Boris Ignachkov Controlling and manipulative or strategical and clever? What would you do if your date whipped out a contract after 2 weeks of dating? (Run!)
What Happened?
21-year-old, Annie Wright, drafted a 17-page relationship contract after 2 weeks of dating her boyfriend, 23-year-old, Michael Head.
The 4 main principles being: honesty, communication, awareness of partner’s needs and clarity and alignment in their intentions. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, how about you?
Initially, Annie made the idea a joke, but Michael took it on board completely.
Why Has It Happened?
After Annie left a toxic relationship last October, she was adamant to make her relationship with Michael work out and the contact seemed like the best idea. (They have been together for almost a year now so it must be working).
They state, they had an instant click, but she wanted to lay out some “ground rules” for them to date officially. (Also, very reasonable)
She states. “I felt like the biggest issue I had in my last relationship was it felt like boundaries of mine were crossed that I never established. I was like, ‘This time I’ll write them out and no one can cross my boundaries.’ Michael’s also pre-law so he was pretty keen on the idea of making a contract.” (Us law students are trembling)
How Does It Work?
Annie says “we deal with conflict like business partners would. We sit down and treat it more like we’re life partners, and love is a bonus.”
In all honestly seeing as they are happily together and about to celebrate their anniversary, maybe she’s right. Contracted relationships are better than just biting the bullet.
“People just fall into relationships,” said Wright. “This makes me know what I’m signing up for. I live in constant fear of waking up two years into a relationship and realizing my partner doesn’t have the same life plan as me. You’ve put one or two years into a relationship, but you don’t agree on the core things. If you don’t have that core connection, you’re wasting time and prolonging heartbreak. At this point, we update it every six months or so. We’ll visit it.”
Many of you may have read the title and instantly thought RUN! But if you think about it relationships are simply contracts of love. Maybe if we all used this holistic approach to relationships then we would all be in near-perfect relationships.