Make It Safe to Stay

I’m starting to think that the next time I get married—if there is a next time—I don’t just want vows. I want a real contract between my future wife and me. Not a cold legal document that assumes we’re already planning to fail, and not a one-sided move to protect assets. Something better: an agreement built to protect the relationship itself.

For a while I framed this in my own head as wanting to make it hard to leave. I’ve let that go. A marriage you stay in because the exit is too expensive isn’t a marriage—it’s a cage, and people kept in cages don’t grow, they resent. I’ve seen up close what someone looks like when they feel trapped in a vow they secretly want out of, and I don’t want to be the warden or the prisoner in that story.

So here’s the reframe. I don’t want it to be hard to leave. I want it to be impossible to leave casually. The door is real. But the only path to it runs straight through the work.

An exit that has to be earned

That’s the core: a built-in exit plan that requires the work first. Before separation is ever on the table, we’ll have done the things two serious people owe each other—honest conversation, real counseling, a genuine attempt at repair, and time to cool off when we need it. Not a slammed door in a bad week. Not bolting the first time it gets dark. If we ever do part, it will be because we actually exhausted the path back to each other—not because one of us got tired, or scared, and took the easy way out.

That means space has to be built in, too. Life isn’t linear. People change, wounds reopen, seasons get heavy. There should be room to step back and breathe without instantly triggering the nuclear option. The goal was never to trap anyone forever. It’s to make sure that if the ending comes, it’s an honest one.

Accountability is the backbone

The thing that makes any of this work is accountability. Clear, mutual expectations agreed in writing while both our heads are clear: how we treat each other, how we handle money, what fidelity means to us, how we show up when it’s hard, and how we come back after we’ve hurt each other. Not vague promises and “we’ll figure it out later.” Specific standards we both chose—and real accountability when a line gets crossed.

A shared language for conflict

A big part of that, for me, is committing to Non-Violent Communication as our default way through problems: observing without judging, naming feelings and needs honestly, making clear requests instead of launching attacks. No silent treatment. No character assassinations. No spiraling into blame. When one of us slips—and we will—the agreement holds us to reset and try again the right way. Staying connected while we’re hurting is a skill, and I want us both on the hook to practice it.

Decide about the kids before the storm, not during it

The same thinking extends to the biggest thing two people can share. I’d rather have a clear parenting agreement in place before the marriage even begins than scramble to build one under stress, anger, and lawyers. Values, roles, how decisions get made, how we’d co-parent if it ever fell apart—settle the important things while we still like and respect each other. That isn’t pessimism. It’s protecting kids who don’t exist yet from a chaos I happen to know too well now.

What a contract can and can’t do

I want to be honest about the limits, because pretending otherwise would undercut the whole point. No agreement can legally force two people to stay married, and no clause should try to lock a child’s future to a decision we made years earlier—courts won’t honor that, and they shouldn’t. So this is a covenant first and a contract second. What the contract can hold is the grown-up, fair stuff: financial honesty, a required road of repair before anyone files, the standards we set for how we treat each other, and the parenting values we align on up front. The rest is the covenant—the promise underneath the paperwork.

And it has to be mutual. I’m not interested in a power play or a document that only guards one side. Independent lawyers. Full honesty. No pressure. Just two adults deciding, up front and clear-headed, what kind of partnership they’re building and how they’ll keep each other honest inside it.

Would some people find it unromantic? Probably. To me it’s the opposite of naive. It feels like respect—for the commitment, for each other, for any kids who might come later, and for the plain fact that love alone doesn’t always keep two people fighting for the same future when life gets messy.

So next time, if there is a next time, I want both. The vows and the contract. One for the heart. One for the accountability that keeps the heart from taking the easy way out. A door that isn’t locked—but that only opens after we’ve done the work.

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By the way—a few of the details

If I ever get past the philosophy and into the fine print, here’s some of what I actually mean.

Faith at the center—really, the foundation. This one isn’t a “by the way” at all; it’s the ground everything else stands on. I want to be equally yoked—to build with someone who shares my faith, not just my calendar and my bank account. A marriage with God at the center isn’t two people negotiating across a table; it’s three strands instead of two, and Scripture is right that a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. We’d pray together, worship together, and raise our kids to know God—not as a rule enforced from above, but as the ground the whole family stands on. Faith is also the deepest accountability there is: we’d answer to each other, yes, but also to something higher than either of our egos. When love runs low and the contract feels like paper, that’s what actually holds.

Money, in the open. Full transparency, both ways—income, debt, accounts, all of it on the table and reviewed together, never discovered later. A real system instead of vibes: obligations funded first (the kids always come first), a budget we both can see, big purchases talked through before they happen, and still enough room for each of us to keep some autonomy. Money stops being a monthly argument when it’s a shared dashboard instead of a private stash.

Build something that outlives us. I don’t want two incomes sharing a roof—I want a team. Two people who lift each other toward building a business, real assets, generational wealth that sets up our kids and the kids after them. Be each other’s biggest backer. Play to complementary strengths. Reinvest instead of only spending. A marriage can compound like anything else when both people are genuinely pulling the same direction.

Raise builders, not just heirs. Generational wealth isn’t only money in an account—it’s the mindset that creates it, and I want to hand our kids that instead of just a balance. I want to teach them to be entrepreneurs: to look at the world and see problems worth solving. And the core of it, the whole lesson, is simple—wealth follows value. If you learn how to genuinely add value to people’s lives, the money is the echo, never the point. A trust fund runs out. Knowing how to create real value for people never does. That’s the inheritance I actually care about leaving.

Chosen discomfort, not imposed chaos. Growth lives on the far side of discomfort—but there’s a world of difference between discomfort you choose and discomfort that’s done to you. I want a partner who pushes me to be uncomfortable on purpose: bigger goals, the cold plunge, the workout I don’t feel like doing, the hard conversation I’d rather dodge. That kind of pressure builds you. The other kind—instability, chaos, getting blindsided—just erodes you. So we push each other to stretch by choice… and we stay honest enough to notice when it’s tipped into too much, and call the break before either of us breaks. Strive hard, rest on purpose, repeat.