‘Til Death - Part II - A Commitment Agreement

If you are going to enter into a sacred relationship and you truly view it as sacred, then why not spend some time really making sure that your values align? In my opinion, the reason that people avoid this type of conversation is their fear of what they might discover.

Some believe that love conquers all, it doesn’t. It absolutely is not enough.

In the next part I am going to talk about what happens when you are no longer growing and your paths have clearly come to an end together. A loving way out. That one will be posted in a couple of days.

What Is A Commitment Agreement?

A Commitment agreement or relationship agreement is an agreement that spells out specifically, the terms of your commitment.   It does not need to be written down or signed, but I would highly encourage it. The best thing about it is that it sparks honest conversation.

And while it is not legally binding, people are more thoughtful before they sign something and will not likely do so without honest discussions.

Set Intentions

My suggestion would be to discuss and set the intention for what you intend to do “Negotiate a Commitment Agreement”.  But also really get into the question of why you want it.  What is the purpose it will serve? Safety, security, discovery, decision making?

Then leave it for a few days. The day or two before, have time to meditate individually and together. Start with some individual meditation.  Do some Tantric breath work. It moves sexual energy through your body, clears your mind, unclogs the shit from the week and connects you to your higher self.  I can fascilitate this session for you/with you if you need it.

Then on the day/time of the negotiation, meditate together, do some Tantra together to create a nice connection. Be careful not to get yourself into a state of arousal before this type of agreement or you will say yes to anything. 

Now for the first part, I would say just make notes, write words, phrases, concepts, don’t worry too much about the details yet.

Ask yourself some questions.  What does being in a relationship mean to me as an individual person? What does it mean to us as a unit? What is the most important thing to include? What things would make you feel safe, loved, seen, and cared for?

Then fine tune it and discuss to make sure you both fully understand it.

Some examples are included below.

The Benefits Of Having A Commitment Agreement

Here are a few of the benefits that you and your partner may experience after going through this process.

1.   Honesty

The majority of social contracts that we have with people have never been discussed. It is all assumption and expectation.

Co-creating your relationship agreement with your partner will give you both the opportunity to be 100% transparent and honest about what is important to you in your relationship.

I would like to think that by being clear and discussing it in the beginning it would help avoid fights and resentment, but it is extremely important that you don’t think this agreement makes up for character, integrity, and values.  If you are trying to rope a shitbag into being a good, committed, caring person, this won’t work.

Example, I am always SUPER clear with EVERYONE about my need for personal space every day. I need meditation time, and I don’t want to cuddle all night. Inevitably my partners think that if I fall for them or truly have feelings, those things would fall away. They don’t, so there is resentment and bullshit.  Thank God I never committed til death do I part.

 2. Awareness of your partner’s needs

You may think you know your partner very well, but women in particular are notorious for assigning these things to their partner without actually KNOWING or asking. 

And when you are talking about your needs, talk from a place of knowing your true self because saying what your partner wants to hear will come back to haunt you later.

3.   Communication

In theory, once you have this type of open communication, at this level, there should be nothing left that you cannot talk about. By the end of this negotiation/discussion you will either have moved on and parted ways or you will feel very safe and protected.

4.   Clarity and alignment in your intentions

Writing this agreement down forces you to become super clear with what you want and what you mean when you say certain words, phrases, etc. If your partner is smart, they will demand absolute clarity and you will need to be very sure that aligns with your true intentions and true values.  

5.   Arriving vs. sliding

Simply put, there’s a big psychological difference (that positively or negatively impacts your relationship long-term) if you slide into your big relationship milestones (moving in together, getting engaged, etc.) versus if you arrive to those same milestones by actually making a choice.  An example of this that I hear from my clients ALL THE TIME is that it seemed like the logical next step. Or well, we had been together for a long time so we might as well get married.

Imagine the difference if you made a conscious choice to move the relationship forward.

What Might You Include In Your Agreement?

There are any number of things that could be included. Here are some ideas just to get your mind going.

·         Never ending the relationship during a fight or highly charged situation and also not threatening to.

·         Never go to bed angry? Okay, I don’t love this one, but therapists seem to love it. I personally think that things look different in the bright light of day. A good night’s sleep can definitely help give you clarity. I do not want to be forced to have emotional discussions at 1-2-3am.  My last ex would force this and I swear to you I would agree to anything just to be able to go to sleep.

·         Commit to radical honesty. Just agree to always tell the truth, say what you actually mean.

·         Self-care- I read this one somewhere and I loved this. Define how each partner will take responsibility for their own health, happiness, career, emotional growth and personal development. Don’t blame me for your lack of anything in your life, and don’t be the person that holds me back.  Speak up for yourself and take responsibility for your own life.

·         Date nights- Do you require them, spell out the details of your expectations.

·         Individual friend nights- Are you going to have a certain amount of time to go spend with your friends without each other? Can this be overnight? Weekends? My last ex would lose his mind if I went to happy hour with my friends and didn’t invite him.  I didn’t invite him because I wanted a break from him, but then I had to not tell him in order to avoid drama. Don’t be me, just end that immediately.

·         Agree to never keep secrets and then define secrets.

·         Phone privacy- Is your phone private? Mine is because I have a business that requires confidentiality.  That is a hard pill to swallow for my masculine men, because I work with more men than women. 

·         Maybe one of the most important things to include is how to end the relationship. I am going to write more on this in another post.

Remember, your agreement is a set of guidelines. You are human. You will inevitably mess up, just acknowledge it, discuss it and keep moving forward with the agreement as your guide.

Examples Of Relationship Agreements

 To avoid bias or sharing my personal list, I took these examples verbatim from relationship coach Jordan Gray. The ones I included are verbatim, but I did delete some that I disagreed with, such as setting a specific number of times per week for sex.  But I will tell you this, I believe that if you are not willing to have sex with your partner, then you better set up an acceptable alternative.  

– We agree to never threaten the relationship (in passing, during arguments, or to other people)

– We agree to take responsibility for our own individual emotional responses, our fears and anxieties, and for ourselves in general.

– We agree to consciously take time for ourselves as individuals (whether alone, with friends, or with separate vacation)

– We agree to maintain a weekly, distractions-free date night

– We agree to remain growth oriented, while remaining patient with ourselves and not expecting growth to happen on any particular objective timeline

– We agree to do our absolute best at holding space for each other, while acknowledging that we are not responsible for fixing the other partner’s problems

– We agree to invest heavily in our own individual self-care, in order to be able to bring our best selves to our relationship

– We acknowledge that we don’t make each other happy, but rather, that we bring our individual overflowing happiness to the relationship to be shared with one another

– We agree to tell the full truth to each other, even when it’s the most difficult to do so

– We agree to assume that the other partner always has our best interest at heart

– We agree to allow the space for the three separate entities in our partnership… ‘you, me, and the relationship’

– We agree to have one day together per week where are phones are off and we can be fully present with each other

– We agree to welcome and honour any and all emotions that come from our partner, and we promise to do our best to not take those displays of emotions personally

– We agree to see and honour each other as healing partners

– We agree to de-escalate our fights with a “Time out, I love you/I love you too” whenever one or both of us feels like we are too far down the rabbit hole of defensiveness/feeling triggered or scared

– We agree to love and cherish every emotional breakthrough that comes up for us and to honour every tear that needs to be processed, in the safe space of our relationship

– We agree to do our absolute best to uphold all of the aforementioned intentions to the best of our ability, and we will be patient and loving with ourselves when we inevitably momentarily slip up