Ok, say you’ve been with your girl for a year or two. Or in my case, married for 12 years (that feel like 60, oy!). Remember there was a key date you had that just killed? The date where you went to a bar on a Sunday afternoon in the rain and killed two bottles of wine while watching folks running for cover on the street? Or the date where you went and saw a classic movie outside that you still talk about today? Or the hotel you stayed in that first time together that kicked your relationship into full-gear?

Every relationship had that “key date,” the thing you two did that brought you two closer together and move your closeness from 4^th gear to 5^th. So here’s a concept: go back and do it again.

Why? Because nostalgia counts for a ton in a relationship to reinforce the bond you two have. For example, if you haven’t stayed at that hotel in 7 years, book a night there and do a get-away and eat at the same restaurant you ate at the first time and go to the same bar where you took in the cover band. It’ll totally kick-in the nostalgia vibes for both of you and you’ll find yourselves even more deeply into each other.

You see, we all thrive on shared experiences. It’s not just enough to have a bottle of wine in the rain on a Sunday afternoon. We all do that every Sunday. It’s having it with someone whom you can share the experience with that makes it special. Particularly if that Sunday afternoon was really memorable for you both. Maybe you had fun conversation or it was the first time you truly realized you both dug each other or you the waitress have you a free appetizer or whatever. The point is that it was special. And you remember it even to this day.

But it was 10 years ago. So go back. It won’t be exactly the same experience as it was a decade earlier. Which is what makes it even better. You can talk about where you were ten years ago and what’s better about where you are today. It’ll cue her emotions. Yours, too.

It kicks in your memory drive and what it really does is show you how far you two have come since. It reinforces your commitment because you shared that experience 10 years ago together. And you’re still together.

There’s a restaurant in D.C. that has since changed ownership a few times an it’s too bad. Because it was the place we used to go when we were first dating to commemorate the first snowfall of every winter. We probably did three of those dinners over the first three years of our relationship and spent waaaay more money than we had to blow on a meal. The food was tremendous but it was the ambience that made it. We don’t go back because it’s not the same place it used to be. But even driving by the joint today triggers our memories and we start talking about the dinners we had during those first years together.

Inevitably we drive directly to a new place and create new memories there.  And if it’s a particularly good night, we’ll go back to re-create it.