The Ground Rules

You’ve got to know the rules.

If you two are going to work out long-term, then you’ve got to understand the rules of your relationship. After all, the limits of your behavior in the eyes of your partner (and yourself) will ultimately shape the course of your relationship as much or more than just about anything else.

You can either run willy nilly into your relationship and pray to God that your implicit understanding of the rules of engagement are the same as your new lover, or, you two can sit down and go over them. And while prayers and non-communication tend to be the Road More Travelled, let’s take a look at talking the ground rules out.

Feelings before Demands

The first thing to go in with is a sense of collaboration. These are not demands that must be met or the relationship is off of the table – these are your feelings and how you want to relate to your new love. So number 1 on the list is understanding that you should not inflict your fears and desires on your partner. You should instead, look to be honest with what you are feeling and work out a shared arrangement.

Topics to Hit

It isn’t that love is blind, it’s that love is blinding. All too often, people assume that their love will equate to “happily ever after” in some of the real nitty gritty aspects of existence. Make no mistake – if you two fail to discuss the major topics in your emerging relationship, than you two are destined to find major problems in those areas. There are basically 5 major topics to hit, here they are:

  • Sex: Where are two coming from sexually? Are you both explorers? Do you want to be? How do you feel about monogamy? Have you been stung in the past by cheating? Exchange some thoughts about sex.
  • Money: Is it the male’s responsibility to pay for things? Is it a half and half thing? Are you bad with money and needing help? If you two are living together – how does rent/mortgage work? If one of you cooks, should the other one buy the groceries? Talk about money.
  • Household Rules: Provided that you two are sharing a household, how do you like to live? Do you expect everything to be clean? Are you open to a little disarray? Not that you two have to treat other like children, but is there a basic limit to the amount of TV/video games/music you’d like going on in your house?
  • Family: Are you two open to having kids in the future? Do you want them? Are you against them? Adopting maybe? And how do you treat kids? Do you spank them? Natural consequences? Kick them out at 18? How do you deal with kids? What about your parents? Do you want an extended family sort of hangout on Sunday life?
  • Fun: The last topic is often the most ignored – how are you two going to continue to have fun? Do you expect one date per week? Is that not important to you? How are you two going to have non-sexual fun together?

Sitting down for a couple of hours and working this stuff out may seem lawyerly or non-romantic – nothing could be further from the truth. As long as you two are embarking on an actual relationship (probably not a great idea to talk about punishing kids with someone you’re not spending more than a night or two with) then it is of the utmost importance to the future of your relationship that you two talk this stuff out. After all, can you really call it cheating if you’ve never mentioned monogamy?

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