Couples trying to improve their relationship satisfaction often find that spending time together does the trick. In fact, that is the idea of the Date Night Challenge. Take your partner on a date and have some fun.

But the mundane dinner and movie may not be enough to do the job. How you spend time together matters. Here are 5 tips:

1) Ask your partner about his or her thoughts, feelings, dreams, likes, dislikes, etc. Think Newly Wed game -how well do you know this person? This helps you build a “love map” with that person. Love maps are important to building marital friendship, the foundation of a strong relationship.

2) Tell your partner what you appreciate about him or her. Expressing affection, fondness and admiration also contributes to marital friendship.

3) Turn towards your partner when he or she emotionally needs you. Be there emotionally and listen to what he or she is saying and be understanding. This is another building block of marital friendship.

4) Do something novel in order to re-ignite romance–take a dance class, a walk on the beach, redo your very first date, picnic at the park, cook together, etc. Novelty gets the brain chemistry kicking in to romance gear.

5) Share intimate details for half an hour, stare deeply into each other’s eyes without talking for four minutes. When Dr. Arun studied people who fall in love, he had complete strangers do these two things. Many of the couples felt deeply attracted to each other after the experiment ended, and two subjects later married!

Start your engines…and get our there people!