My wife and I brought back date nights. It was a good call.

A few months ago, I decided Terry and I should have once-a-week date nights.

This is in no way an original concept. Lots and lots of couples have intentional/scheduled date nights, to the point that we're probably a little late to the party.

It just wasn't something we had done before, or at least not something we had done in many years.

When you've been together for any length of time, it's easy to stop thinking of yourselves as a couple. If you have kids, you are instead co-workers in an ongoing enterprise, the goal of which is to keep your offspring fed, clothed and educated.

You get so caught up in it that sometimes you forget that, at one point, the two of you had a romantic relationship (which is of course what led to you having a family in the first place).

So you have to make sure you carve out little chunks of time dedicated to being together, preferably away from the children if they still live at home.

It doesn't have to be expensive, though a couple of our date nights have centered on dinner at a restaurant. Nor does it need to be elaborate.

It just needs to be the two of you together, as free of distractions as possible. We've gone to movies, taken walks, watched Jack and his friends play volleyball...whatever.

So far I think it has been good for us. I like to believe I've always appreciated my wife, but talking to her one on one always reminds me again how smart, funny and full of life she is.

It also affords us some time to talk about short- and long-term plans. What's next for our house? What vacation will we take this fall? What does she have coming up that she's excited about?

In short, date nights have been nothing but good for our relationship. I just hope we can continue coming up with stuff to do each week.

It's the activity brainstorming that's the real trick.

If you force me to give you relationship advice, here are three things I'll tell you

By no one's definition of the word am I an expert when to comes marriage and relationships. Yes, I've been married for 28 1/2 years, but I almost want to say I lucked into that.

(Actually, there was no luck involved at all. "Blessing" is a much better word for it. The point is that I never purposely planned this out. It all just sort of happened.)

My four oldest kids each have significant others, and those relationships have all lasted for some time. I wish I could say they chose their partners well because I taught them what to look for. But this isn't true. They either asked their mother for advice in this area or, like their father, they just sort of fell into stable, loving relationships.

But I suppose if you held that proverbial gun to my head, or much better yet, if you offered me $1 million, I could come up with some tips that may or may not improve your love life. Here's what I have:

(1) Aim high: I married up and I highly recommend it. My wife is the best person I know. She has too many great qualities to enumerate, but "beautiful," "smart," "funny," "honest," and "talented" probably top the list. I like to joke that I always know what she's going to say or do next, but truth be told, she almost always has me guessing. That's a good thing. If you can be with a person you aspire to emulate, things will always be interesting. (NOTE: The corollary to this, of course, is that the good person ends up with a not-as-good person, which could get boring for them after a while. The trick is to get someone who's better than you AND who is OK spending their life dragging you in their wake. A tall order, sure, but I'm proof it can be done.)

(2) It's not about you. It can't be: You have to be willing to put the other person's interests ahead of your own. That doesn't mean you should quash your own desires 100% of the time, but it seems impossible to be both a selfish person and someone who has a successful long-term relationship. The funny thing about this, in my experience, is that the more you tend to the other person's needs, the more your own will be fulfilled (and vice-versa).

(3) You're gonna want someone you can laugh with. And at. A lot: This is such a cliche, but I'm telling you, this may be the single most important thing. You're going to go through a whole bunch of stuff together. Some of it will be good, some of it will be bad. If you can laugh equally at both, and do it together, that's gold, Jerry. Life is mostly funny. Treat it that way.