he asked if I wanted him to take care of it and I said sure. He said he would arrange for a babysitter and make plans for us. I was actually excited for once because now we have a couple of babysitters that we love, plus the Swinigans also offered to watch the kids for us (overnight even, if we wanted!) so I knew we had our bases covered.
Now, fast forward three weeks. I get an email cc'd to me yesterday to our friends asking if they would want to take the kids for us either Friday or Saturday evening so we could have our anniversary date... with an "I was just thinking dinner and a movie or something" thrown in there. Ugh.
I found myself picking this apart yesterday, and while I wasn't necessarily mad or irritated about this, I wasn't all that happy either. What happened to planning ahead? What happened to it being a special night rather than what I can take to feel like an obligatory dinner and movie quick date because it's our anniversary and you know, we should probably go out and do something.
It just kind of bummed me out.
And that all got me thinking about expectations and communication and all that good stuff in any given marriage. That I've been sitting here for the past month, fully knowing that Ryan hasn't lined up a babysitter, likely hasn't made any plans ahead of time, but instead of giving him encouraging reminders or subtle hints about fun things we could do, I just sit and let the unfulfilled expectation fester. Why? Why do we do things like that? Why don't I just take the initiative and do it instead of waiting to feel like it's not a priority or something special to him?? And then I can blame it on him.
Does this happen in your house?

The second part of what's been on my mind is this: we just don't date. And I think I'm realizing that is something that might be important to me. Don't get me wrong... I think we spend a good amount of quality time together. Our kids have early bedtimes and the evenings are our time. Most evenings we are doing things together; we often watch movies, we play scrabble (yes, we're old fuddy duddies like that), we even once or twice a month feed the kids early, put them to bed and then have a nice "grown up" dinner together of steak or carry out chinese or something with a side of adult conversation. That's our own "indoor" version of a regular date.
When we lived in Oregon and had three families worth of free babysitters at our beckon call, we got out and did a lot more just us. Now without our families around, a night out without the kids is so rare. And when we do finally do it, we often find ourselves wanting to take advantage of kid free time with other couples. I think we feel we spend enough time just the two of us at home, we love our friends, and often our first thought is who can we include in our activities?

But I think there's something to be said about intentionally going out, just us, getting out of the everyday, out of our monotonous surroundings, and spending time enjoying other things with each other besides our couch.

That's why when I came across this article about having regular 'Life Dinners' together, I was intrigued. I think it's a fabulous idea. I would love to incorporate something like this into our routine of life. Something intentional, something consistent, and like the author stated, something that would be an awesome "monthly touchpoint for our lives".
So here I sit, having read that article a few weeks ago, romanticizing the idea of those regular dinner dates, pretending that my husband has taken the initiative in making me feel special on our anniversary, and letting myself be disappointed in all of it. Gah! Why do I do these things?

Like I said, I have nothing to complain about, so please don't take this the wrong way. I have a fabulous husband, we truly are best friends, we get along, heck- we (gasp) are actually in love with each other. Imagine that! I know that I am blessed to have ended up with Ryan as my husband... he is so good for me in (almost) every way. I think we have a wonderful marriage... I just want to make sure it stays that way for years to come and not get lazy about things we should be more intentional about. So I want to take some steps to do that.

So what are your thoughts? Am I talking crazy here (about the crazy pms reactions to date planning) or does what I'm saying ring a bell with anyone (about the men not taking any initiative in taking over the planning of dates)? How does it work in your house? How is your "dating" life? What do you think about the Life Dinner idea?