A prenuptial agreement is usually done to protect the couple’s financial interest after the dissolution of marriage. An emotional prenup is quite different. It’s a commitment of the couple to do whatever it takes before walking away from the relationship. Why do it and how? What should be included in an emotional prenup? Even if you’re just starting in a relationship or well over decades married, it’s never too late to get together and discuss your own emotional prenup.
—
Watch the episode here:
Listen to the podcast here:
Below is a transcript of the video and audio above. The paragraphs and sections are alternated between bold / not bold for ease of reading along with the video or audio.
Emotional Prenup: The Purpose, Inclusions, And Deal Breakers
We’re going to be talking about an emotional prenup. Frederic and I have done this before without knowing that we did this. We want to talk about what is it, why do you do it, all that stuff. At one time, I don’t watch the news, but I love to watch E! News. I love to get my gossip on all the stars and some of the celebrities because I coached some of them. I want to know some of them or what’s going on with them. One day we were listening to E! and they were talking about how couples are now instead of doing a prenup, they’re also adding in an emotional prenup.
It tells the couples and has the couples agree that when things start to go south in the relationship or start to have some dysfunction or tension or they’re thinking about dissolving their relationship. They go and get some support, whether it’s with a therapist or coach or however that looks like for them. It’s something that the couple agrees on that before they walk away from the relationship, they do whatever it takes to be able to get some help, get some outside help, which is fabulous. When you think about it, most of us learned our communication and the way to relate in a relationship from our parents. There are some people out there of like, “My parents had a great relationship, awesome.” I did not have that. I know Frederic did not have that. His parents divorced and his mom was emotionally gone before the years that they divorced.
Even if they’ve had a great relationship or their family, mom and dad had beautiful relationships that lasted 50 years and counting, there are ways of communicating with each other. Those are important ways to deal with conflicts that we don’t know how that’s not that’s done properly.
How they even work through a bugaboo area? For one couple, it might be sex. Maybe they love and adore each other, but the sex is not that compatible or money or it could be the in-laws or it can be the kids. There‘s something that creates some tension. There’s not this way. There’s this energetic gunking happening into the relationship. No matter what way they look at it, they’re having difficulties in that to be able to get help in that area. Most people don’t have high emotional intelligence and be able to know what to do with their emotions. Nobody is perfect. Your partner might say something, do something that you feel angry about or resentful or those kinds of things. How do you process the emotions?
If we don’t know how to do that, going to someone like Frederic and me to get some coaching on and how to dissolve these things in your relationship, that’s absolutely key to be able to keep the love alive because love brought you together. You wouldn’t be together if it didn’t. That love is still there. It’s like the love starts to get almost eclipsed by all the other stuff if we let it. The wrong communication or we’re unskillful and we’re humans. There’s sometimes we’re unskillful in what we say or how we say something and it might hurt the other person. Instead of communicating, they build up resentment. It’s little cancers in the relationship but the love is there. Love can be reignited.
It can grow and it can expand. You can allow yourselves to be in that place. Emotional prenups are a great thing. We‘re going to go through some of the keys in doing an emotional prenup because we did it. We didn’t even know that we did it, which is cool. It doesn’t matter now. Frederic and I have been married for several years. There are others of you that are reading that have been together for many years. You’ve got a lot more time invested in their relationship. There are some of you that are a couple of years in and some of you that are starting your relationship. For wherever you are, it’s never too late to have this conversation. We happen to have it in the beginning, but it’s number one, what are you willing to do? When you have issues in your relationship, what feels good to each person? Discuss that. Number one, what are you willing to do? Are you willing to go on a retreat with your partner?
When there is a conflict that arises, when there was a situation where the understanding maybe of both parties is a little bit off. It causes more tension than basically loving way of speaking with each other.
Frederic and I, we go to retreats ourselves. We go to private retreats with our spiritual teacher. We’ve been doing coaching for years together to not because there is a problem, but because we want to continue to expand the love. For many years we did go to someone because we had dysfunction and we had to relearn things. Now, we’re doing great on ourselves by ourselves, but we do go to retreats, learn more and read books and things like that to expand our awareness of how can we can continue to grow the love and continue to have more of a connected relationship. Even if things are bad or not, things can be good, what are you willing to do? What are both people willing to do in your relationship? Are you willing to go to retreats?
