19: Relationship Agreements for a Hot and Healthy Marriage

Ellen Dorian [0:00 - 18:59]: Welcome to make more love, the show for the entrepreneurial man who wants a hot and healthy marriage as well as a successful business. I'm your host, Ellen Dorian, and this is your place for straight up, judgment free conversations about merging the demands of business with the needs of a fulfilling relationship. We're all about supporting you to be extraordinary in your personal and your professional life, living fully in every way that counts. If you're new to the show, please don't forget to, like, follow, subscribe, whatever your favorite podcast platform calls it so you don't miss anything. And it would be great if you could share with a friend, too. Before we jump in, just a reminder that the make more love show is for information and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for the guidance of a qualified mental health or medical professional. Today we're going to talk about a very important topic, and that topic is agreements. In business, clear agreements are crucial to success. We wouldn't even consider a partnership or a substantial transaction without some sort of contract. They spell out roles and responsibilities, expectations and boundaries to prevent misunderstandings and conflicts. But in our relationships, we generally don't think in terms of making specific agreements with our partner. The process is informal and fluid, evolving and often very unclear. The agreements we do make often happen early on, sometimes before we even really know each other, without really thinking about their long term impact or even being clear about the promises we're making. This point is especially important for business owners because you need to understand your commitments in order to make business decisions that are compatible with them. So why would you want to look at agreements specifically? Well, life changes. We change. What worked for us years ago might not work today. Or we haven't even thought about all the agreements we're going to need because those situations haven't arisen yet. And then you're faced with some kind of blow up, and then you have to pick up the pieces and come back with a new agreement. But now you're not negotiating from a position of strength. Agreements are not just about avoiding problems. They also keep us aligned to a common purpose, which is one of the three pillars of a passionate partnership, which is what I want for all of you. So we're going to start out by looking at four types of agreements. Then we're going to look at specific topics to discuss with your partner. Believe it or not, I've come up with over 20 of these. I've broken those down into three logical categories, and we'll go through them. And then we're going to look at a very specific type of agreement that you may or may not have heard of before. And that's an intimacy agreement or a love agreement. You won't want to miss that. By the end of this episode, you'll have the tools to create and maintain agreements that help you make your relationship into the one that you both want to stay in forever. So let's get started with the four classifications of agreements in the context of relationships. Number one is explicit agreements. These are clearly stated and mutually acknowledged by both partners. They involve direct communication and cover specific terms like financial arrangements, household duties, future plans, and both parties understand and agree to these terms. A simple example of that is when a couple agrees explicitly on maintaining separate bank accounts or setting up a joint account and determining which expenses qualify as joint expenses. The second category is implicit agreements developed from consistent behaviors or patterns over time without formal discussion. These are unspoken understandings, and they're usually based on past actions rather than a specific negotiation. An one partner always cooks dinner while the other one always does the dishes. This arrangement developed naturally, and nobody challenged them, so we assume they work for both parties. The third type of agreement is unwritten agreements, or also called unspoken rules. These are not explicitly discussed either, but it's assumed that both parties know them. They can include traditions, roles, or behaviors that are taken for granted until or unless they are questioned or broken. For example, one partner consistently takes the lead in planning social events or gatherings with friends and families, and pretty soon you find yourself saying, I'll have to check with my wife because she's in charge of the calendar. And the fourth one is assumptive agreements. These are subtly different from the others because they are based on one partner's uncommunicated expectations. These assumptions can lead to misunderstandings if one partner expects behaviors or commitments that were never clearly discussed. An example of this is one partner insists on resolving conflicts immediately, even late at night, based on their ingrained belief that couples should never go to bed angry. They just assume their partner shares this belief, which can lead to tension when the other partner asks to address the issue the next day. So those are the four explicit, implicit, unwritten, and assumptive. Can you think of examples of those different types of agreements in your own relationship? And are there any of those that don't work for you, or that did no longer do, or that never did, but you never expressed it, or that you never realized you even made so many questions? If you and your partner are having a lot of disagreements, it's going to drain your passionate relationship energy, and that is not something we want so if you're butting heads often, then you might want to take the initiative to work on your agreements. It's also a good idea to check in with each other every once in a while and make sure your agreement practices are