Relationship Agreements 101

4 minute read

You already have relationship agreements. But do they work? Most don’t. Thousands of conversations over the past fifteen years have made it clear that most agreements are vague, implicit, and just waiting to cause disappointment. 

 Establishing clear, intentional agreements is essential for anyone navigating or considering non-monogamy or open relationships–and monogamous relationships need them too! We recently delved into this topic on episode 149 of the Playing with Fire podcast, which I recommend for anyone looking for a deeper understanding. Explicit agreement-making is one of the most powerful skills to add to your relationship toolkit!

Types of Relationship Agreements

There’s more than one kind of clear relationship agreement–and they serve different purposes.

1. Relationship Philosophies: These form the foundational beliefs about what relationships mean to you. They are broad, guiding principles rather than strict rules and serve as the backdrop against which more specific agreements are formed.
2. Experimental Agreements (Minimum Viable Agreements - MVAs): These are short-term, flexible agreements designed to explore new boundaries or dynamics. Because they are temporary, they allow individuals and their partners to experiment with less pressure, adjusting as necessary based on the outcomes of these trials. An MVA is designed to REVEAL what you don’t know you don’t know yet about what you need, want, and don’t want, it’s NOT meant to be permanent!
3. Enduring Agreements (Holistic Relationship Agreements): Created to last longer and cover more ground, these agreements address various life and relationship aspects comprehensively. They are designed to provide stability and long-term structure to the relationship dynamics.

Components of the Minimum Viable Agreement (MVA)

The MVA process includes three critical components that help manage the specifics of these experimental agreements:

• Duration: Defines how long the agreement will last, which is usually short-term—ranging from a few days to a few weeks. This allows the flexibility to adapt and change as partners learn more about their needs and boundaries.
• Domains: Specifies the areas the agreement covers, such as emotional intimacy, sexual activity, time spent together, or other aspects pertinent to the relationship. Get clear on what sort of expansivity you’re building into your life. Make it clear if there are areas of life you expect to stick to exclusivity. Lean into your imagination here- it’s not always easy to break out of the relationship boxes we’ve been living in!
• Deal Breakers & Response Plans: Making your boundaries clear is necessary–state your dealbreakers up front. But you also need to know what your response plan will be when boundaries get bumped up against. Of course, we all hope agreements will never be violated, but realistically, we need to have a plan for how we will handle misunderstandings and even, yes, violations. Your response plan outlines the steps to be taken if such violations occur. Will you call your counselor? Take a relationship break? Engage in repair actions? This component is crucial for maintaining trust and safety within the relationship, providing a clear plan for addressing issues and resolving conflicts.

The Role of Relationship Agreements in Non-Monogamy

Relationship agreements in non-monogamous settings aren't about limiting freedom but fostering understanding and trust among all involved. Here’s why they are vital:

• Clarity and Boundaries: Clear agreements help articulate expectations and boundaries, maintaining trust and respect among all partners.
• Safety and Health: In non-monogamous relationships, agreements often cover sexual health and safety, crucial for everyone’s well-being.
• Growth and Exploration: Agreements provide a secure framework for exploring desires and interests, helping individuals and relationships grow without fear of boundary violations.
• Communication and Honesty: These agreements encourage ongoing dialogue and honesty, which are fundamental to the health of any relationship.

Effective Agreement Strategies

On the podcast, we explore effective strategies for drafting and evolving these agreements. Emphasizing adaptability and consideration for all parties' comfort levels is key. Relationship agreements should be viewed as dynamic tools that evolve alongside the relationship. In my immersive mentorship program, The Year of Opening, participants are supported in creating honest, negotiated relationships, empowering them to establish agreements that truly reflect their needs and aspirations.

Conclusion

For those exploring or engaging in non-monogamy, consider how structured agreements can support your relationship goals. Episode 149 of the Playing with Fire podcast offers extensive insights into crafting agreements that respect individual desires while promoting relationship integrity and satisfaction.

When approached with care and clear communication, non-monogamy offers a pathway to fulfilling and resilient relationships. Effective agreements—whether experimental, enduring, or philosophical—ensure that all partners feel valued and respected. This thoughtful approach maintains and enhances the freedom and joy that a consciously negotiated open relationship can offer.

Episode 149 Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated, and may contain some errors.

Ken Hamilton 00:01
Let's talk about the basics of relationship agreements.

