I think modeling yourselves as agents for the purpose of the vows is a good idea. It’ll both reinforce agent-like behavior and form a stronger commitment between you and your spouse.
I have a couple of minor quibbles. For the Vow of Honesty I think you should keep the vow as it is in public, but privately commit to full honesty with your husband disregarding agreements with third parties. You should not be bound to keep a secret from your spouse even if it fits under the Vow of Concord and you were sworn by a third party. If you are committed to honesty it should be a full absolute commitment instead of a commitment with a very difficult to achieve exception. But third parties will be less likely to ever share information with you in confidence if you publicly commit to not ever keeping a secret from your spouse. Having a separate public/private vow of honesty gives you the best of both worlds.
I have 2 corrections for this line, “These vows are completely sincere, literal, binding and irrevocable from the moment both of us take the Vows and as long as we both live, or until the marriage is dissolved or until my [spouse]’s unconscionably[2] breaks [pronoun]’s own Vows...” Firstly I think that ” ’s ” is a grammar mistake and it should just read ”...or until my [spouse] breaks...” instead.
Also I think that out should be removed even if it’s made grammatically correct. Allowing yourself to cancel following your vows because your spouse willfully stopped following theirs is a little dangerous. It leads to situations where you might rather justify your own breach of the vows by pointing to their breach instead of trying to make things right. This is an issue in contracts sometimes where one side wants to be able to prove the other committed a material breach so they have the insurance policy that they can cancel the contract whenever they want to. You would never want to be in a situation where you want your spouse to break their vows so you can feel ok breaking them yourself.
Firstly I think that ” ’s ” is a grammar mistake and it should just read ”...or until my [spouse] breaks...” instead.
You’re right, thanks!
Allowing yourself to cancel following your vows because your spouse willfully stopped following theirs is a little dangerous. It leads to situations where you might rather justify your own breach of the vows by pointing to their breach instead of trying to make things right.
I agree that it’s a possible failure mode, but the alternative seems worse? Suppose that my spouse starts completely disregarding the vows and breaking them egregiously. Do you really think I should still follow my own vows to the letter?
Yes I do think you should follow your vows to the letter even if your spouse is breaking them egregiously. I have strong feelings about this, but I’m not sure if I have a good explanation as to why. Its my general feeling that you really shouldn’t be able to consider any sort of exit plan for a marriage. Of course you definitely do need an exit plan, but it shouldn’t be something that you’re aware of until it’s necessary.
A marriage is different from a typical mutually beneficial contract. A marriage should partially realign the husband and wife’s utility functions such that expected utility for one spouse counts for substantial expected utility to the other spouse. So unless your spouse is behaving so egregiously that you’re losing enough expected utility from the marriage to put you below your disagreement point, violating your vows shouldn’t come into play. But of course at that point you would be considering divorce anyway if you thought the situation couldn’t be fixed while you remain in the marriage. I think that’s the crux of it for me: if you don’t have breaking your vows or divorce on the table you’ll really try to fix whatever issues you have in the marriage (if there are issues) before you have to go nuclear.
As I’ve said I don’t quite understand my own position in a straightforward sense so don’t give it too much weight. I’m not sure if my explanation for why is really rational or just a rationalization.
I think modeling yourselves as agents for the purpose of the vows is a good idea. It’ll both reinforce agent-like behavior and form a stronger commitment between you and your spouse.
I have a couple of minor quibbles. For the Vow of Honesty I think you should keep the vow as it is in public, but privately commit to full honesty with your husband disregarding agreements with third parties. You should not be bound to keep a secret from your spouse even if it fits under the Vow of Concord and you were sworn by a third party. If you are committed to honesty it should be a full absolute commitment instead of a commitment with a very difficult to achieve exception. But third parties will be less likely to ever share information with you in confidence if you publicly commit to not ever keeping a secret from your spouse. Having a separate public/private vow of honesty gives you the best of both worlds.
I have 2 corrections for this line, “These vows are completely sincere, literal, binding and irrevocable from the moment both of us take the Vows and as long as we both live, or until the marriage is dissolved or until my [spouse]’s unconscionably[2] breaks [pronoun]’s own Vows...” Firstly I think that ” ’s ” is a grammar mistake and it should just read ”...or until my [spouse] breaks...” instead.
Also I think that out should be removed even if it’s made grammatically correct. Allowing yourself to cancel following your vows because your spouse willfully stopped following theirs is a little dangerous. It leads to situations where you might rather justify your own breach of the vows by pointing to their breach instead of trying to make things right. This is an issue in contracts sometimes where one side wants to be able to prove the other committed a material breach so they have the insurance policy that they can cancel the contract whenever they want to. You would never want to be in a situation where you want your spouse to break their vows so you can feel ok breaking them yourself.
You’re right, thanks!
I agree that it’s a possible failure mode, but the alternative seems worse? Suppose that my spouse starts completely disregarding the vows and breaking them egregiously. Do you really think I should still follow my own vows to the letter?
Yes I do think you should follow your vows to the letter even if your spouse is breaking them egregiously. I have strong feelings about this, but I’m not sure if I have a good explanation as to why. Its my general feeling that you really shouldn’t be able to consider any sort of exit plan for a marriage. Of course you definitely do need an exit plan, but it shouldn’t be something that you’re aware of until it’s necessary.
A marriage is different from a typical mutually beneficial contract. A marriage should partially realign the husband and wife’s utility functions such that expected utility for one spouse counts for substantial expected utility to the other spouse. So unless your spouse is behaving so egregiously that you’re losing enough expected utility from the marriage to put you below your disagreement point, violating your vows shouldn’t come into play. But of course at that point you would be considering divorce anyway if you thought the situation couldn’t be fixed while you remain in the marriage. I think that’s the crux of it for me: if you don’t have breaking your vows or divorce on the table you’ll really try to fix whatever issues you have in the marriage (if there are issues) before you have to go nuclear.
As I’ve said I don’t quite understand my own position in a straightforward sense so don’t give it too much weight. I’m not sure if my explanation for why is really rational or just a rationalization.
Thanks for the post and congratulations!