still working for everyone. If you're doing my state of our union sessions, which is strategic planning for your relationship, you can review your agreements as part of that process. I'm happy to walk through the process with you in a free relationship reset call. It's a quick 15 minutes with just you and me. We'll figure out what problem to tackle first. Then we'll lay out a plan with one or two steps to get you moving in the right direction, and after that, if you'd like more help, I'll let you know how to get it head over to relationshipresetcall.com to grab your spot. Here's a crazy thought. Why not write your agreements down if the idea of having written agreements in your relationship sounds weird? Honestly, it's not any weirder than any other relationship advice relationship advice always boils down to two main points. One is to communicate, and two is to stay connected. Writing down your agreements does both of these in a very concrete way, so I encourage you to give it a shot. Okay, now that we've covered the types of agreements, let's look at the different areas where these agreements come into play. I've broken these down into three categories that every couple should at least consider. Number one is core relationship dynamics. Number two is practical life management, and number three is external influences and interactions. I'm going to list seven agreements for you to consider in each of these three categories, and hopefully that keeps it all logical for you. But you're not going to discuss these things all in one go. This is a way to keep your relationship strong and connected over a period of years, starting with core relationship dynamics. The first one is values and beliefs. You need to understand where your shared values and beliefs are and where your conflicting ones are so that at least you understand where you and your partner might diverge. Number two is communication. Let's start with the quantity, how often the quality, what you want to hear, and the timing when you want to be communicated with. Number three is about intimacy, and it shouldn't just be limited to, like, how often you have sex or physical intimacy. It's a good idea to talk about some of the hotter issues, like what is considered cheating is staying in touch with your exes. Cheating is having female friends cheating? What about watching porn? Is that cheating? Number four, conflict resolution styles like how direct is acceptable. Do you tolerate yelling? Is it okay to go silent? Number five is decision making styles. Basically, what can be a unilateral decision and what should be a team decision? Number six is requests and responsiveness. When you want to request a change in someone's behavior or request something new, how should you do that? And what are some guidelines around your response? Number seven is investment in the relationship. A common and somewhat contentious example is what is the value of unpaid labor? So if one person is bringing more money in, the other one is bringing more sweat equity in. How do you value those things? Let's move on to practical life management. Number one is finances. What are your philosophies of spending and saving, investing, etcetera? What about joint accounts and sharing bank statements? That kind of thing. Number two, household responsibilities. And that's not just chores, right? That's also household project management and administration. Like who calls the plumber when. When the sink overflows? Who makes and tracks the doctor's appointments? Who finds the contractors and gets the three quotes for the bathroom renovation, stuff like that. Number three is career decisions. And this includes business decisions if they are going to affect your home life. One of my clients had an opportunity to buy a company in another state that was going to bring millions of dollars into his business. He jumped on the opportunity cause it made great business sense and because the pressure was on to move forward in very short time. What he didn't consider was the amount of traveling and therefore being away from home. The out of state business would require. I mean, you really can't blame him. Would this be at the top of your mind if you got a multi million dollar opportunity dropped in your lap? Probably not. But this caused a big conflict because his wife felt she should have been included in the discussion because she would also have to make an investment for this business opportunity by covering more of her husband's responsibilities at home while he was traveling. I do a lot of relationship coaching as part of my business coaching sessions with my clients. This is a great example. And by the way, we did come up with a good resolution that smoothed things over. Number four is time management. I probably should do a whole episode on time management. Maybe that'll be a future topic. Number five is work and relationship prioritization. Everyone says that my partner comes first, my relationship comes first. But there are times when that cannot happen. It's better to have understandings and agreements around that than it is to have fights about that later. Number six is lifestyle and health choices. Some of these are simple. Like, what's our junk food policy in the house? Do we bring it in? Do we not bring it in? How much of it do we bring in? Et cetera, et cetera. Another common one might be bedtimes. Do we always go to bed together, or does one partner stay up later? And if so, is that okay? And then there are bigger ones, like medical decisions. I'm an organ donor, and I've given my husband the opportunity to weigh in, and he supported that choice. Also, health decisions like losing weight, giving up alcohol, all those kinds of things. And number seven here is parenting styles. I'll probably bring in a guest speaker to talk about that. So that'll also be a future episode. Okay, let's move on to category number three, which is social and external factors. Let's start