Sit back, grab a drink (preferably not a champagne bottle you're sitting on) and join us for this enlightening discussion about relationship contracts, inspired by a listener's comment. This episode delves into the importance of relationship contracts and the many unspoken social contracts that govern our interactions. With honesty, humor, and a champagne bottle or two, we explore how these contracts play out in the everyday scenarios of our lives and more importantly, in our romantic relationships. We also touch on the topic of maintaining physical attractiveness within a relationship. Whether you're single, dating, or married, this conversation will make you rethink how you navigate your relationships.Transcript by AI:Based Camp - Relationship Contracts

Simone: [00:00:00] Okay. Oh, la la I keep sitting on these champagne bottles, like I

Malcolm: just, why are you covered in champagne bottles? What's the story there? It's

Simone: our, it's our billionaire tech elite lifestyle.

Malcolm: We just, okay, hold on. We'll, we'll do this in the record. Oh, it's recording now? Yeah. Why are you, why are you sitting on champagne bottles?

Simone: It's, I show them and tech billionaires just like have champagne bottles. Sitting all over their furniture. It's annoying. You trip over them, it's like Legos in a parent's house, but champagne bottles, no,

Malcolm: but really Simone, what is going on with the champagne bottles? I went through her room and she had two champagne bottles in her chair.

Malcolm: I,

Simone: I mean, so if we're being honest, it's like a, a motivational thing. Like, I mean, I, I don't really drink now cause like, we're going through an IVF cycle, like we wanna get pregnant and, and yet like, I just wanna know it's there. And if anything goes wrong, we have these like consolation, prizes, like, okay, if, if, if there's a failed transfer, I get this consolation prize.

Simone: If there is [00:01:00] a miscarriage, I get this consolation prize if there's a, a stillbirth, because like, I, I need to not get so demoralized that we don't keep trying. Right. Cause it can be really hard. Well, this

Malcolm: is very germane to the topic of the video. What are these cancellation projects? What's the

Simone: cancellation like?

Simone: It's consolation, consolation, notation. I'm. I'm not being canceled, canceled, don't cancel me

Malcolm: when I have a miscarriage. No. The idea is, is so she asked me for permission. I don't even know why she asked me for permission. I like

Simone: that. You're, you're, no, no. Well, it's actually, it's a marriage contract thing.

Simone: I'm just, I'm making sure that with an expenditure of joint funds on a consolation prize related to our fertility plans, that you are on the same page and that you officially in writing and in a documented fa fashion, approve it. And this has to do indeed with the with the topic of this podcast, which actually came as a commentary suggestion.

Simone: So I'm like really excited because people are now giving us suggestions for our podcast. Are what episode of a suggestion too. Yeah. But anyway so this, this suggestion came from Cat Ad Victorian who said [00:02:00] 100% want your dedicated video to relationship contracts. Your fat clause is so relatable and reasonable.

Simone: My husband does relationship coaching and probably one of the top three reasons, and sadly it's so taboo to point this out, is one of the spouses slash partners has let themselves go and gained a bunch of weight and stops making an effort to be an attractive person in some way. There's this entitled attitude, they should just accept me as I am.

Simone: And if they can't handle it, they're emotionally abusive. It is wild. My husband and I have both gone from periods of fat to fat and fit and back. And so we've experienced this for ourselves and we've learned over our 15 years in counting marriage that we're both making a maximum effort to be healthy for one another and to be alive for as long as possible for our four children.

Simone: Things are pretty satisfying. Well, much more satisfying than if you slump and become schlumpy. It's neither good for yourself nor your spouse. So anyway, Kat adv Victorian. Thank you for your comment. Thank you for your suggestion. We're gonna talk about relationship contracts, and yes, one part of relationship contracts is making sure that you're on the same page with [00:03:00] expenditures.

Simone: I just wanna give like I.

Simone: Bird's eye view of relationship contracts. One, you're in a social contract with everyone that you interact with, like that's the key premise of like, why is it worth it to have a relationship contract? Every time you have a conversation with someone, every time you get on a bus, like you are engaging with a social contract, the social contract on a bus is that you're gonna sit down and not urinate and not get naked.