Are you willing to take online courses together? Are you willing to get coaching or counseling or therapy together to keep the relationship where you are or get it better or improve it in some way? That’s the first thing having that conversation. Think about in yourself, what are you willing to do and what is your partner willing to do? We’ve heard from some of you, “I love your show.” We’re grateful that you do and that it’s helping you. I have a partner that is absolutely not willing to go into any type of coaching. What can you do to learn this information? Is he willing to at least listen to you? Is he willing to do an online thing where he’s watching a video of Frederic and I teach about how to be in and out of the drama triangle or doing processes like a meditation? Where it’s not as in the face because coaching live with not only us but the Quantum Council of Light doing energy work, you’re there, you have to take responsibility. That’s when major massive change happens and it’s great. Some people are not ready for that and that’s okay. There’s no judgment. What are you willing to do to consistently improve your relationship?
That was one of the thresholds that I couldn’t go further along with her. I had a hard time accepting someone to look at our relationship. I remember telling you that when you are coming up to me and saying, “Would you want to go see someone? There’s someone that I know of. She’s awesome. She’s a good energy healer. She has good insights on relationships.” I was putting up that wall where, “Nobody’s going to get into our relationship. This is my private relationship with you. Why would someone get in there? What good cadet come out? I don’t have any issues to work on.” I was doing work. I was open to doing some work for myself. I had started doing some growth for the company that I was in and for my personal growth. In my relationship, I saw it as almost like a threat. Someone wanting to be inside of the relationship, telling me what to do, how can someone tell me what to do and how to love in a relationship? That’s how I perceived it. I was way wrong. One side decided to, “It was time to go and see someone.” It was because of a conflict. There was something that came up and it needed to be addressed.
I was ready to walk away.
That is too bad to say. Often that’s the case. There’s a conflict that arises. There’s a situation where it might end the relationship if that doesn’t happen. I listened to myself. I said to myself, “This relationship if it’s worth fighting for, I need to do this.“ It was worth fighting for. My love for her is definitely worth fighting for. I realized that. I did the growth that I needed to do inside the relationship and still doing it. Now realizing what we’ve both realized and what I’ve realized is that it is beneficial. It’s beneficial to me, to her and both the relationship that we have together and to our kids definitely. Now what happens is I look forward to gaining more experience, more knowledge in all of that growth in our couple‘s growth so that we can continue and look beyond all of the issues. Some issues come back. Now we deal with them in a much quicker fashion, a much healthier way and a much loving way as well.
That’s the second point. The first one is what are you willing to do or are you willing to go to a retreat, do online courses, go to coaching, counseling or therapy? What is it you’re willing to do with your partner or separately? The second thing is, what are your absolute like, “I want to be treated in this way“? For example, how do you deal with conflict? For example, I might be like, “I need a moment. I need a couple of minutes.“ Because now what I know is that if I’m angry about something or I feel frustrated, I’m going to go off by myself. I’m going to process the emotions, the actual energy pulsation of what I’m whooshing, what I’m feeling.
When I come to him, I can come to him in a clear way. I’m not raw, overbearing with my emotions, with letting my anger speak louder than my words. These are things that we’ve agreed on that don’t come to each other. When there’s that high level of emotion, go be by yourself, process what you need to process. We come together. That’s how we deal with our so–called conflicts. What’s great is that lately, we haven’t had any because of the fact that we’re applying everything that we’re talking about here.
They don’t escalate to conflicts. That’s the main thing too that we’re able to talk before that stew inside boils and it becomes a conflict.
Even the words, “I hear you,“ when the person’s talking and they’re saying, “I feel this. I feel that and I would prefer this.” The other person responds with, “I hear you.” That is a great conflict resolution. Talk about that in your “prenup.” Not only what you’re willing to do, but how do you want to go about when conflicts do arise, what is the best way for you to handle because they do arise in relationships. Preferences are different. If you have differences of opinion and preferences, how do you negotiate and how do you say, “I‘d prefer this.” It’s not so much compromise but talks it through so that both people in the relationship are getting their way.
How do you acknowledge each other?
The third thing is to outline your important values, your boundaries and the rules in your relationship. I don’t know why. I remember being at Cephalon. I worked for a biotech company. I was a sales training manager and we were on the phone, I’ll never forget it. We were having a conversation about what our boundaries were, what the line in the sand would be, the deal–breaker in our relationship. We both agreed that if one of us cheated on the other person, that’s a deal–breaker. I remember Frederic saying, “If there’s disrespect.” Explain what you mean by that when you were explaining what your boundary was with disrespect. It goes for me too.
For me, there’s disrespect in the relationship if we are in a conflict and I hear swearing at each other, for me that’s a sign of disrespect. It’s like what we were saying, it’s nipping at the love that we have for each other. There’s no need to call each other names also. To go to that level where we call each other certain names and that’s disrespectful. Those were the two things for me that were important to keep their relationship and the deal-breaker. The line that we draw on the side and even the fighting styles right. For me to have a partner that would slam doors, be on the way out and not being able to discuss, that too. That was a sign of disrespect for me.