Joli Hamilton 00:05
Okay, I'm game, but just so you know, I love this topic.

Ken Hamilton 00:09
Okay, so we'll try to stick to the basics. Okay, because I could

Joli Hamilton 00:13
talk about this topic for probably I could start and just talk for a month. No problem.

Ken Hamilton 00:18
Yeah, that's true.

Joli Hamilton 00:19
So relationship agreements in my world, come in three styles, three different ways that people can approach them. Should we start there?

Ken Hamilton 00:28
Let's start with that. Yeah, what will we make agreements about?

Joli Hamilton 00:31
So agreements, to be clear agreements, I don't care what you call your agreements. This is the language I use for them, I think of three types of agreements. One is my relationship, philosophy. Right? That is actually an agreement I usually make with myself. But a lot of times we use them with partners to to describe in this like sort of vague sense. Without a lot of super explicit rules or negotiation. This is basically what I feel a relationship should be like, and this is what I try to align with. So that's not exactly what I would call an agreement. But a lot of people use relationship philosophies to take the place of agreements. And so that's why I put it under this category. That's sort of that's what I actually see most people relying on is I have a relationship philosophy. And from there, I will make my ongoing conversational agreements. But a lot of times those folks also don't have any really explicit negotiated agreements. So now we'll move into the explicit negotiated agreements. Yeah.

Ken Hamilton 01:40
Yeah, cuz I'm familiar with the process where, okay, we have a general idea of what relationships are for I'm sure we will make all the same decisions from here on out. Yeah, okay, let's get a little more explicit.

Joli Hamilton 01:51
So I like relationship philosophies, I think of them as being they can be a good Northstar, they can be a good way to get on the same page, they can also be a great way to talk with new partners about how you generally attempt to move in relationships. However, they have some limitations because philosophies are meant to be our ontological ground, right? There are ontological ground, there are our epistemological stance, they are the nature of our experience in relationships, and they form the way we ask questions about relationships. But our agreements can actually be way more practical than that. So let's talk about the other kinds of agreements. I think of the other kinds as being either experimental agreements, short term or something. Yeah, let's try some stuff out, or holistic relationship agreements, holistic, meaning, these will encompass and they'll also be durable, they're going to be all like pretty encompassing of me. And like many domains of my life, they're going to be thorough, and they're going to be pretty durable over the course of time. So I may agree to these two last, on the order of months, years, even decades, more

Ken Hamilton 03:05
comprehensive agreements, covering more, right, fundamental aspects. So

Joli Hamilton 03:11
we've got relationship philosophies, and then holistic relationship agreements. And now down to my my actual favorite kind of relationship agreement, which is what I call the minimum viable agreement. Minimum Viable agreements are experimental agreements, they are intentionally short term, small containers in which we reveal what actually works for us what we can, what we have the ability to articulate what we need to learn about what we need in our relationships, what we want in our relationships. MBAs are messy, but they are also really, really productive. They are so good at helping people at the the MVA process is so exceptional at helping people go from having an idea of what they want to Oh, I actually can communicate about what I want, and I can communicate where my edges are. And I can do then repair if my edges get bumped up against right.

Ken Hamilton 04:13
What do you mean by their messy?

Joli Hamilton 04:16
So these are messy because they're experimental. So you trained in physics, right? Did you train in theoretical or experimental experimental? Yeah, it was was everything you did super safe and like very controlled and never destroyed anything? I

Ken Hamilton 04:34
got a piece of fiber optic filament, like right through my hand once. So no, happens. Right?

Joli Hamilton 04:41
Okay. The experimental conditions necessarily open us up to the fact that yeah, some stuff is going to happen. And even some stuff that we we don't mean to happen may happen, okay. So I don't see as

Ken Hamilton 04:54
an unpredictable outcome. Because

Joli Hamilton 04:56
also because we we don't know what we don't know. Oh, that's why we use the experimental condition. Because when I'm setting up an agreement, I can rely on my imagination up to a point to imagine what I need, what I want, where my limits are. And then I can rely on my actual skills to articulate this. And my Goshi ation skills to deal with the fact that the people I'm making agreements with might have different needs, wants, desires, bottom lines. And even if I do all of that awesome, and my imagination is so onpoint getting it. I still don't know what I don't know. And I don't know what's going to happen when we get out into the field. And we start messing with stuff and we start doing stuff. We also know sound messy. Yeah. We don't know what our unconscious will do. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm a psychologist. So let's bring that into the picture. Most of us imagine that we're making our agreements from a place of conscious rationality. I