Simone: You're, you're gonna, def. Allow the wheelchair bound people just in the wheelchair area, if they come in there, there are these unspoken social contracts we have. The problem is, especially when you live in a diverse environment and people have a lot of different cultural backgrounds, it's really important to be more explicit in.

Simone: Discussing what your social contracts are, especially when you start to be in a more higher stakes relationship, like a romantic relationship, a sexual relationship, a marriage, et cetera. An

Malcolm: example of this is if you're dating somebody, people from different cultural backgrounds, one may think that dating means that they are exclusive.

Malcolm: Another may think that dating doesn't mean [00:04:00] they're exclusive. Mm-hmm. Or one may think that Well, yes, dating means you're exclusive, but you know, kissing someone else is an infidelity. And so if you don't, if you aren't really explicit to make sure you're operating off of the same shared social code, then it can lead to misunderstandings, which are really important when you consider what's actually going on with one of these contracts.

Malcolm: So if we go back to the dating, what's actually happening is, is both people are saying, I am making these sacrifices or restrictions in how I act with other people to benefit my relationship with you on the understanding that you are making like an equal trade off of sacrifices. And if that is improperly communicated, one partner might feel like they made sacrifices that the other person didn't make, or, or something like that.

Malcolm: And with all of the different like cultural baggage around what creates these default relationship contracts? Different cultures have found different optimums work for those cultures, and within [00:05:00] every culture there's this belief, well, the way that I do things is the correct way to do things.

Malcolm: So, continue from there.

Simone: Right. And so when, when people typically hear that we have a relationship contract, they immediately think like, oh, this is where, we discuss how you tie up and whip each other, isn't it? Like this is where you, your sex dumping comes into play?

Malcolm: Oh, I, Mr. Mr. Gray, what?

Malcolm: What's, is it gray? Is that what Mr.

Simone: Gray? I don't. 50 shades of gray is what they think of. I think that there's a contract in there. I think actually their contract might have a fat clause. I, I haven't read the books. Clue.

Malcolm: Actually,

Simone: Mr. Gray is in clue. Oh, okay. I don't, I don't know, I don't play games. But don't read 50 degree.

Simone: Well, I, ok. So

Malcolm: they, they, they, yeah. They assume it's like it's a sex thing. This is a really interesting thing that we when we talk about this sort of degenerate social virus in our society, that when people see, we have a lot of kids, they're like, oh, you must be doing it because it's a fetish.

Malcolm: Or when they hear we have a relationship contract, they're like, oh, it must be a bunch of sex stuff. Yeah. Because like, that is, Their perspective of reality is everything is about this very visceral gratification. Instead of that, the [00:06:00] relationship contract is like, this is the expected temperature of the house.

Simone: This is, is, yeah. Let's, let's go into this. So like, what is a relationship contract? Actually, well, what Malcolm and I did, and this is first off, it's a living document. It is a Google document. We update it regularly. We, I just updated it for, consolation prices in case I, have a. Mishap the next time we try to get pregnant, for example, and with kids' names, things like that.

Simone: But it isn't a living document that you and a partner, a friend, a a a work colleague, whatever, it could be anyone who has, a high stakes relationship with you, you, you negotiate various terms, especially around, Potential points of conflict before they become potential point of cons, points of conflict.

Simone: So what Malcolm and I did before we got engaged, before we got married was we went through like our relationships on Reddit. We asked a bunch of friends and colleagues and family members and strangers. Where they had major fights, conflicts, issues in their relationships, and then we put those issues into our marriage contract and [00:07:00] we negotiated them before they'll ever happen.

Simone: So let's go into some of the, the issues we wanted to talk about finances, Malcolm.

Malcolm: Well, I mean, I think that if you're talking about. And the most important clauses in any relationship, contract finances is definitely one of them. And there's a few ways that this can be done. You can either just.

Malcolm: Completely divide finances. So finances go into a mutual pot, and then they are divided in some way. Like it could be 70 30 or it's more likely if you do it this way, it would be 50 50. You can have, you keep what you earn. Which is each partner basically maintains a separate bank account and goes into the relationship with a separate bank account.

Malcolm: Or you can have a shared pot with then some private money that goes to each individual or some sort of combination of these. What we have in our relationship is a shared pot with sort of an allowance of free spending money for each individual. And so what she was talking about was these sorts of like consolation [00:08:00] expenses, is that they would be tied to the shared pot because she was undertaking an emotional task.

