Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Prenup Baby, Prenup

My relationship with love has undergone many reconstructions. When I was younger I wanted to get married as soon as I finished undergrad. When I graduated I was the first to admit that I was far from wanting nor being ready for marriage so I pushed my get-married deadline to 28. I met someone when I was 28 and we probably would have gotten married but we would have also gotten divorced.

It was this relationship that changed me the most and I owe this person much gratitude because I learned:
a) That I love myself above all other people (this was before Ellis came into being).
b) Love is a verb. It takes work. Even if you're "meant to be", you can not sit idly by and assume your relationship will take care of itself. You have to stay vigilant.
c) If your partner can not let you grow and/or you can not let your partner grow, it will never, ever work out. If by sheer luck it does, you will both be miserable so you better hope it doesn't work out. d) If you don't have trust and if you can't talk to each other, you don't have anything.
e) Relationships, like business partnerships, are agreements. If you walked into the board room and told your boss to stick it, your agreement would most likely be over. Relationships are no different. If you treat your partner like crap, eventually they will figure out that there is somewhere else they can go where they will be treated better and they will leave your ass.
f) Finally, if there is a problem in your relationship, no matter how big or small, address is NOW. Do not wait and hope it will address itself. It will not. Relationship issues are tumorous. They very rarely go away on their own and even if they're benign, they still grow and can leave you looking very unsightly.

It's no surprise then, that Aaron and I met when we did and that we both share a love of honesty, independence, and realistic expectations.  We have "board meetings" or if we're discussing parenting, we call them "treatment team meetings." We see a therapist from time to time if we reach an impasse, but 99% of the time, we can figure out our own issues. So in keeping, yesterday Aaron and I met at our lawyer's office to start working on our prenuptial agreement. I am always so shocked by how people react when you mention a prenup. Personally, I think they should be mandatory. Prenups and parenting classes. Shit, may as well add pre-marital relationship classes to that as well.

For those of you who think prenups are only for google execs and professional athletes, they're not. Basically, a prenup is a divorce agreement that you and your fiancé write together when you're still in love. Why the hell wouldn't you do that?! I don't know about you, but every divorce I can think of, sans maybe 2 or 3, were ugly, bitter, mean, expensive as hell and very rarely, fair. Aaron and I have every intention of staying together until we're changing each other's diapers and accidentally using each other's dentures, but you know, shit happens. One of us could go crazier. One of us could hit our heads really, really hard and our personality could change (I know someone that this happened to. He was a weird dude before but then he got a TBI and turned into a total asshole).

I'm all for romance and I hate fighting. If a relationship doesn't work out, let it be because your souls are no longer compatible. Fighting over money is so 1985.

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