Ken Hamilton 06:02
thought that was all there was for quite a long time. I make decisions, and then I act on those decisions. And, and that's all gonna go just snowflake, right to

Joli Hamilton 06:13
go wrong. And of course, most people are familiar with the the iceberg image of what consciousness and unconscious are, right. So the iceberg, the part you can see is what you know, you know, it's what you're aware of. Most of the iceberg, most of us is under the water in the unconscious, one with the unconscious. And so that aspect of us will also be experiencing the ramifications of the agreements that we make the experimental conditions we put ourselves in the stuff we go play with and do. And those unconscious aspects of us, they're going to have some feelings and thoughts about all this too. And the thing about your unconscious is, we can keep bringing unconscious material forward. But there's an unending supply. So even if we do a great job attempting to make agreements that account for everything we can we have to remember that the unconscious is here, too.

Ken Hamilton 07:14
We have to remember the rest of the iceberg. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Joli Hamilton 07:17
So that said, I have developed a process, I teach it in the year of opening, I find this process to be incredibly helpful, especially for people who are trying to create a lot of safety by making a lot of rules, or for people who've never made agreements, right. Like it was like, I don't know, we just kind of have an ongoing conversation. This process is pretty formal, but also pretty succinct. It can be a tight process. I mean, you and I still use this process. 15 years in, we've been using a version of this for at least 13 years. And that because that's as early as I can find them in my journal is evidence of this. And this process helped us figure out how to share our language, how to make common language about around agreements, and helped us create safety together.

Ken Hamilton 08:14
That is an important piece of the agreement making process. The agreement is important. But so is the agreement making process. Because yeah, what you were just saying, in the process of working out our agreements, we learned how to talk about things, so that we both understood what we were talking about,

Joli Hamilton 08:33
right. So the M, the minimum viable agreement, the MVA, it's got this cute little name. And that's just to help us remember that there is a structure that we can rely on. But I encourage everyone to then make this process your own. You can take this, this is a jumping off point, once you've been working with it for a while, you know, I've been teaching this to people for years. And, and now people have their own versions and variations on this theme. But it is a great start jumping off points. So I'm happy to just share the process.

Ken Hamilton 09:06
The very generous of you was it is really helpful.

Joli Hamilton 09:10
I don't know i i Just like something that's practical. So the very first question, whenever I'm making an agreement is what's the purpose of this agreement? And that is actually first a question I want to ask myself as an individual. So whether there are there's you know, two people, five people 12 people making an agreement. First, I want to ask myself this question, what is this agreements purpose, like, why am I even coming to the table? Why am I trying to articulate this? What's going on? For some of us, the answer might come up right away, like I'm looking for safety. I'm looking to build trust. I'm looking for security. For others. It might be Oh, I'm I'm looking to explore my growth edges. I want to be expansive. I want to get out there and try something new. And I know that that's outside of the parameters of what we have been doing. So Yeah, for me this agreements purposes so that I can grow. And then let's be real. For some of us, the agreement may serve some shadowy purposes, some purposes that we might not love admitting to. But it's worth mentioning, I have definitely made agreements at times that were about control. Like when I get right down to it, what do I want, I want some control. And that makes me think about our early relationship when I would make agreements with you. And I felt very disempowered on the whole in our relationship. So when I would make agreements with you, I could feel this sort of scrambling for like, I need control of something looking for control of something.

Ken Hamilton 10:42
So that color is the the agreement making process.

Joli Hamilton 10:45
Yeah. And the thing is, I wasn't in a place to admit that to you yet. We we just didn't have the language that we needed. And I didn't feel safe enough. Well, yeah. But I, I see evidence of this back in my own early journals of like, Yeah, I knew, I knew I was looking for control, it was hard to me to admit it. Because that did not seem like an attractive quality to have. But this is part of the doing your shadow work is actively acknowledging that we are whole beings with with shadow and light with complexity, and sometimes with nefarious purpose. And I can control without even meaning to harm, right. Like, sometimes we're seeking control. No, it's, it's for everyone's good.

