Dimitri Talks About His Marriage And Why It's Successful
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about the importance of a good relationship contract and how to negotiate a good one. We also discuss why a good marriage contract is so important and why you should make sure to negotiate it properly.
Transcript
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owe your wife what i owe my wife i owe her you know
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i owe her the journey that i i owe her the journey that my potential promised her because you know
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my wife didn't marry me when i was a uh fine uh suit mogul traveling all over the planet etc
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my wife married me when i had just started a company and so there wasn't really
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the the direct evidence that i would be successful for example but there was
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inferred evidence based on the potential that i have and you know i have this interesting
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conversation with my wife i ask her really not for much one thing i do ask her is to keep her
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butt in shape you know like keep yourself in shape and look at we've had four kids so it's taking more
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effort it's just a fact right and i say and i say the reason for that is like is really simple
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it's because i have a promise to keep to you like when you signed up for this you sign up for a journey
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and it is my duty to fulfill my potential to reach the pinnacle of my journey as best as i can reach
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it i owe that to her because otherwise she signed up not for the man that she married
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she signed up for the man that she got and you know oscar wilde has a great quote he says that
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women marry men hoping that they'll change but they don't and men marry women hoping they won't
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change but they do wow and so it's my job to honor that phrase by changing as much as i can for the
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better and it is her job to keep herself appealing to me and it's worked so far for for over 10 years
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i love that we we too have a no fat clause in our marriage contract yes oh yeah well you guys have
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a mare tell me tell me about the clauses that's interesting oh my god well there is a no fat clause
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there's a no boats clause um no boat no boats clause we've we've clauses on everything like like
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you can't go you can't get a boat without my permission but at least you're both but at least you're both
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skinny and you're both fit but what if you what what if you expect your wife to look good but you
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don't look good you expect your wife to have a great butt but your butt doesn't look great it's
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a no fat clause for both of us i don't know about that okay i think that's a good one okay so what
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what are your other i'm just curious we went through everything on our relationships on reddit and found
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out where every relationship fell apart before we got married then we negotiated every point before
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it would get hot so it has everything from interior temperatures that are allowed and how we negotiate
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that wait wait about that all the time oh it's too hot oh it's too cold but also like will we allow
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our children to watch porn uh corn will be allowed um how will we deal with aging parents when they want
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to move in uh how do we deal with finances all that is pre-negotiated you should sell that list we
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actually give it away to people who read our book we like have a template you can just download it
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yeah because you should you should negotiate this stuff that sure explains the angry boat salesman from
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earlier sorry can i just ask a question so what if like one of you like do gain weight uh-huh what
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happens then well so yeah this is actually the really interesting thing about relationship contracts
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is normally the implied social contract the classic one right you cheat i leave right right very very
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rarely do people leave and then suddenly nothing in the contract the social contract you know be nice
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to me be faithful all rules are now on the table right so what's it what is written out in our
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contract is you know if you break this rule it will hurt my feelings and it's understood that if
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you hurt my feelings enough times eventually i'm going to decide this isn't worth it anymore he's going
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to decide it's not worth it anymore and that's a real practical contract the point of the negotiation
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and all the clauses and terms isn't to get to that point of failure it's to avoid it in in the first
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place by having shared social contract terms but then let's say if the whole weight gain is due to
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then a medical factor yeah how would then you go how would you go about that there would be forgiveness
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and understanding but also there would be the understanding between the two of us that one of
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us is no longer attractive through no fault of their own yeah but that is going to hurt the relationship
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maybe a partner has to find if they really want to have you know sex with someone who is attractive
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maybe it would be understood in the relationship that it's fine for them to go find it elsewhere
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um but you know i i think that that's it it's a practical thing um but these are these are it the
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more important thing is that you've negotiated the terms and you have a shared understanding yeah then
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what happens when the rules get broken because we know what happens you're you know the relationship
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becomes less valuable to one or both partners but um obviously aren't you about aren't the vows like
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every sickness and in health oh our and our marriage vows which we wrote because you know
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yeah we had a secular wedding in a law library um we actually said out loud i do not promise to love
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you but i do promise to help you become the person you want to be uh because you cannot control who you
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love love is is is a your body to promise to love someone forever like what a twisted thing is that
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love is an emotion you don't control it but what i can promise my wife is to every day attempt to try to
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become the vision that she sees for me and i think one of the most toxic things in a marriage that is
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affirmed by our society right now is to marry someone who loves you for who you are instead of
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who you have the potential to be yes and the most important thing when you marry someone isn't who they
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are isn't even who they have the potential to be it's who they think you have the potential to be
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because if that is not somebody you want to become that marriage is doomed before it started but
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if it is somebody who you want to become and everybody knows this so people are like oh your
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wife can't change you everybody knows your social group your friend group it changes you you know
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your wife your spouse they can change you she has changed me and without her i would be a shell of
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who i am today so what so what you're saying is that i don't know a man has a responsibility to be
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useful and reach his potential that's a succinct way of saying that only if somebody mentioned that
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earlier in such a eloquent way that surmised everything you said to such perfection
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we should do a podcast at some point yeah why you'd say the same thing
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fewer words say that uh when this when this conversation started my wife introduced herself
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as mrs malcolm collins and the reason she did that is that is the way that women used to introduce
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themselves because a relationship and life is a journey away from the self you start as the atomic unit
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when you get married you truly become part of a team that that is presumably inseparable and then
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through your kids you become a story you become separated from even the physicality of the body
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and that's how you pass forwards in generations um and yeah i i think that this is a beautiful way to
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contextualize one's life and and to not cling this is when we talk about the forces that are disrupting
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marriages one of the core ways they have done this is to atomize marriages to try to make it so that
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you are not really with your partner and and i think in many ways even some concepts of the nuclear
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family do that i i say when they first started destroying the marriage was when they took the
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father out of the home and i think that hopefully you know if you look at the 1800s the corporate
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family where they all work together that was the dominant type of family in america and i think that
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in a post-covid world where working from home becomes more common and i hope we can put political
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pressure on politicians to make it easier to work from home and to make these these ceos who say oh
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people shouldn't work i was actually thinking that that's like a good um middle ground for for mothers
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but like because um because now there's more cities that are requiring two incomes the cost of
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everything's growing up i was actually thinking that could potentially be a solution for people that
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don't have the option for the mom to stay home it's a game changer she's going to 15 minute cities
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now she's part of the she's part of the plan what do you mean 15 minute cities uh that's a topic for
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another conversation for another time what is working from home have to do with the 15 minute cities
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that's the whole anyways let's let's let's pass the wf agenda for a minute keep this off camera but
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anyways yeah there's like that's that's the whole postulation of the 2030 agenda is the third is the 15
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minute city oh really yeah and so they want to put anyways until basically like electronic zones that we
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can't leave you can't leave yeah yeah it goes it gets it gets weird so do you think it's bad if the
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mom i was just thinking that would be a potential way for the mom to have an easier time it's a huge
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way you're absolutely right 100 i was going to say you guys like had a secular wedding do you live a
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secular life or is this well everything you're saying is like we're extremely we're extremely religious
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but we're secular calvinists so we have a constructed religion remember i said some people have lost their
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traditions and they have to rebuild things i was speaking from experience you know we didn't have
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traditions but we knew that they would bring value and meaning to our kids and so we just thought
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through things and said how can we convey the values that we share through traditions that we give to our
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traditions that we give to our kids what is i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know