To Stay in Love, Sign on the Dotted Line
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
> It wasn’t until I moved out that I began to see that 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.
This happened to an ex of mine.
I think the success of her next relationship was not the contract per se, but internalizing this epiphany. The contract is her specific implementation of how to deal with it, but the important thing for everyone, I think, is the quoted portion above.
I would not be so quick to scoff at the writing part either. For a lot of people I know (many of them journal-keepers), physically writing something out is the most meaningful part of completing and internalizing a thought.
The fact that I need to have those conversations early makes a lot of other conversations very easy to have; any relationship I'm in started with one of those discussions going well.
Doing a renewable "contract" is just a fun way to be clear about what you want and to track changes over time. We don't even necessarily know everything we want without going through it clearly and out loud. Doing it like this is not some kind of demand but a fun way for people to discover each other and themselves.
An ex-gf and I did the gottman.com stuff. Read the books together, did a weekend workshop. It's brilliant. Our relationship was already all-but-over, but we both wanted to learn from the experience, hopefully do better with our future relationships. A post-mortem of sorts.
We compared notes a year later. My ex-gf said something remarkable, insightful. She consciously applied the gottman.com lessons, strategies to all her relationships, including her job. She said all those relationships got much better.
I've since (consciously) followed her example and have concluded that I agree. I'm now totally onboard with emotional intelligence themed stuff.
When I first heard Leslie Lamport say “If you think without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”, I thought it was a bit much, but now I suspect he's right.
If either of us feel it is important, then it's up to them to bring it up at a later, calmer time. Otherwise, it wasn't actually that important.
This rule has saved us from all sorts of pointless strife.
A contract is just to re-enforce an insecurity on both parties in a relationship. I'm all for discussing things even in that great detail to avoid conflict before hand. But a contract seems excessive and will probably be thrown away anyways.
[Soapbox] I'm convinced that most people are completely disconnected to others, and lack the skills to meet new people, handle rejection, and come down from overly high expectations. Just seems like narcissism and the lack of flexibility.
It may, of course, be true that a contract is only a good idea due to insufficient communication and trust. But, for this to be an increasing problem presupposes that people were ever better communicators and trust-ers than we are today; I think it more likely that people of previous eras were simply better at doing without. Before a couple generations ago, romantic love was a radical idea and nearly all relationship decisions were resolved by deferring to the male's preference. Such simpler times certainly don't require complicated contracts, but these days we're likely to think that that kind of relationship is missing something important.
Completely ignoring them and making up things as you go along leads you to have the same issues before that the roles solved.
Would it be possible to discuss or figure out what's expected on each side without using existing gender roles? I don't think it's an excuse to be neglectful, but I feel like putting people into boxes by default so you have to do less emotional legwork seems a bit dogmatic. I can imagine a lot of same-sex couples have to define their relationships without existing guides, and I wish that was more of the norm for the rest of us.
Women choosing to function in their "traditional" marital roles isn't inherently unjust, but women being in any way pressured to give up self-actualization (through career, personal freedom, &c) in the service of those "traditional" roles sure is.
My point is that traditional gender roles solved a lot of problems and attempting to just cherry pick what you want (just because you want that) or to expect different behavior has lead to many bad/toxic relationships (which affects others and creates even more of a barrier to a relationship) and sociality issues. (If you'll allow for me to stretch it that far)
I'm of the opinion that if you want to change something, you should be very sure that it is a good change. Previously these kinds of changes took forever as that adoption is slow, but it prevents massive breaking changes.
A true, enforceable legal contract, yes.
A written agreement that is called a “contract” that isn't focussed on being a basis for litigation in the event of failure can, however, serve as a mechanism for clear and unambiguous communication, which is needed alongside trust in a relationship.
Prior to the Supreme Court decision some employers (including my own) extended health insurance benefits to same sex domestic partnerships (but it was not required) but did not extend them to different sex partnerships. Since that decision my employer has ceased providing benefits for partnerships at all regardless of genders.
There's reasons folks would do this over a marriage including, like a friend of mine, simply not believing that marriage should be a thing the government should be involved in.
I live in NY, USA, I don't know about other areas.
I did find this while googling the Tricare thing: "The military does not recognize Common Law marriages or domestic partners unless they are legally married." I don't know if this applies equally to same-sex and opposite-sex partners, though, but being a US vet of 4 years in the USAF, I'm not terribly surprised if that's true, although it looks like the courts are slowly coming around.
> How do you enter such a relationship?
Signing a single piece of paper at the office of your local government
> How does dissolution work in such a relationship?
You sign another single piece of paper at the office of your local government. No lawyers necessary.
> What sort of "cruft" does marriage have that a "domestic partnership" lack?