Ken Hamilton 11:37
And you mentioned safety, too, you know, if you're looking to increase your personal safety and an agreement that might include finding ways to get more control over things. And I think what I'm hearing you say here is, during the agreement making process, don't forget about the shadows. Yeah,

Joli Hamilton 11:57
so I want you to get clear on the purpose for yourself. So that you can keep track of that, like, yeah, attend to that. So if I noticed that one of the things I want is some control, I'm gonna be looking out for where am I subtly manipulating? Or where am I setting parameters that are designed to increase my sense of control, that aren't really serving what I truly want, like my, my whole person wants, and who my whole person wants to show up as in relationship. So let's take some deep self reflection. And I think it's worth also bringing this question to the beginning of an agreement process. Now, if you and I are making an agreement, I can have done that self reflection, and then we could also agree on what is the purpose of this agreement that we're making, like, Hey, what are we what are we working on right now. And a really common one is we're working to build trust, we want to establish an agreement so that we can establish, hey, look at us, holding in our integrity, being accountable for where there are ruptures where there are challenges, like if I make an agreement, it's not it's, it's not so I can just see the bad stuff or where we fall down or it's not. So I can weaponize that and use that against my partner. It's also so I can celebrate I mean, it's never for weaponizing. But it is, it can serve the purpose of actively celebrating how I am in integrity, how I am holding myself to the standards that I mean to show up as and how we are together, collaborating, and creating the expansivity that we actually want in our relationships and

Ken Hamilton 13:36
celebrations are worth I'm glad you brought that word in because they're worth keeping in mind. Particularly for the minimum viable agreement, these these shorter term ones, when, when you've come to the conclusion of your agreement time. It's time to celebrate how the ways that went well. Yeah, we're also gonna want to think about the things that didn't and work on that. But don't forget to celebrate the wins along

Joli Hamilton 14:05
the way. Definitely. Celebrate make a cake. Okay, so there are some ingredients. I said earlier, this is a pretty formal process in that I can I can outline for you the pieces, the ingredients of it, the ingredients for an MVA honor the setting the duration, understanding the domains of the agreement, and establishing where the deal breakers are and what your response plans will be if a deal breaker gets hit. So duration domains, deal breakers, those are the three key ingredients.

Ken Hamilton 14:44
And you want to dive into those. Yeah, so what's the domain?

Joli Hamilton 14:49
Oh, actually, well, I think we should start with duration.

Ken Hamilton 14:51
Okay, let's start with duration.

Joli Hamilton 14:53
So the reason I start with duration is remember we said these are short term agreements. Yeah.

Ken Hamilton 14:57
Okay. Well, and so that's Yeah, well Go ahead, Rick sense, this helps

Joli Hamilton 15:02
this helps a lot, because a short term experimental condition lets us take an appropriate size risk and feel like, okay, we can actually if I try to make an agreement with you and say, Okay, this is our new agreement, basically, in perpetuity, like I'm making this agreement, I'm gonna make those those, my boundaries are going to feel real tight, right. But instead, I encourage people to make agreements, MBAs that lasts between one and four weeks, one to four weeks, sometimes just a day, even recently, someone in your opening cohort made a one day agreement so that they could try something on short term, make the duration nice and tight, pick a time box that works for you. And the trick to making this duration is you set it and I want you to enter on your calendar, when you are reviewing this, like it is not just going to last in perpetuity. So you're going to have a start time and you're going to have a review time. That's how you know the the duration of this agreement. And it's going to be on your calendars so that you plan to do you review otherwise, you don't get to learn from the experiment. This is data collection. Let's learn

Ken Hamilton 16:09
that scheduling that has been so important. I've seen it not not just in me, which is very important for me my relationship with the time. But I've seen in the the the people in the year of opening how often that particular tool has been very helpful. Plan schedule, put it on the calendar,

Joli Hamilton 16:29
and it's so easy for us to make agreements, and then revisit them only when something's gone wrong.