Malcolm: That was for our combined

Simone: benefit. Yeah. So in, in other words, all of our income, regardless of if it's like income that went technically to Malcolm or technically to me, goes into one big account and then it gets pulled out for various different budgets. And a lot of them are joint things. And all of the joint expenses that we have, like for our kids, for housing, for, for travel things that we do jointly.

Simone: Are based on agreed upon budgets, we've, we've decided on the percentages, the monthly amounts, whatever, and so that's all set. And this of course, yeah. Is part of that then, and we've seen this works really, really well for people in relationships. There's discretionary spending for each partner. So like, it doesn't matter like what you're spending it on, it could be something completely abhorrent to the other partner.

Simone: Doesn't matter cuz that's your money. They have zero visibility into it. So that money goes into private accounts for each of us. I have no idea what Malcolm spends his money on. Malcolm has no idea

Malcolm: what, okay, [00:09:00] so we use a lot of shared public accounts, like Amazon accounts and stuff like that. Yes. And I actually, I do her accounts, so she gets an email whenever I buy something.

Malcolm: And I, yeah, well, we

Simone: try to max out credit card points and I, like, I reimburse our credit card charges on a shared card, like from our personal account. So like, okay. I, no, I know, but, but technically you do know everything I'm

Malcolm: actually

Simone: spending money on. Yeah, I, I do. But like, you could do it all privately and that's very important that, because there are some relationships in which.

Simone: Every expense is reviewed by all partners. And that can be really tough, especially if like one partner is spending more personally than the other partner or the other partner doesn't approve of it. There's a lot of friction there. So yeah, having like a blind fund where it's like, this is your discretionary spending, zero judgment.

Simone: Zero visibility if you don't want any visibility, like it's, it's very smart. And it seemed to have worked really well. So there are other things that are in. Or contract that I think maybe people wouldn't expect. And you alluded to one, which is like house temperature, for example.

Malcolm: Yeah, house temperature.

Malcolm: Well, I mean, I think a lot of the important ones are the [00:10:00] ones that come up most frequently in our lives. Mm-hmm. Because otherwise they become simmering points of conflict. Like there wasn't an agreement before we got married. Mm-hmm. Whereas something like house temperature. Can seem like a pretty trivial decision to make with a partner before you get married.

Malcolm: Mm-hmm. And so it doesn't cost a lot of emotion to do then, but in terms of you're already married and, each of you have strong preferences for different temperatures, then it becomes a very costly thing. So a lot of these things remove a lot of the potential tension and relationship by deciding it upfront.

Malcolm: Mm-hmm. One of the things we mentioned in a previous video was, what do the spouse's parents do, if they end up destitute or something? And they, they asked if they could come live with you. Right? Yeah. And something like that is a lot easier to decide when you're not deciding about specific humans who, who, benefits one person or the other person.

Malcolm: If you're deciding this with either of your spouses then you know that when you initially made this decision, you made it blind as to who it would be about. Instead of like if both my parents die and then we're having this negotiation, like it's pretty lopsided the way the [00:11:00] terms work out.

Malcolm: Mm-hmm.

Simone: And other causes that are in a relationship contract that I really like are, for example H who, how to deal with travel to certain events, like to family gatherings. So let's say one partner really hates going to them and yet the other partner wants to spend a lot of money to like go out and visit family.

Simone: We have various rules around that and one of our, a rule that at Art Dynamic that I think is really fun and it works really, really well, is with things like that where one partner really wants to do it and the other partner doesn't. Then it comes down to one partner being willing to do that thing with their discretionary spending.

Simone: So like, okay, we'll do it, but you have to pay for it. Similar to house temperature, like I'm, I'm okay with the house being hotter than necessary, like during the winter, I just wear a snowsuit inside and I deal with it, but Malcolm doesn't necessarily want to, so I'm like, okay. Well, I mean the temperature can go higher, but you have to pay for the difference, in other words.

Simone: Right.

Malcolm: And no, I don't, I mean, we usually leave our house at around 50 degrees in the winter. Yes. Which, which I love. I love your [00:12:00] frugality, Simone. And I love your, constantly testing yourself in terms of enduring pain for mutual benefit, which I think makes you a stronger person mentally. A voluntary hardship is very useful for, for clearing the mind.

