> We were together for almost a decade, and in that time I somehow lost track of my own habits and preferences. If I wanted to split the grocery bill, he suggested I buy only things we both liked. If I wanted to spend weekends together, I could go skiing with him and his friends. And so I did. I made my life look like his.

> It wasn’t until I moved out that I began to see that there hadn’t been room for me in my relationship. And not merely because my ex hadn’t offered it — it had never occurred to me to ask.

This happened to an ex of mine.

I think the success of her next relationship was not the contract per se, but internalizing this epiphany. The contract is her specific implementation of how to deal with it, but the important thing for everyone, I think, is the quoted portion above.

I would not be so quick to scoff at the writing part either. For a lot of people I know (many of them journal-keepers), physically writing something out is the most meaningful part of completing and internalizing a thought.