Ken Hamilton 16:34
Yeah. And it's really hard to celebrate. Right times, and

Joli Hamilton 16:38
sometimes they're gonna go right, awesome. So if so the last agreement you and I made was a two week agreement. Because we were traveling and we needed a container to hold us around the travel. And yeah, so we still use these even though we also have some long term relationship agreements and a clear relationship that WE share mutually exclusive at all. No, we stack them in. So duration is short, and it is scheduled domains, though, you asked about the domains, you could use the max Hills relationship smorgasbord as a way to think about where are you? What is this agreement covering? Exactly? When it comes to opening up our relationships? This might be where am I being expansive? And where am I going to be exclusive still, and now you might not have any areas of exclusivity in your relationship? That's fine. But for a lot of people listening to playing with fire, I know a lot of us do have areas of exclusivity. And some of you might think you don't. And my question would be okay, are is that? Let's reflect more deeply? Is it okay with you, if a partner next week decides to buy a house with someone else, or decides to have a child with someone else or just decides to move across the country? Most of us actually do have some areas where we're like, oh, actually, I'm, I'm not available to have all my partners be completely expansive in every direction. And so just acknowledge that if there are areas where you want exclusivity, where you're maintaining exclusivity, name it, and then allow your attention to go to okay, what's new, what are where are we going to be pushing into new exploratory energy and the relationship smorgasbord is a great place to start. Inside the year of opening, I have a list of domains that offer ideas where he might experiment, a common one is people experimenting in their sensuality, their sexuality, or their friendships or their emotional depth with other people. Those are really common places. It's not the it's this is a very truncated description. Yeah. But the point here is, once you've set the duration, we need to set the what what are we make an agreement about? And again, if if you're new to agreements, or if you want to make this agreement actually, like really functional, keep it small. Keep it really small. So I the last agreement that I remember making with you was around a time of travel. So we had the duration was sort of natural. It was the three days leading up to the trouble. Yeah. And then the time we were waiting three days after. And the domains were we did we weren't really working too much on exclusivity or versus expansivity. In this particular agreement, it was more about what areas were we going to be practicing independence and where were we going to come back together? Because we were traveling and I wanted to make sure we had space for both of those activities. So we listed this out. But it wasn't like in this agreement. We weren't talking about our householding because we were actually talking about travel. We weren't talking about our business arrangements. We weren't talking we weren't even talking about finances, because that was all handled. So we really brought it down so that the domains that this agreement covered were narrow and that is what lets you out actually start to get into what is it like to really talk through my needs in and if I narrow the domains down, I can actually get to the bottom of something.

Ken Hamilton 20:12
In that situation we were, we were kind of looking to the purpose of that agreement, the principal purpose was to maintain a level of state safety and stability. But there was also some experimental aspects to it. We were trying something new. And keep your experiments simple. So you can evaluate the results, right? And

Joli Hamilton 20:37
what happens in experimental conditions, if we have a bunch of variables instead of one variable? We have confounding factors, confounding factors, you can tell which thing Causes The cause

Ken Hamilton 20:48
correlation all over the place. But where's the cause? Yeah,

Joli Hamilton 20:53
right. So the simpler the agreement you can make, and this is why another reason why a short term agreement can be helpful, because if I play with a one day or one week agreement, i and i just explore in one area, that feels doable. And then we need to address the trickier part, which is where are my deal breakers? Yeah. Anybody making an agreement? Who doesn't know what the deal breakers are? Where are your edges? Where are the boundary conditions? If you don't mean it, you don't really have an agreement, what you have is half an agreement, and it is not going to work out in the big picture. Because if you don't know where your edges are, then you actually have no idea what to do next, what happens when feelings get hurt when boundaries get overrun? If you haven't stated? Where your deal breakers are? How is your partner supposed to know? Right? If you haven't made a plan or response plan for when there is a deal breaker gets hit? What are you going to do? Like really? What are you going to do? So frequently? I hear people describing how they've made an agreement. And they'll outline what their agreement is. And I'll say cool. So what's your what happens if, if that agreement is violated? And they'll say something like, I won't tolerate that? Like, I understand I get it. But tell me, what are you going to do what happens next?

Ken Hamilton 22:22
Because it's all about practicality. What what will happen? What will happen next,

Joli Hamilton 22:28
so I want you to know what the deal breakers are, and then understand and have in place a response plan for yourself. And that response plan is about a bunch of things. It's about, okay, well, what happens do we take? Do we take a break? Like, do we take a break? We just did an episode on taking a productive break? Do we take a two hour pause so that we can each go collect ourselves? Or do we need to take consider taking a significant break? Because we actually need some time to process what has just come up there, there. There's no set recipe but response plans that have in them some nervous system regulation of whatever kind works for you. And then a plan to come back together and discuss what happens next. Because if you have any kind of relationship, and you say, Well, I just won't tolerate that, okay. Even if you're going to end the relationship, something has to happen, the ending has to happen are so