Oh, where do I begin? The history of marriage is mostly the story of men owning women. Marriage is perversely incentivized against if the male has a vastly disproportionate net worth from his would-be spouse (this is the case in my case). Marriage has a 30-50% failure rate despite the fact that 100% of people, on their wedding day, would never imagine getting a divorce in a million years (why else would you get married and toss away all future romantic options, right?)... This speaks to a certain lack of realistic behavior on the part of humans who engage in it. Marriage dissolution is biased in favor of women and especially against fathers (see this Everyday Feminism article on it http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/bias-against-fathers/). The difficulty of entering and escaping a marriage to begin with perversely incentivizes taking your partner for granted, being lazy about keeping up your appeal, and generally being a worse person than you'd have to be if your partner could easily escape the arrangement at any point. Enforced sexual exclusivity (as opposed to sexual exclusivity by daily choice) perversely incentivizes lust for others outside the relationship. Weddings themselves are a giant waste of money and the marriage success rate is inversely proportional to the amount spent on them. Diamonds are only valuable because of a DeBeers monopoly and marketing campaign, and until recently had a lot of blood on their hands (to be fair, though, I did get her a fat-ass diamond ring, because she wanted SOME indicator of our commitment. I acquiesced to this silly trinket, because she insisted it would make her happier. Which it did. lol.)
I am generally of the opinion that financial incentives to marry are terrible. I have a low opinion of financial incentives to begin with (despite being successful in this regard, I have always prioritized financial incentives last... perhaps an entrepreneurial privilege); an institution that is supposedly romantic should not be tainted with financial interests.
Lastly, Steph and I once started a discussion about a potential prenup in a hypothetical marriage and within 5 seconds after throwing out a single figure, we got into a fight, so I tabled it indefinitely and said let's just do a DP instead.
Anyway, I'm an engineer. Parts with anything more than a 1% failure rate get replaced. Would you drive a car that had a 30-50% chance of putting you in a serious accident? How about a medical procedure that had a 30-50% chance of maiming you? If not, then why in the name of all that is good and rational would you roll the dice on marriage?
Steve Jobs believed with all his heart that his all-fruit diet would cure his pancreatic cancer. Steve Jobs is also no longer with us. Perhaps it's time to let the science and the data speak to us, instead of engaging in irrational flights of fancy. It seems to be working in every other area of life where it's applied...
I honestly think marriage should be a celebration you achieve AFTER being together for (say) 15 years. THEN you have a right to celebrate. But I don't make the rules, sadly. ;)
> Also does this "legal arrangement" carry over to other jurisdictions?
I don't know. Don't really intend to move elsewhere in the foreseeable future.
> And assuming we are talking about the US isn't "mutual health coverage" decided by the employer or plan administrator?
That's possible. It's working in our arrangement and with our jobs.
We also saw a lawyer about creating a will that mentioned each other, btw.
You can say the same thing about relationships in general, why date someone if there's a very good you'd break up (most relationships are unsuccessful)? Why be friends with anyone when everyone will eventually die? Why get a dog when there's a 99.9% they will die before you? Why start a business when most fail? See how stupid that sounds? If we don't take risks we never get rewards.
What makes you think divorce requires lawyers? It doesn't unless the two parties can't agree. Seriously, my husband didn't have a lawyer for his divorce and neither did his ex wife. His divorce was a fill-in-the-blanks piece of paper. It was just as simple as can be, the only difference was the 7 Month waiting period. Literally, fill out a 2 page paper, judge signs off on it.
If "domestic partner" and you don't agree on your separation lawyers will have to be involved anyways. Happened to a friend of mine. Not being married didn't keep him out of court when him and his ex girlfriend didn't agree on child support and division of property. Buy a house with your girlfriend and you break up and can't agree on what to do with the house? Court. Have kids together and can't agree on custody? Court.
Medical coverage is irrelevant because employees and plan organizers decide on who their plan covers. Medical decisions can be accomplished with a living will and medical directive. Your "domestic partnership" isn't going to work outside of your city and you could get injured while travelling so you're going to need those anyways. You still need a will for inheritance... So I don't see a single benefit.
After gay marriage was legalized in all states there's exactly a -ZERO- percentage probability that the military is going to start enrolling non spouses. Guaranteed. The military is not in the business of providing benefits to people who are not even trustworthy enough to make their relationship legal.
I totally understand why someone would not want to get married. I can't understand why someone would want a fake "marriage."... but whatever.
Windsor vs the United States was based on inheritance taxes
The divorce industry profits wildly off of emotional turmoil, it's sick to observe.
FYI: Those statistics are incredibly misleading and/or inaccurate.