Emotional Prenup: Dissolving communication difficulties and emotions in your relationship is key to keeping the love alive.
Which when we got into the relationship, I was very theatrical. I was in the drama triangle so I would slam doors and I would take off. I would leave in my car. It’s what I saw my dad do. I took on the dad role. I was the one that I want to leave before he did. I would slam the doors which drove him crazy and we had to have these discussions, “Please do not slam doors.“ I don’t do that anymore. I don’t leave in a tirade anymore because I usually don’t get that angry. It might be more about the kids if I get angry. It’s usually not at you. I don’t find myself getting that angry but when I do I take my own time.
There was a day where I was like frustrated. I was helping Alex with his book report because it was a summer book report. I tell Frederic, I’m like, “I need some time.” I got a manicure and a pedicure, calm myself down and came back to the center. I was able to come back, had a family meeting and I’m like, “Here’s the thing, “I will help you with your homework but I need you to focus. If you’re not focused and you’re fighting everything I’m trying to do, I’m not going to continue to help you. These are my rules. These are important values. These are my boundaries. These are the things that I need to have happened if I’m going to help you. I don’t need to help. You can do it on your own. If you want my help, I need to be respected.“
Emotional Prenup: Even if there are no ongoing problems, expand your awareness of how can you can continue to grow the love and continue to have a connected relationship.
In an emotional prenup, these are the things to talk about. Another thing too is how do you spend your free time? These are the things that when you need that downtime, we are allowing and we have always been, but we agreed very early on. I get time for myself once a week to go get a massage. Now, I don’t even do that. I have my massage therapist come to the house on Friday nights. He goes golf. He used to do it once a week. It’s too hot in Arizona to do it now. These are times when we get to whether it’s like, “I feel like I need my time, I’m going to go hits some balls or I feel like I need a break, I’m going to go get a manicure.” These are things where we allow each other and give each other space individually to be a person, to be able to calm our own emotions and come back to the center. These are different ways that you can do at a emotional prenup.
These are also skills that you pick up that you say to your partner, “I’m willing to get the skills to be able to look at and take care of myself. I’ll take care of myself so that I can take care of the couple. I can take care of how I am inside the couple and not come to a level of stress. We know that when there’s a conflict that arises, it’s always we want to do a one up. It can rise to a place where all of a sudden there was name–calling. If we don’t have the skill to be able to figure out, “I’m at a level of intensity right now where I’m pretty high and I believe I need to take care of myself right now.” Having that skill to be able to say to your partner, “I’m going to go for a little bit of a breather.“ Whether it’s outside, whether it’s in the room or, “I’ll do something to take care of myself now,“ that is healthy for the couple and yourself.
There is a scene in the movie Thor where Thor says to his brother, “Brother, it would be wise to not be in my presence right now.” I let that go through my head. I sometimes say that to the boys, “Brother, it might be wise not to be in the presence of your brother right now because he might be irritated.” It’s that feeling of even warning, “I need space right now. I need that break right now.” It would be wise for you not to be in my presence right now. In order to do an emotional prenup, you have to have both people have to agree mutually. It’s not like, “I have created a prenup, you will do these things and these are my expectations.“
Emotional Prenup: Set up how you want to get outside help if the relationship is going south and how you want to be treated during conflicts.
This is a mutually agreed upon sitting down as two mature adults completely invested. As Frederic was saying, love is worth it. The love that you have for each other is worth it to be able to have a relationship and not have it die with her and have it settle. To have it grow and to have it stimulate you in all aspects of your life and to continue to have it be the relationship where you look at each other and you feel a sense of home. You’ve got to be who you are. You feel accepted and loved for who you are. You feel like the relationship supports you in being more of you are meant to be. It encourages support.
That’s what we’re talking about here. It’s mutually agreed upon. The expectations are clear. When you’re driving down the freeway and they’ve got those bumps in the road to make sure that you get back into your own lane. It‘s those bumps in the road, those guideposts to get you back that gets you centered into your own space so that you’re making it a priority in your relationship. Check out doing your own emotional prenup by using the steps that we talked about. Next time we are going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, which is having it all because that’s one of my books, The Art of Having It All. Having it all in your relationship and we’re going to talk about that and how important it is not to depend or make someone else be at all or do it all, having it all is not doing at all. I’m looking forward to talking with you next time. Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate you. I’m grateful that you’re reading.
Enjoy your conversations on the emotional prenup as well.