with social media usage. How much time are you going to spend on social media? Who can you be connected with without upsetting your partner? What can you say about your life or your relationship? The second one is, I'd call it hot topics like religion, politics, and if you're in Boston, that includes sports teams. Number three is in law, relationships. Number four is friendships in social circles and plans with friends and social circles. Number five is holidays and traditions. Number six, leisure activities and hobbies. Like, which ones do you do together? Which ones can you do apart? Golf is a little bit controversial because it does take a lot of time away, and a lot of that time is free time when you're not working. And so some people don't want their partners to have golf as a solo hobby. But maybe it's okay if you both play golf. Another hot topic is tv shows. If you're watching a show together, is it okay or is it not okay for you to watch ahead? Number seven is around personal growth and development. It's a good idea to discuss those kinds of things with your partner, but it is up to you. It's about your personal growth and development. Okay, I know that was a lot, right? And there's a lot more, but why don't you start with those and see where it takes you? I've got one more type of agreement to talk about. Maybe you want to think about something more fun and sexy. Have you ever heard of a love agreement? If it sounds weird to you, I hear you. It sounded weird to me when I first heard about it, too. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a love agreement could inject a little passionate energy into the relationship, especially if you both enjoy engaging in heated negotiations. So this is not about chores and routines. This is about building your bond, keeping your love life hot and healthy, keeping your sex life well fueled. So what could a love agreement do for you? It can give you a structure to clearly express your needs and desires. It can strengthen your connection by sharing needs that you may not have expressed with each other. It could reveal certain concerns or insecurities around intimacy. But in a more neutral environment, where you have a better chance of resolving those without feeling rejected or judged, you might learn new things about each other. And how often does that happen? When you've been together forever? Now, you might be thinking, how would I even enforce a love agreement? Well, you know, enforcement is a tricky thing. Rather than thinking about enforcement, let's think about positive reinforcement. Let's celebrate all the good stuff. Don't dwell on the less successful things and understand that just acknowledgement and appreciation for an attempt at a love agreement can be a powerful reward in itself. If you listen to make more love episode 16 and you know your relationship is at Divcon five or four, which are basically good and you want to shake things up a little bit, why not give a love agreement a shot? I've got a template for you which you can get in the passionate partners insider community, which is our free and private Facebook group. Or just pop me an email@ellenassassionatepartnersproject.com and I'll send it to you. And there you have it. By understanding and sometimes revisiting these different types and categories of agreement, and perhaps even adding a love agreement into the mix, you can create a strong foundation for your relationship. This isn't just about avoiding conflicts, it's about building a fulfilling and passionate partnership. Let me just share three key points I hope you'll take away from this episode. Number one is make more agreements. If you want to make more love, which is what we talk about on this show, then you probably need to make more agreements. Whether they're explicit or unspoken, understanding agreements in your relationships keeps things running smoothly. Number two, keep things up to date. Check in on your agreements from time to time to make sure they still work for both of you. And number three is add some fun. Consider love agreements or intimacy agreements to spice things up and keep your emotional connection strong and vibrant. One final note. The purpose of these agreements isn't to hold yours or your partner's feet to the fire. Instead, they're meant to bring important discussion points into the open, allowing both partners to express their thoughts and feelings, whether they're positive or negative or involve disagreements. This open dialogue helps you both understand each other better and navigate your relationship with clarity and compassion. All right, I hope today's episode added value to your life. If you'd like more support, brainstorming or ideas, here's three ways to get that you can join our private and free passionate partners insider community on Facebook for exclusive content and resources. Or you can check out our website and social channels to get the scoop on all of our programs, workshops, and coaching. And three, if you'd like to explore your specific situation, book a free relationship reset call with me. Whether it's a minor tune up or a major overhaul, we'll make a plan to get you back on track. You can head over to relationshipresetcall.com to set that up. The show notes lists out everything you need to find me, including all the links to everything I've mentioned and my personal email. I'll be here whenever you're ready, and here are a few things you can do to support the show. If you haven't already, please follow and subscribe. That is a win for both of us. Then if you could leave a review that will help our community grow. And if you know someone who is struggling in their own relationship, please share the show with them. It could be life changing for them. Thanks for spreading the word. This is Ellen and that's what I've got for you today. Until next time, remember, what I want most in the world is for you to make more love in your life and with your wife.