Rules and Agreements
In chapter 10 - Rules and Agreements in the book More Than Two by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickart, the concept of Rules and Agreements in relationships is beautifully explained. This article is based on that chapter.
"Rules, agreement and boundaries are all, at their core, mechanisms for changing behaviour. The differences are in how these different things go about doing it, what assumptions they make, how they are created, and whom they apply to."
"Agreements involve all parties.
Agreements are negotiated codes of conduct established among people who are involved with each other. An agreement is a covenant negotiated by all the parties it affects. Agreements also allow for renegotiation by any of the people they affect. An agreement that does not permit renegotiation is more like a rule. An agreement that is binding on people who did not negotiate it is a rule. Even when the negotiations include all parties, you must still take care to make the negotiations equitable for everyone. In an ethical negotiation, any person with a disproportionate amount of power must negotiate compassionately, rather than using that power to browbeat others to "consensus"."
"Rules Place Restrictions Without Negotiation.
Rules are binding limitations placed on someone's behaviour that are not up for negotiation.
The absence or presence of empowerment is a litmus test for whether something is a rule or an agreement."
The absence or presence of empowerment is a litmus test for whether something is a rule or an agreement."
"When things go wrong - when an agreement is hurting someone or isn't having the intended effect and needs to be renegotiated - saying "But you agreed to this!" is just twisting the knife (and never helps solve the problem). At the beginning of a relationship, we are not yet emotionally invested in it, and we don't know how it will progress. So it can be easy to accept rules or agreements that later, as we become more vulnerable and more emotionall invested, become quite painful.
"To understand relationships that are not rules-based, we need to go back to two of the themes we emphasize in this ook: trust and boundaries. You have to trust that your partners want to take care of you - that given the freedom to do whatever they choose, they will make choices that respect your needs and honor their commitments. Placing that level of trust in someone can be scary. Rules can feel safer. But they're not.
"Rules have an inverse relationship to trust. They are intended to bind someone to someone else's preferences. The problem with rules, though, is we can never actually force our partners to abide by them. A partner who can't be trusted to meet your needs can't be trusted to follow your rules."
Rules as "training wheels"
Rules can be used in the beginning as training wheels, and as trust is built, they can slowly relaxed and phased out.
"But not everyone learns to ride a bike by using training wheels. Some people even believe that relying on training wheels teaches bad habits that must be unlearned when the training wheels come off."
"Relying on rules to deal with the feelins of jealousy and insecurity teaches us that we don't have to talk about them, which prevents us from learning the skils we need to find lasting solutions.
"Relying on rules to deal with the feelins of jealousy and insecurity teaches us that we don't have to talk about them, which prevents us from learning the skils we need to find lasting solutions.
Limited-Duration Rules can provide the emotional space to process whatever's underneath some thorny problems.
Do the Rules serve the people?
"The people in the relationship are more important than the relationship."
Re-evaluating agreements
"Anyone should be able to reopen discussions about an agreement at any time. It helps to think f agreements as mutable, organic things that will be revisited and modified as people grow and relationships change. When we see these structures as static, they can make reationships less rather than more stable, because they will fail to adapt to change... sometimes spectacularly."
"Creeping Concessions"
"Sometimes people can end up in relationships that cross boundaries without their even noticing it. Bit by bit, inch by inch, you may find yourself negotiating away things that are important. If each individual step is small enough, you might give up a boundary without even seeing it."
At times we may be aware that we're conceding things we once thought inviolate, but we do it anyway because we've already invested so much. Economists have a name for this: the sunk cost fallacy."
"Double Standards are rules that place different restrictions on different people."
Questions to ask yourself:
When considering your needs for agreements or rules, or whether to sign on to someone else's, these questions can be useful.
- What needs am I trying to address with this agreement?
- Does the agreement offer a path to success?
- Does everyone affected by the agreement have the opportunity to be involved in setting its terms?
- How is the agreement negotiated, and under what circumstances can it be renegotiated?
- What happens if the agreement doesn't work for anyone involved?
- Do I feel like I need rules to feel safe? If so, will the rules actually keep me safe?
- Are my rules equally binding on everyone they affect, or do they create a double standard ?
Though the above language from the book may feel too rational-logical, and very different from spiritually motivated thoughts of love which seem to be more pure, more sacrificing, and more respectful of human dignity, I still believe that a clear logical system is more equipped to create fulfilling relationships that work for most people, intellectually genius or not, spiritually elevated or not.