Relationship Agreements
After reading a few great chapters in my "Marriages and Families" text of my Sociology of Families course...I have decided that this particular portion of the Defining Your Marriage and Families chapter is something that I am going to consider implementing in my life and current relationship. Its about relationships, marriages in particular. Marriage agreements. Although I found this alittle controlling...after thoroughly reading it...it seems like a pretty good idea. I think that this can be applied to couples when agreeing their relationship is becoming serious, moving intogether, and of course marriage.
A personal relationship agreement involves articulating, negotiating and coming to some agreement on expectations about how you and your partner will behave. Moreover, to develop flexible relationships, partners need to reneotiate their agreements often, to keep the relationships pliable enough to accomodate the changes in two people over time.
In drawing up a personal relationship agreement, people begin by separately writing down their expectations about their relationship. Even if they are single and not seriously involved in a relationship, thinking about and writing down their expectations about intimate relationships in important for self-understanding. Later the couple can compare and negotiate the differences in their expectations. The result is a working relationship agreement.
Reasons for a Relationship Agreement:
1. It helps partners to be aware of and avoid choosing closed relationships/marriages by default 2. Partners need to articluate the primary focus of their relationship/marriage.
3. Writing an agreement can allow partners to understand each other's role expectations.
- differentiated roles can be satisfying if both partners accept the arrangement
4. Partners may have different ideas of what marriage means and different expectations about how they will behave in the relationship as it grows.
5. Love during the early years of the relationship is often blind.
- courting partners often romanticize each other, creating images and refusing to see anything that contradicts those images.
6. Can also include divisions of property between a current spouse and children of an earlier marriage/relationship or between the couple
- prospective remarriage/relationship partners are more likely to see a need for a premarital/relationship contract to clarify financial obligations because the potentional for future conflict is obvious.
- to prevent financial abuse
- property is divided fairly in the case of separation/divorce
A Relationship Agreement should consider the following basic questions, along with any others that are important to the particular couple:
Preliminary statement of relationship goals
Will you aim primarily at developing intimacy?
Or do you want to emphasize more practical advantages, such as economic security or someone to share a household with, for example?
What kind of relationship do you and your partner realistically anticipate?
How do you feel about devitalized relationships? (a relationship that has been sustained for a good length of time, but has lost its original zest, intimacy and meaning)
Provisions for revision and renewel of contract
Because spouses change, relationship agreements need to be rewritten often. Couples can plan to discuss and revise their agreements periodically:
examples:
- every 6 months
- every year
- when moving in together
- upon engagement
- prior to marriage
- prior to having children
Ideally they agree that their contract is a living document to be renegotioated and changed any time one partner feels the need.
Is there any part of this contract that you think now you would never, under any circumstances consider changing?
Provisions for dissolution of the legal marriage/relationship
When should a relationship/marriage be dissolved and under what conditions?
How long and in what ways would you work on the unsatisfactory relationship before dissolving it?
Decision making and disvision of labour
Will decisions be made equally?
Will there be a principle breadwinner?
Or will partners equally share responsibility for earning money?
How will funds be allocated?
Will there be his, her, our money?
Or will all money be pooled?
Who is the owner of the family property?
Will there be a principle homemaker?
Or will domestic chores be shared?
Religious beliefs and practices and educational goals
What are your religious values?
Do you expect your partner to share them?
Will you attent church services together?
How often?
If you are of a different religion from your mate, whose church will you attend on special religious holidays?
What about the children's religion?
What are your educational goals?
What educational goals fo you expect your partner to have?
Under what circumstances could you or your partner put aside wage-earning or housekeeping responsibilities to pursue advanced education?
Relationship with other relatives
How will you relate to your own and to your spouse's relatives?
How do you expect your partner to relate to them?
Will you expect to share many or most activities with relatives?
Or do you prefer more couple togetherness, discouraging activities with relatives?
Children
Whose responsibility is birth control and what kind of contraception will you use?
What is your attitude to unwanted pregnancy: abortion? keeping and rearing the child? adoption?
Do you want children?
If so, how many and how would you like to space them?
How will you allocate child-rearing responsibilities and tasks?
Will either spouse be primarily responsible for discipline?
What are some of your values about rearing children?
What are the roles/expectations of stepparents?
Expectations for sexual relations
Can you discuss your sexual needs and desires openly with your partner?
Are there sexual activities that you consider distasteful and would prefer not to engage in?
How would you expect to deal with either your own or your partner's sexual dysfunction if that occured?
Extramarital frienships and sexual relations
How much time and how much intimate information will you share with friends other than your partner?
What is your attitude toward friendships with people of the opposite sex?
How about Internet friends?
Would you ever consider having sex with someone other than your mate?
If so, under what circumstances?
How would you react if your partner were to have sex with another person?
What are your feelings for relationships with previous partners?
Privacy expectations
How much time alone do you need?
How much are you willing to allow your partner?
Will you buy a larger house or rent a bigger apartment so that each partner can have private space?
Communication expectations
Will you purposely set aside time to talk with each other?
What topics do you like to talk about?
What topics do you dislike?
Are you willing to try to become more comfortable about discussing these?
If communication becomes difficult, will you go to a marriage counsellor?
If so, what percentage of your income would you be willing to pay for marriage counselling?
Vacations
What kinds of vacations will you take?
Will you take couple-only vacations?
Will you take separate vacations?
If so, how often and what kind?
