The Modern Love column in The New York Times has become a must-read at Couplosity’s offices. Always interesting and often deeply personal, these reader-submitted essays will, on occasion, offer up a fresh approach to marriage and committed relationships that’s worth considering.
Take, for example, “To Stay in Love, Sign on the Dotted Line,” in which author Mandy Len Catron explains to readers why she and her boyfriend Mark chose to codify the terms of their relationship – everything from sex to chores to finances to their expectations for the future – in a formal contract that’s subject to revision and renewal every 12 months.
“Writing a relationship contract may sound calculating or unromantic, but every relationship is contractual; we’re just making the terms more explicit. It reminds us that love isn’t something that happens to us — it’s something we’re making together.”
Prior to meeting Mark, Mandy spent most of her 20s adapting her life to that of a man she loved, while wanting nothing but love in return. It wasn’t until after she finally left that boyfriend that Mandy realized love alone isn’t enough to ensure a successful long-term partnership. She says: “there hadn’t been room for me in my relationship. And not merely because my ex hadn’t offered it — it had never occurred to me to ask.”
The fear of losing her identity in the relationship with Mark weighed on Mandy as the couple grew closer. When the idea of moving in together came up, it was a book called “The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels” and its recommendation of short-term marriage contracts that provided Mandy and Mark with the tool they could use to make co-habitation work.
Mandy says she and Mark wanted to take nothing for granted when spelling out the terms of their contract. Under “Sex and Intimacy,” for example, they wrote that they would be monogamous because that’s what works best for them…for now. They’re making no assumptions about what they’ll want in the future.
The key takeway here is that the real value of a relationship contract is that it forces a couple to openly and expressly acknowledge their partner’s needs and desires, which is one of the biggest challenges of any long-term relationship.