Malcolm: But in terms of something you mentioned is updating the contract. Mm-hmm. So a lot of people listed is another big area. What, what does that mean? Well, for us, that's just about the contract stands unless both of us decide to update it together. Mm-hmm. So either one of us has veto power on contract updates.

Malcolm: Mm-hmm.

Simone: Another one, oh, for example, we just went today. So one of our, the sections of our contract is kids names. Well, there's a lot of things in there, like, whether or not kids

Malcolm: yeah. She had, she got a crush on a ship from a sci-fi book and she goes, oh, it's a really hot ship. And I was like, well, that's a very Simone thing to say.

Malcolm: It's no,

Simone: I, any, I think anyone who reads surface detail by Ian Banks and discovers the, the ship known as falling outside the normal moral constraints, which is a culture, a dominator class offensive unit, it is like the coolest character of the entire book as far as I've gone so [00:13:00] far. Like, but anyway, so like I, I, I added that name for consideration.

Simone: In the document and, and, and then I ask Malcolm like, Hey, what do you think about the name Dam Myosin, which is the avatar of this ship? And he's like, Nope. So you, but that, that's how it works and it's really straightforward forward. What you think Abom as a name? Oh, a dominator, what

Malcolm: was

Simone: it called? A cultural, he's an an a dominator class.

Simone: Yeah, but about about a dominator. A dominator's. Not bad. It's not bad. We'll think about it. We'll

Malcolm: think about it. Yeah. There's, but we have a whole, like, no, not really. I think a dominator's too weird. I think it's too

Simone: weird. No, no, no. We'll, we'll have to, I will just search for other names in Ian Banks novels, and we will, I will find one ideally of a ship that is really good.

Simone: Because I think, I don't think falling outside the moral constraints is, is a, a pithy name, so I can't use that sadly, as much as I love

Malcolm: that show. Okay. So, so then another thing that people often ask is, well, How do you make decisions when they're not covered by the contract? Right. And I think that's a really interesting question as well.

Malcolm: Mm-hmm. So the way we do that is generally [00:14:00] we have divided our life into different domains of which we have we, we. Give day-to-day management of those domains between the two of us. Mm-hmm. So, like Simon manages the inside of the house. I manage the outside of the house. Simon manages our finances.

Malcolm: I manage career decisions. But at the end of the day, I end up making all the decisions.

Simone: Use the final call, like you veto power, you have final decision power on, on

Malcolm: literally anything except what's already outlined in the contract. So the contract is like outlining defensively. These are your rights of areas where I can't just make.

Malcolm: Final calls. Mm-hmm. And a lot of people are like, oh my God, that's horrible. Why don't, why don't you compromise? Right. And it's like, compromise is a terrible way to handle relationships because what it does is it creates the incentive for each partner to exaggerate their positions. Mm-hmm.

Simone: Okay. So, in other words, if I want five and Malcolm wants three, Malcolm is incentivized to say he wants zero, and I'm incentivized to say I want 10, and we're all gonna end up at an exaggerated position.

Simone: What's even worse is when you're, you're coming [00:15:00] at things from this very individualized perspective. You start not thinking in terms of what's best for us. What would the relationship benefit from? What are, what do our shared values benefit from? You end up thinking about me. And in my extreme views and what serves me the best.

Simone: And you might even start leaning into your exaggerated stated preference. So like, I might actually start wanting the 10, even though I really just want five five.

Malcolm: I mean, I think it's possible to not, if you take a position in an argument, you're much more likely to find yourself believing that position as you're totally, you, your real perspective.

Malcolm: Yeah. And so then

Simone: you, it's like it's literally pulling the couple apart. Or the every partner in a relationship partner.

Malcolm: Terrible. And I think that when a partner voluntarily says, I'm giving up power to you, I trust you to use it wisely. If you're in a positive relationship, the person is actually probably going to default to your needs.

Malcolm: Mm-hmm. Over their own, because every decision they, yeah. They know that was out. The, the, you have, you have surrendered that power to them voluntarily. Where this doesn't work [00:16:00] is if a person believes there's a cultural expectation that the power should be surrendered to them and they have some sort of divine right of rulership within the relationship, which can happen within some cultures where they believe that like men, by the sake of being men, should be the one in charge.