Ken Hamilton 23:31
many questions about how and why it will happen. So I

Joli Hamilton 23:35
like when our relationship agreements, especially our short term ones, just say what will happen? If so, in a short term agreement, if you violate our sexual health agreements, what are the next steps? What will happen? And a lot of people think about the the benefits of okay, let's use sexual health. It's a common when it comes up a lot. If you were to violate our sexual health agreements, we have parameters in line for what kind of barrier methods we use, who we play with, or whether one of us is one of us or both of us are taking PrEP. There's, there's so many options here. If that gets violated, I need to know what steps are going to happen next, like, for instance, are you do you need to disclose that to me before we have sex next? Short answer. Yes, yes. But listing disclosure needs to happen before there's another sexual contact another intimate contact for some people that is disclosure needs to happen before we have our next intimate conversation, let alone intimate contact, like I don't want you to just put off having sex with me. No, I want disclosure. And then there's testing protocol. So what's going to happen what feels comfortable for you, you can turn to sexual health resources to see like okay, what are the pros protocols that I should follow should who should get tested? And when should we get tested? What sort of barrier methods do we want to use in order to protect everybody? What exposure risks did we have? What exposure risks? Are we comfortable with? All of those practical questions, and those are the ones that people often will put into their response plans.

Ken Hamilton 25:18
So is this is the nature of a deal breaker, that it is a significant enough issue that it really warrants thinking about ahead of time.

Joli Hamilton 25:32
The nature of a deal breaker is that it is anything that will cause you to take a take a pause and be like, Oh, I'm not sure I need to gather myself. A deal breaker is a little bit like hitting yellow in a kink scene where we're like, okay, we're not, we're not we don't even need to be in red. We're just saying like, Whoa, this is not like, this is outside of my expectations. We said, for instance, yes, we're being sexually expansive. But we did not say it was okay to exchange fluids, of a certain nature with people, something like that. Anything that would cause you pause is worth considering as a potential deal breaker. And we're using sexual health here just as an like, just as an example. These could also be emotional ramifications. This could be the impact that you feel over different types of relationships or relationships with new types of people, it's up to you. But the things the steps that I just listed in the response plan, like self regulation, co regulation, practical steps for ensuring everyone is receiving the health care they need. Those are the ones people tend to think about. And they make sense, right? Our logical rational brain can wrap its head around those,

Ken Hamilton 26:49
it's easy to see that it's time to step back and take a minute to find to side what's next. But we

Joli Hamilton 26:54
also need to plan for what's going to happen emotionally, because a deal breaker has just been hit. Yeah, we make agreements, in good faith, that we will keep them. But in reality, agreements get broken. Lots like stuff happens. And I like we just don't live in a perfect world. And this we could get so deep into this, we could talk about the reasons why. In fact, that will be a great conversation. Why why do any of us break the rules? Like let's let's deep dive into that in another conversation, but stuff happens? We interpret our agreements, in the moment live in the moment in ways that don't necessarily line up with our partners, that happens all the time? I am, what I need to see is, what is my response plan for the emotional impact that this will have on the parts of me that are hurt? Do I have a plan that allows me the hurt version of me to feel able to address the rupture and do the repair? What do I need to have in place. So this could also include things like, hey, if one of us, you know, hits a deal breaker and causes I'm gonna, I'm gonna want an apology and accountability letter, I'm gonna want time for an a long Imago dialogue, see, Episode 129. I'm going to need time to allow myself to go see my personal therapist and process this with someone who's not you? Or there are a million things, including also, what are you not going to do? Like? Are we going to refrain from getting into a really brutal fight? Are we going to take steps to sleep separately, so because that feels safer? So

Ken Hamilton 28:43
there are lots of lots of tools that we can, and some of them are general and you you teach about them in the year of opening, and some of them are going to be specific to your particular self and your particular relationship? And so we have duration, and domain and deal breakers deal breakers, are they? It includes fire some some thinking? And

Joli Hamilton 29:08
it includes making a response plan? Yeah, if you don't know what the next step is, your agreement is not comes out. You're not done yet.