Do you know what the divorce rate is for 35-44 (and 45-54) year old college graduates? Somewhere around 10%:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/marriage-isnt-dead-yet/
The spike in divorces starting in the 1970s can be largely attributed to the woman's liberation movement and is most likely a historic anomaly in the long term view.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-...
>“Two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women,” said William Doherty, a marriage therapist and professor of family social science at University of Minnesota, “so when you’re talking about changes in divorce rates, in many ways you’re talking about changes in women’s expectations.”
>In the 1950s and 1960s, marriage was about a breadwinner husband and a homemaker wife, who both needed the other’s contributions to the household but didn’t necessarily spend much time together. In the 1970s, all that changed.
>Ultimately, a long view is likely to show that the rapid rise in divorce during the 1970s and early 1980s was an anomaly. It occurred at the same time as a new feminist movement, which caused social and economic upheaval. Today, society has adapted, and the divorce rate has declined again.
>If current trends continue, nearly two-thirds of marriages will never involve a divorce, according to data from Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan economist (who also contributes to The Upshot).
That's for the general population. As mentioned above certain populations (college educated, older, high income) are much less likely to get divorced.
Furthermore, people like the GP act like marriage and divorce is just a diceroll. However, you can do many, many things to decrease your likelihood of divorcing. Openly communicating about expectations before marriage is one of them.
"Nearly two-thirds" is, let's say, 60% success rate. Which means 40% failure rate. Which is exactly in the middle of the 30-50% window I mentioned (the fact that it's a window speaks to the effect that all these other variables can have on it).
"That's for the general population. As mentioned above certain populations (college educated, older, high income) are much less likely to get divorced." Like by a lot! I assume if you are on hacker news you are at least two of the three.
But, yes, people who eschew marriage specifically to make breaking up easy are bad candidates for a successful marriage, almost by definition.
(I married someone who previously went through a divorce)
And people who don't eschew marriage ostensibly because they are ideal non-eschewing candidates still experience a prreeetty significant failure rate, despite apparently never imagining the possibility at inception.
You know who has a 0% divorce rate? People who eschew marriage. Exactly by definition.
To quote WarGames, "The only winning move is not to play."
You're defending driving a car with a 30% serious-accident rate while I choose to bike... Think about it.
You don't need to rationalize your choices with bad statistics, or worse, by deriding those who choose to make a different choice.
Which is to say, yes, there are some people for which it is on the high end, and other people for which it is on the low end.
But the best evidence I've seen puts the bell-curve window at 30-50%. When you wish to talk about the institution in generalities, you cannot help but describe it according to all its participants. I'm talking about marriage, not white college-educated late marriage or third marriage or single-parent prior to marriage. You would be arguably somewhat correct in attacking generalities (in general). It's debatable. But that is the bound of what we are discussing.
In my case, the stats don't look great. If we take the best possible chance of divorce of 10% (and that is being really optimistic) and double that for an ADHD diagnosis (see: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/may-i-have-your-attenti...) we get 20%. I would not drive a car with a 20% chance of a serious accident, therefore I opt out of a 20% chance to contribute to a $50 billion dollar divorce industry and losing half (or more) of the net worth I have worked hard to accrue in a legal system that is biased against me.
You should probably just break up with your girlfriend now because you have some very serious commitment issues.
Why is your thinking so binary? (Also, false dichotomy fallacy.) Have you been so brainwashed by the all-consuming institution that you have become blind to any other option? I have no issues with commitment, just this institution and its unreasonable expectations of lifetime commitment or else. Especially makes less sense if you don't have kids.
You're right, though; there are a LOT of positive and negative correlations you can find on this stuff if you do your homework (which I did). Caucasians seem to have more stable marriages than non-caucasians, for example. And marrying later boosts the probability of success by quite a bit.
Also, by the time you reach 45 years of age, you're no longer a spring chicken and aren't really incentivized to leave the marriage, anyway.
But you're wrong about the stats being inaccurate (perhaps not about them being "misleading"): I did my homework here, and overall it seems to be somewhere between 30-50% chance of dissolution in the first 25 years of marriage, depending on how you tweak the input variables. And that stat gets worse and worse on every Nth marriage after the first... which is exactly why many people whose first marriages don't work out ever get married again.
For what it's worth (and this is all anecdotal evidence), 100% of the numerous divorces I've seen in my circle were by college-educated people.
What's the story behind this?
"The impact of adult ADHD on marriages can be terrible for couples with one or more partners with ADHD. Research suggests that the marital “maladjustment” rate may be close to 60%. Statistics on the divorce rate for those with ADHD vary, seemingly depending upon the age of the respondents in the study. Studies with younger respondents don’t show statistical differences in divorce rates, while studies with older respondents show an almost doubled rate of divorce." (I almost definitely fall under the "older" category.)
