“We decided to take marriage vows very seriously”, I this this is good, however I think you are making a basic error in what this should mean you have in your vows. I think you are trying to write a specific contract, or a set of programming instructions.
We, as in humans, are poorly defined, barely conscious, irrational, lumps of meat. We are not aware of our own utility functions let alone those of others, especially as they change over time and chaotically in the course of a day. We are unable to follow a precise recipe like the one you have outlined.
I think the only thing you can communicate with your vows is the spirit of your words not their contractual meaning. That’s why you often hear in others vows poorly defined meaningless things like “I feel you and I were destined to be together” or “I love you with all of my heart”. The words are not the point, nobody remembers them anyway.
I also took my vows seriously, i simply tried to be a bit more concrete that the average set of vows.
I went with:
I vow to mow the lawns, vacuum the floor, clean the bathroom and if the mood strikes, do the dishes I vow to always do my best to keep you happy, healthy in mind and body and well pampered I vow to cook for you all sorts of delectable, interesting and marginally sub-lethal dishes I vow to be there for you when you need me, and far away when you don’t I vow to always attempt to improve myself and help you grow in any direction you so desire I vow to always give you something to laugh about, a reason to smile I vow to think I vow to help I vow to listen I vow to love you for the rest of your life
We, as in humans, are poorly defined, barely conscious, irrational, lumps of meat. We are not aware of our own utility functions let alone those of others, especially as they change over time and chaotically in the course of a day. We are unable to follow a precise recipe like the one you have outlined.
I’m not convinced. I have a rather favorable view of human agency and rationality compared to the distribution of opinions in this community, and I think it’s not the place to hash out these differences. For our present purpose, just assume that we are able (or at least give concrete examples of where we will fail).
I think the only thing you can communicate with your vows is the spirit of your words not their contractual meaning. That’s why you often hear in others vows poorly defined meaningless things like “I feel you and I were destined to be together” or “I love you with all of my heart”.
I think that marriage is a contract, except that usually it’s unwritten. Which often enough leads to disaster when the two spouses have different notions of what the contract entails. People prefer meaningless things over explicit contracts for signaling reasons, but we explicitly decided to pursue a different strategy.
I agree that marriage is an unwritten contract, I mean you literally sign something as part of the ceremony that legally binds you in the eyes of the government after making serious promises in front of everyone you care about. In some ways this contract is already agreed to well before the wedding, during the period you are dating, living together and sorting out what each other thinks about things.
Nevertheless due to my more pessimistic view of human agency, I wouldn’t write it up, instead relying on constant good communication about each others feelings on things. (Not implying that this is a perfect recipe or that people should be blamed for being bad communicators if a relationship fails, sometimes there truly are irreconcilable differences).
I’ve been thinking about this over the last few days and I feel that the need to get it all nailed down in this manner could perhaps be coming from a place of insecurity? It might be an idea to address this separately? Id like to say that anyone who could write vows like the ones above with their partner is probably in an excellent place in their relationship.
In your other responses i saw that you are the primary breadwinner and that your beloved is at least partially dependent on you. This situation is similar to one of my friends and i don’t think they have been handling it well, I think he doesn’t realise the extent of the power imbalance this causes. His weakly held opinions have more impact on his wife than he realises and I think that her relative lack of ability to argue with him has caused them to make some poor decisions in the past. I know this is slightly off topic un-solicited advice, but It might be helpful to you to realise (on the off chance that you hadn’t already thought about it in this way).
I wish you and your fiancé the best in your life together :)
“We decided to take marriage vows very seriously”, I this this is good, however I think you are making a basic error in what this should mean you have in your vows. I think you are trying to write a specific contract, or a set of programming instructions.
We, as in humans, are poorly defined, barely conscious, irrational, lumps of meat. We are not aware of our own utility functions let alone those of others, especially as they change over time and chaotically in the course of a day. We are unable to follow a precise recipe like the one you have outlined.
I think the only thing you can communicate with your vows is the spirit of your words not their contractual meaning. That’s why you often hear in others vows poorly defined meaningless things like “I feel you and I were destined to be together” or “I love you with all of my heart”. The words are not the point, nobody remembers them anyway.
I also took my vows seriously, i simply tried to be a bit more concrete that the average set of vows.
I went with:
I vow to mow the lawns, vacuum the floor, clean the bathroom and if the mood strikes, do the dishes
I vow to always do my best to keep you happy, healthy in mind and body and well pampered
I vow to cook for you all sorts of delectable, interesting and marginally sub-lethal dishes
I vow to be there for you when you need me, and far away when you don’t
I vow to always attempt to improve myself and help you grow in any direction you so desire
I vow to always give you something to laugh about, a reason to smile
I vow to think
I vow to help
I vow to listen
I vow to love you for the rest of your life
I’m not convinced. I have a rather favorable view of human agency and rationality compared to the distribution of opinions in this community, and I think it’s not the place to hash out these differences. For our present purpose, just assume that we are able (or at least give concrete examples of where we will fail).
I think that marriage is a contract, except that usually it’s unwritten. Which often enough leads to disaster when the two spouses have different notions of what the contract entails. People prefer meaningless things over explicit contracts for signaling reasons, but we explicitly decided to pursue a different strategy.
I agree that marriage is an unwritten contract, I mean you literally sign something as part of the ceremony that legally binds you in the eyes of the government after making serious promises in front of everyone you care about. In some ways this contract is already agreed to well before the wedding, during the period you are dating, living together and sorting out what each other thinks about things.
Nevertheless due to my more pessimistic view of human agency, I wouldn’t write it up, instead relying on constant good communication about each others feelings on things. (Not implying that this is a perfect recipe or that people should be blamed for being bad communicators if a relationship fails, sometimes there truly are irreconcilable differences).
I’ve been thinking about this over the last few days and I feel that the need to get it all nailed down in this manner could perhaps be coming from a place of insecurity? It might be an idea to address this separately? Id like to say that anyone who could write vows like the ones above with their partner is probably in an excellent place in their relationship.
In your other responses i saw that you are the primary breadwinner and that your beloved is at least partially dependent on you. This situation is similar to one of my friends and i don’t think they have been handling it well, I think he doesn’t realise the extent of the power imbalance this causes. His weakly held opinions have more impact on his wife than he realises and I think that her relative lack of ability to argue with him has caused them to make some poor decisions in the past. I know this is slightly off topic un-solicited advice, but It might be helpful to you to realise (on the off chance that you hadn’t already thought about it in this way).
I wish you and your fiancé the best in your life together :)