Every day there is a compromise. Living with someone requires a lot of understanding. But I love being married. I really love it. I just feel so fortunate that I have found someone who will put up with me and stay with me. --Nicole Kidman

Just a couple of weeks left of training for the Falmouth Road Race and fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. You can support the cause here.

This week I had the opportunity to do my training in the French Quarter in New Orleans. I know, I know, it sounds counter-intuitive.

I was in town for the Phi Sigma Kappa national convention and stayed in a hotel at the corner or Chartres and Canal Streets, so it seemed like the thing to do. I started running about 6:30 am, just a few minutes after the bars closed, so I had to be careful to avoid... things in the street. If you've been there you know.

Many years ago, I operated restaurants in New Orleans, so nothing I observed surprised me.

The temperature and humidity actually mimicked Falmouth in August, so hopefully, I will be better prepared by my training below sea-level.

Young married couples rarely engage in pre-nuptial agreements because in most cases, there isn’t that much to pre-nup. Maybe a dog or a cat or a radio or a television or a favorite couch or a McDonald’s gift certificate? But certainly not as much as Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen just divided last year.

No, the reality is that young couples more often engage in "post nuptial agreements," deals made after the marriage that, sometimes, are just as binding as a pre-nup.   

These agreements come naturally to most folks because we were conditioned with ‘post-birth’ agreements for many years before marriage. You know the deals: finish your vegetables, wipe your feet and don’t pick your nose are three of the most popular in this category.

Post-nups can actually include these three, but generally they are a little more sophisticated and if they do include those three, I'm not sure the marriage is going to work.

Let’s start with the Merriam Webster Dictionary’s definition of a pre-nup:

prenuptial agreement: an agreement made between two people before marrying that establishes rights to property and support in the event of divorce or death.

A post-nup, according to the same dictionary is:

post-nuptial agreement: an agreement made between two people after marrying that establishes guidelines of behavior for important and stupid stuff that people who live together need to agree on, in order to maintain peace and harmony.

Only kidding, that’s my definition, not Merriam’s.

Post Nup Development Process

There are three ways that post nuptial agreements are developed and each one happens on a regular basis.

1.      They just happen. Many times, couples unintentionally fall into an agreement that seems to be in the best interest of the couple or one of the individuals. Not making any generalizations about which of the couple's best interests is favored. This could be who does the dishes after Thanksgiving dinner or who gets the remote for the TV during prime time.

2.      They are negotiated. Sometimes the agreements do not happen spontaneously or organically but are the result of hard-fought negotiations between the two parties. A household may negotiate between Miller Lite or Coors Light as the household beer of choice or may have Dunkin or Starbucks K-pods in the cabinet as a result of negotiations between parties.

3.      They are dictated. Occasionally one or the other parties will just decide: this is the way it will be done, and that’s that. No further negotiation permitted. This may include wall decor in the home, dishwashing detergent, or the brand of margarine or butter. Many times dictated items are easy to implement because one party doesn't really give a.... doesn't care.

Some post-nups have built-in exceptions to the rule and those exceptions can either be because, through the grace of God, someone is permitted to deviate from the agreement with no or minor penalties, or it can be because what was originally thought to be a negotiated agreement was, in reality, a dictated agreement.

Some post-nups even come with hints or warning signs when non-performance under the agreement takes place.

Still other post-nups have chameleon-like qualities, meaning one party can change them in the middle of the night, the middle of a discussion, or the middle of a thought without warning.

Here are five of the post-nups in our marriage, some of them are close to 50 years old.

THE KITCHEN SINK

I am partially color blind. 

I can see some colors: bright ones and bold ones, but some pastels and lighter colors cause problems. For example, after five or six years of being my favorite shirt, I learned that the shirt I liked was not tan, as I believed, but instead light pink, according to the world. 

Another time, I showed up at an important meeting with two different colored shoes. True story, and there is a witness, Elizabeth, reading this right now.

This deficiency posed somewhat of a problem around the kitchen when first married. As a long-time foodservice person, I knew that the sponges used to clean the counter should not be used to clean dishes and vice versa. 

Since packages of sponges come in random colors, this was a serious issue for us as newlyweds: How to prevent Ed from spreading counter germs to glassware. We both marched to the kitchen where there was a new package of two sponges: one was pink and one was green. After confirming that I could see both colors, we instantly knew that when it came to sponges in our kitchen the agreement would be ‘Pink is for the sink, and green is to clean the counter’ and we shortened that to ‘pink sink, green clean.’ I took the photo above this week.

We have been following this rule, in whole or in part since our marriage. I say ‘in part’ because, green sponges can be hard to find, but pink sponges are plentiful. So sometimes the rule is ‘Pink sink, Other clean’ but it still works.