I told you guys, I did my homework here.
The older I get, the more I come around to the conclusion that thought is bad.
The "anxiously enumerating pros and cons part" is bad. Cohabitation is fine.
Shamelessly stealing from Goodreads, which shamelessly stole from the book itself:
“Just about every adult human being back then had a brain weighing about three kilogrammes! There was no end to the evil schemes that a thought machine that oversized couldn't imagine and execute. So I raise this question, although there is nobody around to answer it: Can it be doubted that three-kilogramme brains were once nearly fatal defects in the evolution of the human race?”
“Thanks to their decreased brainpower, people aren't diverted from the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinion anymore.”
“That was another thing people used to be able to do, which they can't do anymore: enjoy in their heads events which hadn't happened yet and might never occur. My mother was good at that. Someday my father would stop writing science fiction, and write something a whole lot of people wanted to read instead. And we would get a new house in a beautiful city, and nice clothes, and so on. She used to make me wonder why God had ever gone to all the trouble of creating reality."
And perhaps most appropriately for this thread:
“What made marriage so difficult back then was yet again that instigator of so many other sorts of heartbreak: the oversize brain. That cumbersome computer could hold so many contradictory opinions on so many different subjects all at once, and switch from one opinion or subject to another one so quickly, that a discussion between a husband and wife under stress could end up like a fight between blindfolded people wearing roller skates.”
Solid relationships are built on communication that enables conscious compromises and deliberate decisions to accommodate one another while ensuring one's own needs are met.
For this couple, putting those needs, compromises, and decisions in writing is what facilitates that communication. Pretty brilliant idea if you ask me!
That said: Speaking for myself, going into marriage I thought "How will this change anything?" But, for me, it changed a lot. It's not about the legal commitment... that's just a technicality. Rather, it's the conscious decision to truly commit before friends and family that changed the way I thought and felt about my wife... it's hard to put into words, but at least for me, it was absolutely different.
The title of the article is "To Stay in Love, Sign on the Dotted Line," but there's absolutely nothing in it that supports the title. All it is is about an unmarried woman whose been in a relationship for only 3 years saying a scheduled conversations and paper an pen (or keyboard in this case) helps her have relationship communication.
The title should really be "communication is helpful for my new relationship."
It's misguided at best to conclude every couple should create this sort of formal contract. Every couple communicates differently.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/modern-love-to-fa...
But it never came, since this couple isn't married and hasn't even been dating that long. Clickbait titles like this are common on the internet, but I expect better from the New York Times. This article is bereft of anything remotely newsworthy. Perhaps their new slogan should be "All the news that's fit to print, plus some vapid millennial musings".
Also saying they were drinking beers while doing it has the implication that they needed alcohol to be able to have such important conversations. Not saying that's the case, I'm saying it gives the impression.
I personally react poorly to the idea that I--along with my relationships--am this computer that must be programmed by my intellectual self. I connect this with the overall trend of lifehacking.
That said, I still learn from people who take such an explicit approach, and just try to find more organic ways to apply some of these things to my own life. It lets me feel like I'm striking the right balance of spontaneity and intention.
Sorry, wrong.
What about, even, a word like "nurturing"? Much less "spending time lost in one another's eyes"?
Boundaries make a loving relationship _functional_ but they don't make a relationship loving.
I know god knows how much families in my home country (Russia) who had no problems living together to old age without having to do anything special. I also know god knows how much dysfunctional families as well. I knew quite a few oddbals too, a couple that were still lovey dovey and dating casually for close to 12 years since their mid-teens. I knew a married couple that everybody suspected to be "mutually-infidel," yet they had a really strong bond.
It is all luck and compatibility/synergies of individual differences
If writing it down is a way for them to communicate and negotiate openly, that sounds reasonable and healthy. From the joking clauses, it sounds more like a framework to ensure people have similar expectations and needs are addressed than some kind of binding document.
I don't find it particularly shocking that a tool meant for one kind of relationship with economic dimensions can be used as a template for a tool in another kind of relationship with economic dimensions.
If they want to run their relationship like a business that's OK, and to be honest I think it's good to read about people who are enjoying alternative ways of living when a 'normal' way doesn't suit them; it can help other people see that they can live how they want, even if other people see it as "strange, and horrible".
Sounds like someone who never met a divorce/family law attorney. In California legally speaking part your relationship is treated as such.
Is there a website like HN that's actually focused/moderated and doesn't mix Cosmo type clickbait with actual news?
There probably isn't one that will never, ever, ever include a link that you're not interested in.