Ken Hamilton 29:15
So what are some of the words so we got some ideas of how to make an agreement? What are some of the pitfalls? What are some of the ways these agreements can maybe bite us a little? Oh, there's so many ways to go into all of them. But

Joli Hamilton 29:30
the downside of making agreements is actually the reason why I see people neglect to make agreements and like, we're just going to break them anyways, or an agreement only gives me a way to find a feeling disappointed. But we're dealing with this stuff, whether we deal with it consciously and proactively or whether we just deal with it. reactively and unconsciously, yeah, I'm gonna take the first option. Let's be proactive and bring conscious intentionality to it. And over time, what I've seen is that lets me avoid the pitfalls of missing, like missing the growth opportunity, or missing a misunderstanding each other like this. One of the pitfalls is we just didn't understand each other, we weren't able to get on the same page, what do you see coming up as pitfalls?

Ken Hamilton 30:19
Well, so one of the things that I see sometimes happening with agreements is weaponizing. Using them as as a as a club, which, you know, coercion, trying to trying to get a particular result by both entering into the agreement in bad faith. But even if you enter into it with good faith, then using the agreement as though it is an external thing that will tell us what to do.

Joli Hamilton 30:46
And as if you're separate, or separate from your relationship, and it can pick up it can put us on different sides as if we're in an adversarial relationship. And that is that is the difficulty around agreements, agreements also put us back into sort of, like, contract mentality, when what I'm looking for in an agreement is a team mentality. Here's the vision, here's the vision of where we're heading. This is the map of the territory. And here's how we're going to proceed through this territory. So we have to watch for that one of the pitfalls is getting adversarial shifting into adversarial

Ken Hamilton 31:21
consciousness. Yeah, letting the agreement split. Yes, split us versus come together. The goals are how we're gonna get there. Another

Joli Hamilton 31:30
issue, and this is, so this is best practices, really not a pitfall. But best practices, I would encourage everyone, if you're making a minimum viable agreement, to an agreements, agreements, don't just like, oh, we, you know, we write them down once and boom, it's there, review it, review it daily. So our MBAs are usually about between, like half a page, if they were typed tops, or in our journal, we usually handwrite them. And they usually take up one side of a journal page, which is just like a little like five by eight journal. They're not super long. So I read them every day. And I have a strong memory. And I still I review them because it's really easy to not remember what I agreed to, especially if it was a bit of a stretch for me if I was the one saying, Yeah, I'm gonna stretch in this direction. Yep. I will totally remember it differently. Oh, yeah.

Ken Hamilton 32:26
No unconscious forces at play here. And I disrupt that memory process. Now. I've

Joli Hamilton 32:34
watched you do it where you will? Yes, I'm speaking. It's been so interesting to watch you though. Like we'll make an agreement. You'll write it all down. And then later that day, even I'll just say, so say back to me what you think the agreement is, and you'll just leave a whole part out? I'm like, All right, that's the uncut. That's when we say the unconscious will act on you. That's what we mean. It's not on purpose.

Ken Hamilton 32:55
No. So it's a very simple solution. Go read it,

Joli Hamilton 32:59
right. So review daily. And if you're talking about a relationship agreement, that's encouraging some expansivity and exploration. But right before you head out on the dates, go to that kink party or whatever is going to happen. Review it, like just review it remind yourself. And I've seen people do this to where they they absolutely remember the agreement that incorrectly in a way that actually over controls them. You have done this. In fact, it happened the last time you were dating someone, it was totally hysterical to me because you came home, and you came home way earlier than I expected. And you had done less than I expected. And I gently probed you during our debriefing about about stuff. And I was like, Oh, that's interesting. Art. Like, I thought you were more into them. And you were like, Yeah, but the agreement? Like? I don't think so. I don't think that's any accurate. There's no limit there. So I have to get it back out. You're like, oh, wow, what a crafty way for your inner prude. That's it to control your activities. That wasn't me. I didn't ask you for that. But you could tell yourself a story that you would promise me? Oh, no, I would never do that. I'm not going to participate in that. When really it was it. That's your inner Council freaking out at you. Like you've got parts that are running around doing stuff. And I've definitely been there too. But that was my favorite ones. A good one. Yeah, it's

Ken Hamilton 34:24
a really good example.

Joli Hamilton 34:25
You missed out on some decent sex, I

Ken Hamilton 34:27
think I think. Yeah, I'd have made an error. Are there Oopsy?

