There are rules to your relationship you never agreed to.

Rules about who calls first. Who apologizes? Who initiates plans?

Rules about what you're allowed to need. What you're allowed to say. how much space you're allowed to even take up.

Nobody sat down and wrote these rules out. Nobody said them out loud, but they're there,

right? They govern how we interact. What's acceptable? What's too much. And you've been following them for

years without realizing. Here, let me show you. I'm Chad Lawson and let's comment down in three, two,

one.

Every relationship has an unspoken contract, let's say.

It's this invisible set of expectations about how things are supposed to work.

You're the listener. They're the talker. You are the planner. They show up. You adjust.

They stay the same. You give. They take. Nobody signed this contract, but you're both living by it.

And the longer it goes on, the harder it is to renegotiate.

Think about your closest relationships.

Who reaches out first?

Who apologizes first?

Who does the emotional labor?

Is it always you?

Is it never you?

These patterns, they're not accident. Over time,

they kind of just form on their own. Small choices, little imbalances here and there,

little movements where someone gave more and someone just gave less. And now, it's just how things are. That's the contract. So these unspoken contracts, no, they're not fair.

And they can't be because they were never

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