Malcolm: Yeah. That means that he doesn't feel like the woman has made any sort of like real sacrifice. Sometimes. Now some, some people still appreciate it, even when they come from those cultural backgrounds, but there is a risk that they're like, oh, well, of course she's subservient to me because she's a woman,

Simone: well, I think that this also even shows up in, in like traditional more and more traditional seeming cultures where women are like, oh, well, of course I'm entitled to like, spend all this shared money on clothes and purses for myself because I'm the woman and I should be treasured and, like, I, I got pregnant for you, so therefore I get to buy whatever I want with your money, et cetera.

Simone: Like

Malcolm: it can go both. I mean, it's a bad cultural expectation. Mm-hmm. And it's something that I'm glad that we outlined that it, in terms of like those values, like frugality, I, I mean, I think also outlining your values is really important. But I wanna go back to other ways that you, so suppose you [00:17:00] actually don't trust your partner enough mm-hmm.

Malcolm: To say, I'm gonna let one of my partners just have final call on things. Then what you're doing, and this is a very easy thing to do if you have aligned values. Yes. It's something that doesn't work if either of your values are hedonistic in nature. Yeah. Cause then there's always going to be mis mis incentivization.

Malcolm: But if you have aligned values for like, I live my life in dedication to this greater cause mm-hmm. Then it's, it's, it's very easy to think, okay, what, what logically helps us both move towards that greater cause, right? Mm-hmm. And, and you are rewarded for. In terms of like real world achievement from seeking as much information as possible from your partner in terms of achieving that cause, but other ways this can be done if you don't trust your partner that much is you could have some sort of external party be the mediator.

Malcolm: Right? Mm-hmm.

Simone: And you see this in traditional cultures too. I mean like often like religious leaders. Yeah. The rabbis. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But let's actually, let's talk about consequences for violating the contract because I think that this is something that's super under underrated. And I mean, sort of like, I don't know, in country music or in popular culture, there is this [00:18:00] perception that when you violate a relationship contract or a marriage contract Even when it's unspoken.

Simone: So like, he cheated, she cheated the per the, the understanding is, well, of course you leave the relationship, you end the relationship, you trash their car, you throw their clothing out of the, like fifth story window, et cetera, et cetera, right? Like you do all these. Like pretty toxic things. Whereas we argue in the pragma dis guide to relationships, that's actually like a really suboptimal thing to do unless you are 100% committed to doing it.

Simone: And it seems like in most cases when someone, this is leaving the

Malcolm: relationship, right? Yes. A lot of people are like, I will leave you if you do this now. Take it

Simone: from there. Yeah. Yeah. If you break a rule, I will leave. And that, that ultimately is not ideal. Honestly, like, yeah, you would think that in our relationship contract, we, we've put all this thought into it, like, oh, we must have like, these really, really big ramifications for, or like, even really specific ramifications for when someone breaks the rule.

Simone: Honestly, like it's pretty much just. If you break this rule, if you, if you don't honor this [00:19:00] rule or standard, it will really hurt my feelings like that. That's kind of it. Yeah. And that's, that's honestly in a relationship in which each partner loves each other and each partner wants the relationship to stay intact, that's frankly one of the best ramifications you can have because it's obvious to both partners that if that happens a lot, if one partner is constantly disappointing, constantly hurting feelings, then eventually I.

Simone: For the partner who's regularly being let down, they're gonna terminate the relationship period. Well, and

Malcolm: this is something that I think is really important in relationships is and we'll do our episode on how perverse it is to have a relationship based on love. But a lot of people assume that love is the most important emotion or feeling you have towards your partner in a relationship.

Malcolm: But I, I, I think. In truth, love is like number four. In terms of important emotions, the the really important one is gratitude. Mm. That when your partner makes a sacrifice for you or does something for you that you are grateful for the sacrifice they have made because nothing is. Degrades the [00:20:00] relationship faster than when you feel like you're doing something for someone and they are not show you.

Malcolm: You can tell that they do not appreciate it. Yeah, and one thing that I really appreciated our relationship is I am just always overwhelmed and humbled by the amount of gratitude you engender in me, where I'm constantly like, Wow. She really does more than her share. Like I always feel like you're doing more than your share.