Joli Hamilton 34:31
Daisy? Yes. Um, so before we close up, I think it would be good to just mention what the I think the key element in making really great Minimum Viable agreements is and that is your capacity to imagine if you can imagine who like who and you might get hurt. Who in you is on board with making this agreement who in you is totally not okay with making this agreement, those are really subtle things to pick up on. But we're all a multiplicity, right? Like we are all, we are all made of conscious and unconscious motivations, parts, whatever language you want to use around that I use the language of inner counsel, who in you is totally game to uphold and stay in integrity with this agreement? Who in you even as you're making it is imagining ways to violate already

Ken Hamilton 35:26
imagining ways to sabotage and violate? Yeah. So when

Joli Hamilton 35:30
you isn't even on board for making agreements? And this pissed about that? And what will they do this, being able to imagine into this and being able to imagine into what you will need if you are hurt? Like, what will you what are what will you need, if you have, like a totally amazing opportunity in front of you? How would this change, the more you are able to imagine into the future, the easier it's going to be to have a, an agreement that accounts for a broader picture. So if you struggle with your imagination, that's okay. But I would encourage you to make smaller containers then, so that you can experiment. And then like, in kind of pretty quick succession, go through some iterations of your agreements, because the MVA process is at heart, iterative, it is designed to go to happen over and over again, you may reuse the same MBA and say, Yeah, this one worked great, or we're gonna tweak it. But we're gonna reuse it. What it is iterative, iterative,

Ken Hamilton 36:28
from the standpoint of, at the end of this agreement, it there'll be lots of opportunity to make another one and another one and another one. But then within each agreement, time, within each little duration, there'll be plenty of times to revisit, right? So just really good idea.

Joli Hamilton 36:48
And hitting a deal breaker means that we revisit right then, right, so hitting a deal breaker that's listed in your agreement triggers an automatic, hey, we need to pause and, and revisit what's going on here. So when you're undertaking this process, remember, it's a framework designed to help you create an agreement with people or a person and increase your ability to be transparent. While also honoring that you get to have boundaries, you get to have edges, you get to have needs. This isn't about being I don't want anybody to think that relationship agreements are about creating a scenario where you have to go along with things you're not okay with. They're actually about creating a sense of safety for you. So one more word on these, your agreements, can and should be asymmetric. In order to account for who you each are and what you're doing. And we have a whole episode on asymmetric agreements. And if it's not out yet, it'll be out in a minute. The core of that whole episode is let your agreements be sufficiently asymmetric to address the fact that you are different people with different needs, wants, desires, boundaries, and make sure that they are not so asymmetric as to be abusive. That is, I mean, this is why this is a process. This is why I teach this over the course of years. I'm not over the course of weeks, right? It takes time to learn how to do this.

Ken Hamilton 38:24
And it takes practice and revision and and review. So yeah, it's not just something that you're going to do once there. Now I've done it.

Joli Hamilton 38:33
And at the beginning, like when you and I were first making these, they would take a while, like we would sit down to make an MBA and it would take 90 minutes, two hours. And you know, we'd wind up with like a few bullet points. And like, why did that take so long? And it's because it's touching everything. Because we actually don't know we we don't have shared terms. We don't have shared meaning yet. So we're creating that. But now I mean, that last agreement, it literally I remember making it with you was in like minutes, and we were on a walk and you jotted phone notes, and then we just put them in our journal when we got home. i It couldn't have been more than seven minutes, it was probably like three.

Ken Hamilton 39:10
It's a skill. It's a set of skills that you can totally learn. And

Joli Hamilton 39:14
I do I just made one not that long ago with somebody I'm in a new relationship with. And let me say it's some. Some people find making agreements off putting and in my world and like cool, and we're not, we're not fit to be partners. If you can't enter into a conscious agreement with me if you can't be in a process where we make clear what we're doing. Which is not a good fit for me. That's okay. I don't have to enjoy that but I can be okay with it. Thanks for starting this conversation. I know it's a it's a tricky one to try to get into a tight container. But I think this does provide a good like one on one good one on one baseline. And from here. There's a lot more we could say about relationship agreements we have Other episodes on relationship agreements but if you have follow up questions I would encourage anyone to join us for one of the AMA as we have some asked me anything times planned once a month for playing with fire listeners. So join us. You can find the next ama if you go to Joli hamilton.com forward slash ama next time will be listed there you can grab your seat for free