Definitions of terms
What are you own and your partner's personal definitions of;
- primariness
- intimacy
- commitment
- responsibility
After reading a few great chapters in my "Marriages and Families" text of my Sociology of Families course...I have decided that this particular portion of the Defining Your Marriage and Families chapter is something that I am going to consider implementing in my life and current relationship. Its about relationships, marriages in particular. Marriage agreements. Although I found this alittle controlling...after thoroughly reading it...it seems like a pretty good idea. I think that this can be applied to couples when agreeing their relationship is becoming serious, moving intogether, and of course marriage.
A personal relationship agreement involves articulating, negotiating and coming to some agreement on expectations about how you and your partner will behave. Moreover, to develop flexible relationships, partners need to reneotiate their agreements often, to keep the relationships pliable enough to accomodate the changes in two people over time.
In drawing up a personal relationship agreement, people begin by separately writing down their expectations about their relationship. Even if they are single and not seriously involved in a relationship, thinking about and writing down their expectations about intimate relationships in important for self-understanding. Later the couple can compare and negotiate the differences in their expectations. The result is a working relationship agreement.
Reasons for a Relationship Agreement:
1. It helps partners to be aware of and avoid choosing closed relationships/marriages by default 2. Partners need to articluate the primary focus of their relationship/marriage.
3. Writing an agreement can allow partners to understand each other's role expectations.
- differentiated roles can be satisfying if both partners accept the arrangement
4. Partners may have different ideas of what marriage means and different expectations about how they will behave in the relationship as it grows.
5. Love during the early years of the relationship is often blind.
- courting partners often romanticize each other, creating images and refusing to see anything that contradicts those images.
6. Can also include divisions of property between a current spouse and children of an earlier marriage/relationship or between the couple
- prospective remarriage/relationship partners are more likely to see a need for a premarital/relationship contract to clarify financial obligations because the potentional for future conflict is obvious.
- to prevent financial abuse
- property is divided fairly in the case of separation/divorce
A Relationship Agreement should consider the following basic questions, along with any others that are important to the particular couple:
Preliminary statement of relationship goals
Will you aim primarily at developing intimacy?
Or do you want to emphasize more practical advantages, such as economic security or someone to share a household with, for example?
What kind of relationship do you and your partner realistically anticipate?
How do you feel about devitalized relationships? (a relationship that has been sustained for a good length of time, but has lost its original zest, intimacy and meaning)
Provisions for revision and renewel of contract
Because spouses change, relationship agreements need to be rewritten often. Couples can plan to discuss and revise their agreements periodically:
examples:
- every 6 months
- every year
- when moving in together
- upon engagement
- prior to marriage
- prior to having children
Ideally they agree that their contract is a living document to be renegotioated and changed any time one partner feels the need.
Is there any part of this contract that you think now you would never, under any circumstances consider changing?
Provisions for dissolution of the legal marriage/relationship
When should a relationship/marriage be dissolved and under what conditions?
How long and in what ways would you work on the unsatisfactory relationship before dissolving it?
Decision making and disvision of labour
Will decisions be made equally?
Will there be a principle breadwinner?
Or will partners equally share responsibility for earning money?
How will funds be allocated?
Will there be his, her, our money?
Or will all money be pooled?
Who is the owner of the family property?
Will there be a principle homemaker?
Or will domestic chores be shared?
Religious beliefs and practices and educational goals
What are your religious values?
Do you expect your partner to share them?
Will you attent church services together?
How often?
If you are of a different religion from your mate, whose church will you attend on special religious holidays?
What about the children's religion?
What are your educational goals?
What educational goals fo you expect your partner to have?
Under what circumstances could you or your partner put aside wage-earning or housekeeping responsibilities to pursue advanced education?
Relationship with other relatives
How will you relate to your own and to your spouse's relatives?
How do you expect your partner to relate to them?
Will you expect to share many or most activities with relatives?
Or do you prefer more couple togetherness, discouraging activities with relatives?
Children
Whose responsibility is birth control and what kind of contraception will you use?
What is your attitude to unwanted pregnancy: abortion? keeping and rearing the child? adoption?
Do you want children?
If so, how many and how would you like to space them?
How will you allocate child-rearing responsibilities and tasks?
Will either spouse be primarily responsible for discipline?
What are some of your values about rearing children?
What are the roles/expectations of stepparents?
Expectations for sexual relations
Can you discuss your sexual needs and desires openly with your partner?
Are there sexual activities that you consider distasteful and would prefer not to engage in?
How would you expect to deal with either your own or your partner's sexual dysfunction if that occured?
Extramarital frienships and sexual relations
How much time and how much intimate information will you share with friends other than your partner?
What is your attitude toward friendships with people of the opposite sex?
How about Internet friends?
Would you ever consider having sex with someone other than your mate?
If so, under what circumstances?
How would you react if your partner were to have sex with another person?
What are your feelings for relationships with previous partners?
Privacy expectations
How much time alone do you need?
How much are you willing to allow your partner?
Will you buy a larger house or rent a bigger apartment so that each partner can have private space?
Communication expectations
Will you purposely set aside time to talk with each other?
What topics do you like to talk about?
What topics do you dislike?
Are you willing to try to become more comfortable about discussing these?
If communication becomes difficult, will you go to a marriage counsellor?
If so, what percentage of your income would you be willing to pay for marriage counselling?
Vacations
What kinds of vacations will you take?
Will you take couple-only vacations?
Will you take separate vacations?
If so, how often and what kind?
Definitions of terms
What are you own and your partner's personal definitions of;
- primariness
- intimacy
- commitment
- responsibility
posted by Amanda | 3:41 PM
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