Simone: Well, and I do about you too. I think that's a good sign of a relationship if each partner thinks.

Malcolm: Yeah. Cause I think people hear that and they're like, why would two people consistently, the way that you create a relationship where both people always feel like the other person's doing more than their share is you divide the roles in the relationship so that each person, or takes on the roles that the other person finds difficult.

Malcolm: Yeah. So this task, tacit Simone does I find incredibly emotionally

Simone: difficult to do. And the things that Malcolm does, I literally could not do. Yeah. And

Malcolm: so literally look at like little things for [00:21:00] me where I'm like, oh, like some people are asking, why do you record in different rooms? Right? And, and they know that Simone's autistic Simone doesn't like to, be in the same environment with someone.

Malcolm: Right. And, and well, it, it, it's stresses her out a little, like with me, it's okay if it's just socialization, but like, when we're performing, when we're on stage, like we are with these podcasts, there's, it is like having somebody looking over her shoulder while she's working. Yeah. Is that a good?

Malcolm: Yeah, and I think a lot of people wouldn't respect that. And so you come at this and you, and you have gratitude for little weird sacrifices. I make that to me, feel like almost nothing. Whereas for you, an example of something she's doing today is I find it really stressful to go through comments on Twitter or YouTube because some of them are negative and, and mean, and it really stresses me out.

Malcolm: So like in, in South Park where they have the. Butter is going through all the negative comments and only sending me the positive ones. Simone doesn't really get bothered by negative comments that much. Not at all. So she just engages with him and then really only brings them to me [00:22:00] where she goes, oh, this is like a, a interesting point that I want you to engage with.

Malcolm: Because sometimes, they're bringing up like an intellectual point, and I do wanna be open to other ideas, but then other times it's just like, I wanna kill you. Or, or I, I, you're ugly and weird. And I'm like, I know I'm ugly and weird. Come on guys.

Simone: No, we are, we are runway. Okay. And the rest way, runway.

Simone: Runway, all the pretty people are cataloged. We are runway deal with

Malcolm: it. Okay. What are other parts of a relationship contract that are important?

Simone: Let me pull up our relationship contract and give some additional examples for, for listener inspiration just in case you are thinking about making a relationship contract of your own.

Simone: So under finances we have distribution of inve investment in an inheritance income, which I think is another important thing because each partner could come into a relationship, not just with their existing salaries, which are easy enough to divide up, but also with like, Well, here's, like, I get royalties, for example, from content that I created before [00:23:00] Malcolm was in a relationship.

Simone: Both of us have, have inherited a little bit of money from grandparents, so like what happens with that money? And we also have things like use of emergency funds. Likes are we, do we build up an emergency fund? How many months does it have to cover? What do we do about retirement savings?

Simone: What are our policies with debt like? In what scenarios is it okay for us to get into debt? Which I think is, is also really important. And, and a big point of conflict with people getting into relationships. Even like I, I knew someone in college who had so much student debt that as soon as partners learned about it, they didn't wanna marry her, which is insane.

Simone: But also, like, it's a big deal. So debt's a really big, one's a big deal. They're inheriting that debt. When, when I know. I know. And I know it's, it, it is a big deal. Oh, of course. Fidelity, like we very, we very, oh yeah. Fidelity. That's an important one. What, what is cheating? What is not cheating?

Simone: Oh. What is allowed how do things need to be discussed? Like I think that's really important and I think it's interesting that, for, for some partners, I think I, I remember going through one [00:24:00] study that showed how men were like super cool with like ai, like. Sex or boyfriends or girlfriends or something like that, whereas women were like, no, I'm super not cool with my boyfriend or husband, like, having an emotional or sexual relationship with an AI like entity.

Simone: Like super. Well,

Malcolm: I, I think something that you point out here is there's this perception in our society that men and women are sociologically the same on average. Mm-hmm. And therefore, when you're talking about infidelity rules or something like that, A tradeoff for a guy will be the equivalent of a, a similar tradeoff for a girl.

Malcolm: Right? Yeah. Which totally

Simone: isn't. Yeah. Which is not

Malcolm: true. Yeah. And the AI is a perfect example of that. If you created a rule that you know, boast, people can date ais, that might actually be a lot more costly for one

Simone: gender than the other. Totally. And I think it's the same with sex. Like I think extramarital or extra relationship sex can mean a lot more.

