Developing a business plan for your relationship

In searching for something else today, I came across this post at the Faded Youth blog about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s marriage. She was quoted as saying, "I’m doing what you might call a business plan in my marriage right now," in the November issue of Cookie.

What struck me as sad in reading the post, were its comments. A few implied that Jada's statement only further solidified in their minds how much her and Will's marriage is a "facade" or a "shame." I found myself shaking my head and thinking to myself, "So, tell me again, why is "working" on your marriage perceived as failure?"

In the business world the greatest leaders are those who are always aware, in touch with the needs of their employees and customers, looking for new directions for their company, and being ready to respond to threats impacting their organization or industry. These people are active leaders and we love them for their pro-activeness. So, why do we not applaud pro-activeness is the same manner in a relationship?

It's unrealistic to think that we'll always be in sync with our partner, that we'll never need to sit down to realign priorities and expectations. Life is ever-evolving and therefore your relationship needs to be as well. Complacency, in my opinion, is a breeding ground for many mis-understandings and, likely, a lot of hurt feelings. A relationship needs a strategy just as much as $1B company.

I applaud Jada and Will for being pro-active in their marriage and taking to heart the phrase, "If it's broke, fix it." Adriano and I have had to do a lot of realigning of expectations in our marriage over the last year and had we shunned the idea of being actively engaged in figuring out strategies to get around our differences in opinion, I'm not sure where we would be today. Thankfully, we've been enough on the same page where right now we're quite fulfilled and happy. © 2008 - Brianna Sylver - All rights reserved

© 2008 - Brianna Sylver - All rights reserved