The first couple headed off for dinner and a show on May 30.

By JAN HOFFMAN


Theirs is a seasoned marriage, 16 years and counting. They are middleaged. Life is that modern-crazy haze: two girls in the windstorm of yearend school activities, the puppy that must be walked twice daily, the live-in mother-in-law. They both work long hours. Standard recipe for a drive-by relationship.

And yet, in his strict schedule, he sets aside daily “Michelle time.”

And late last month, he fulfilled a promise to her. They got all dressed up and flew to New York, took a limo to dinner and a Broadway show, then flew home. Date night, just the two of them. Michelle and Barack. And their security detail.

While some commentators were complaining about the presidential date’s undisclosed cost to the taxpayers, news of the romantic evening prompted many wives to glare across the breakfast table, trying to remember the last time their husbands made a fuss over them.

Elbowed sharply in the side, husbands felt betrayed by the commander in chief. On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart, the host, reviewed the Obamas’ glamorous foray and screeched, “How do you compete with that?” He warned Mr. Obama, “Take it down a notch, dude!”

But relationship experts are applauding the first couple for giving life to the modern fantasy that longtime spouses can still be passionate about each other. Intentionally or not, the Obamas have become ambassadors for date night, a term that is a creature of these times.

“The Obamas really are products of the culture,” said Christine B. Whelan, a sociologist at the University of Iowa who studies the American family. The Obamas exemplify what sociologists call the “individualized marriage,” she added, where a thriving relationship is marked by love and mutual attraction, not just duty to family and social roles.

“As a society, we want to think a husband might still have his hand on his wife’s knee under the table after 15 years of marriage,” said Dr. Whelan, author of “Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women.” “That’s not necessarily bad, but it adds extra pressure.”

Joy Behar, a host on the television show “The View,” whose marriage ended after 17 years, said the president’s schedule posed unique marital challenges. Every day Mr. Obama has to weigh competing demands, Ms. Behar said: “Musharraf or Michelle? That’s a tougher thing for him than the average Joe. So it’s really meaningful when you watch them together.”

She added, in a tone of wonderment, “He actually looks like he desires her.”

Some husbands had their story and were sticking to it: emphatic cluelessness. Mark Hyman, a conservative television commentator, said his first reaction to the Obamas’ date night wasn’t envy, but bewilderment over how they managed to schedule one. He and his wife, he said, could scarcely keep up with coordinating weekend activities, scattered across Baltimore, Maryland, of their three children, ages 7, 10 and 13.

“Sometimes we talk about going to a film together,” he said, “but by the time we agree on one, it’s out on DVD.”

In some households, attention to the Obamas’ example was being paid. Eileen O’Connor, a Washington lawyer with five daughters, believes the “Yes We Can” message, marital version, is penetrating even her 19-year marriage. Ms. O’Connor’s husband, John Bilotta, seems to be taking the hint: he has been sending her flowers weekly.

Although most spouses cannot create fairy-tale evenings on the order of Mr. Obama’s, couples could learn from his model, said Arthur Aron, a social psychologist. Studies show that “couples who do things that are novel, challenging and exciting do a lot better,” said Dr. Aron, a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Even a picnic could suffice, he said.

Other couples cautioned against reading too much into what could be a staging of matrimonial contentment. “You never know what couples are really like,” said Rita Rudner, a comedian who has been married for 21 years. “I used to be jealous of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.”