Simone: To some parties and other [00:25:00] parties? . So also a big, a big thing, and I know this is like what blows our mind, is that like so many people get married and then they're like, okay, so do we have kids?

Simone: Like, do we not have kids like it? I think it's less common now. People are a lot more upfront about whether or not they wanna have kids. But when we first looked at like relationship deal breakers and things that caused breakups, we kept coming across stories of people who had. Gotten married and then discovered that they weren't on the same page about kids, which is really not good.

Simone: So, we, we don't only have agreements about, how many kids we may have, how we're gonna try with issues or like deal with issues of fertility. But also there, there's a, a section on career sacrifices for children. And I think this is another really big one. Is that a big point of conflict in.

Simone: Relationships is who's gonna, who's gonna take the hit? Like who has to give up their career to have kids, or who's gonna pick up the kids when they're sick or who's gonna deal with this or that. And often, like societally, women end up picking up a lot of the slack just because [00:26:00] there is this unwritten social contract that that falls to the mother.

Simone: So negotiating that ahead of time, I think that there's also a lot of like resentment on behalf of women because they feel that obligation when often it may be the case that the husbands would be super happy to do all that and they're doing it cuz they think the women want to do that. And so actually like Malcolm picks up like the majority of the slack with our kids.

Simone: One because he's cool with it. Two because he's the best husband ever. But that's something that really made a big difference for me around children. But also we have punishment for children. That's, there's a lot of conflict around that.

Malcolm: That's really important. Yeah. If one person comes in thinking like, corporal punishment is okay and the other person doesn't, that's sure to cause a lot of con.

Simone: Conflict. Yeah. And then financial considerations. Like one parent might, may wanna spend a lot more money on kids than the other. One parent wants like designer Ralph Lauren, clothing for the kids. The other one, like, no, we're only doing hand-me-downs. That's a, a freedom of choice for kids, what are they allowed to do?

Simone: Their recreation, their education, the media they consume pets. Like we have a pets clause in here, child sex education, child names. Of course, that's like our most [00:27:00] frequently updated thing now. Oh housing in the event of a long distance marriage. So like, if we end up having to live on different continents for a while, for doing work, who's, where do the kids go?

Simone: These are important things. We also have things like family gatherings and holiday travel. Like we said, elder family member care. Then of course there's health too, like preventative healthcare. Like are we, what are we committing to like, in terms of screening and regular health checks?

Simone: I, I think that that's beyond just like, cuz obviously we have our fat clause in our, in our marriage contract, which I love. But it, it's not just a fat clause. Like we also have terms around health and, and, not doing things that harm ourselves which is I think great and really important. Life support's in there.

Simone: Of course. Although that's one of the few things that like a lot of people with their, their power of attorney do actually work out oddly. Like the one thing that kind of like is almost never gonna happen, you're, what happens once. Anyway, to wrap things up, if you have questions about relationship contracts [00:28:00] or fun things that you've put in your relationship contract, and it can be your sexy relationship, contract, whatever. We'll talk about that too. Let us know in the comments.

Simone: And this is so cr, but don't forget to like and subscribe. I told her she had to say this. I

Malcolm: was like, we've never asked people to like and subscribe,

Malcolm: so we really try to create the best listener experience possible in that, one of the things we do is we try to, if you don't wanna watch the full episode, if you're like, okay, I just wanna get to like the point that you're getting at.

Malcolm: We try to put that before the title card. That's probably not great in terms of like viewership links in terms of the algorithm, but, I, I really want this to be just like an ideal listenership experience and that's also one of the reasons why we haven't really been adding the like and subscribe thing.

Malcolm: But I mean, I guess it helps I don't even know if subscribing helps that much anymore for, for the algorithm. It, it certainly helps for my ego. That's our big goal this year. Get to 10 K subscribers and we're like, Real YouTubers. I, I guess that's, that's the way I see it. So

Simone: it's the dream. So anyway, please do your part.

Simone: Please do your [00:29:00] part. Friends. Yeah. Okay, Malcolm, I love you so much and let's do another conversation soon. I hope so. I love these. Love you too. Yeah.

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