Prenuptials or ENPs?

Yesterday I was reading an article about the rise of Prenuptial Agreements, particularly amongst those who were marrying for the second or subsequent time (once bitten twice shy!).

Although Peter and I also entered into a Prenuptial Agreement, more to ensure that his children could be comfortable knowing I was marrying him for love and nothing more, we also did something far more important than that – we entered into an ENP Agreement. 

ENPs® or Expectations, Needs and Promises, form the base foundation of trust. Understanding what we each expected of each other, what we needed from each other, and what we were prepared to promise each other was a critical part of our decision to marry or not.

The reality is, if Peter expected and needed things from me that I was not prepared to promise him, then the marriage would have failed, or certainly would have been extremely volatile and unhappy. Same goes the other way. 

We spent a couple of sessions, over cups of tea, over glasses of wine, talking through different expectations in different circumstances, the reason why some needs were more important than others, and so on. 

We then summarised these into our wedding vows – so instead of exchanging the traditional vows, we exchanged ‘ENPs®’, and then also exchanged ‘eggs’, in this case Jade painted eggs, as a representation of the trust we were placing in each other – trust that sat on a balance of those ENPs®. This is the base of the model for trust that we use in all kinds of relationships, that entente teaches and coaches. 

You can watch the video of our ENP exchange here.

I guess the thing that struck me when I was reading that article, was that if couples spent as much time planning what they wanted in and for their relationship as they do working out what they will get when it breaks down, how different might their marriage be?