LEFT SIDE-RIGHT SIDE

It doesn’t matter whether you are talking left side of the bed or left side of the driveway or left side of the couch, there needs to be an orderly agreement. Can you imagine the chaos if couples switched sides of the bed each night or at random? 

How the sides are selected varies from couple to couple. In my situation, when we first were married, we had an unheated waterbed (it was the seventies, ok?) My job was to get into bed first, on the left side, (closest to the door) and heat the water in the surface of the bag with my body so that it wasn’t 65 degrees and chilly. After heating it a few degrees, my wife would come to bed and I would move to the right side, still my side today, although not as cold as it was back then.

KITCHEN WASTE BASKET

Some agreements evolve over time or are established by ‘hints.’ For example, in our house currently, it is a massive 19 steps from the where we have trash receptacle under the sink to the bin in the garage where trash waits for Thursday.

I learned that we had a post nuptial agreement through hints. Here’s how it happened. 

• One day, the basket under the sink was full and my wife pulled it out in front of the cabinet and left it there. 
• When I failed to react or respond appropriately, she pulled the drawstrings and cinched the top. And left it there.
• Anyway, when the cinched bag didn’t walk itself to the garage, it was pulled out of the wastebasket and left beside it on the floor. And left there.
• At this point even I got the hint, and you are correct, it is a strong post nuptial agreement that I take the trash bag the 19 steps to the rubbish bin in advance of Thursday’s pick up.

EATING OUT

Couples know that among one of the the hardest collective decisions made is where to go out to eat. Most are familiar with the:

"Where do you want to go?" "I don’t know, where do you want to go?" circular discussion before a date night.

This repartee can go on and on. It is similar to ‘what would you like for dinner’ (when eating at home), but more intense because money is at stake and if the decision is a bad one, due to service or food issues, someone takes the blame.

We struggled with this one for many years, but since moving back to Massachusetts, we have an informal post nuptial agreement that has simplified life: we go to the same places over and over and over. Variety has become less important than avoiding the above conversation.

We have changed our habits recently, but for years, in a typical week, (remember we are senior citizens), on date night on Monday, we traditionally went to the Japanese restaurant in town. On Friday, we habitually went to the ‘grille’ about a mile from our home, and on Saturday or Sunday morning, we'd go to the local diner. In most cases, this happens automatically, is assumed and puts us in front of the same restaurant staff member every week. We'd rather go places where everyone knows our names.

In essence we have eliminated most of the 'where do you want to go' discussion, unless for whatever reason, one of us, usually not me, has another idea. But that is a topic for a different Weblog.

HOLIDAY TREE

In our relationship, there is no more visible, historic, talked about or famous post-nuptial agreement than the color of lights on our Christmas tree. 

This agreement was recently highlighted and enforced, so let me start from the beginning.

We were married in July, and several months later we had our first Christmas together coming up, and maybe the first crucial decision of our marriage came with it: do we have white lights or colored lights on our tree? 

My wife grew up in a "white lights" family. Me? I’m from a "colored lights" line of Dohertys. 

Ever the peacemaker, I suggested that we start our marriage with white lights, hoping to make my bride happy, and suggested that we alternate each year. One year, white, another year colored. She quickly agreed. Simple right? Not if you are a wise guy like me. 

As the next year rolled around, trying to be funny, I asked ‘is this the year for white lights or colored lights?' And I fully knew it was my year. She affirmatively stated: ‘it is a white lights year.’ Oops, blew that one. Tim McGraw sings a song: ‘In My Next Thirty Years’ and for the next thirty years, each year I would ask the same question ‘Is this the year for white lights or colored lights?’ and I'd get the same answer: ‘white lights.’

When my son was in his teens and Amazon had been invented, he solved the problem. He ordered us an artificial tree with built in lights and a remote control. Push one button: white lights. Push another button: colored lights. This system worked extremely well for many, many years. 

When my wife was home or awake first, she’d put the white lights on, when I was around, I’d put the colored lights on. It worked well until the tree and its lights died and we had to get another one in a hurry. 

I was tasked to get an artificial tree with white lights but picked up the wrong box at the hardware store and we ended up with colored lights on our tree. 

That lasted a year or two, but it was an egregious violation of the post-nup, so we just decided to donate it and my wife got ‘us’ a new tree. Guess what kind of lights it has? I am going to predict that our modified post-nuptial agreement states that we are white-lighting it on a permanent basis from here on out.

Peace and harmony is the goal of post nuptial agreements, and may peace and harmony be yours, if your agreement permits.