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Why My Partner and I Signed a Love Contract
True love takes work—and sometimes a signed relationship agreement
When Priscilla Chan married Mark Zuckerberg in 2012, one detail seemed to pop up in nearly every news article on the nuptials. Early in their relationship, the couple had reportedly negotiated terms that spelled out how much time they would spend together each week: at least 100 minutes of “alone time” shared outside of Zuckerberg’s apartment and Facebook offices, in addition to one official date.
At the time, I scoffed at the idea of a relationship agreement. As a closet-case hopeless romantic who grew up in the age of Disney’s fairy tale love stories, I tend to follow my heart rather than my mind. A relationship agreement seemed like the antithesis of romance. In true love, I thought, soul mates—two people who experience a connection so powerful that it’s almost divine—would be so in sync that words would hardly need to be spoken. There certainly wouldn’t be a need for a written agreement—the least romantic gesture of them all. To distill love into a businesslike transaction and a set of do’s and don’ts? No way. Soul mates just got each other.
But as I went through one failed relationship after another, falling in and out of lust and love with various men whom I had ascertained to be my soul mates, I began…
