Leda Erlandson

Developmental Psychology
April 22, 2015
R.A #3 Early Adulthood: Marriage Contract
For this interview/questioner, I decided to involve my significant other. For some
incite into our lifes, I will provide some information for a better understanding of who we
are. We both are currently living together and moved from Hawaii (where we met and
were friends before we stared dating out Sophomore year of high school) to go to school
here in Utah. We have been living together for 9 months now, and it has been great! We
have been seriously dating for 4 years now, and lived with our friend the first 2 months of
living in Utah. These past 2 months we have another friend living with us now, and it has
been lots of fun.
Marriage Contract Questionnaire
1. Where will you live?
a. We currently live together and so far we think Utah is okay, but only
for school. I plan on going into the medical field as a physician, and
James (my significant other) wants to go into computer science.
Ideally, when we are done with school, I would have to find a place for
Medical school, so we would like to live on the West Coast. After that,
we both want to move back to Hawaii, Maui where we were both
raised so we can live by our parents and take care of them while
working on our careers.
2. Where will you work? If one of you is promoted, what circumstance will
affect your decision to take the promotion (e.g., would you be willing to
move far away)?
a. When it comes to work, we both have our dreams and ambitions. So
far, because I plan on becoming a physician, we have decided that my
career will come first if nothing if flexible enough. As a computer
science major, he has more flexibility to move around or work from
home. Either way, we would both always compromise with each other.
3. Do you plan on attending church? If so, what religion will you follow?
a. We are both Agnostic/Atheistic. We do not believe in organized
religion for many reasons, and we find the value of life to be much
more vast and complicated than any church or religion could ever
provide evidence for. We have our individual spirituality, which we
both agree on. We find our morality, love and reasoning to live through

life itself and science, rather than bribery into heaven, or being told to
by a church leader, or god.
4. Do you plan on pursuing more education or vocational training?
a. We both plan on attending the University of Utah this Fall 2015
semester. I plan on going to medical school, gaining residency, and one
day becoming a doctor. James plans on getting his masters degree in
computer science and working for one of his desired companys on the
west coast.
5. Who will be responsible for household bills?
a. We both will. It will be both of our responsibilitys to provide for
household bills and other expenditures. We believe in equal sharing so
it isnt too hard on one or the other of us.
6. How will household chores be divided?
a. Once again, we both will be holding this as our responsibility.
Currently, we both do jobs in the house we enjoy most. For example, I
hate doing the dishes, and laundry, so to make this even; I clean up the
apartment and vacuum instead.
7. What type of transportation will you use?
a. Right now we have a car, and we will continue to use the car. This next
semester, we live so incredibly close to the university that during
school hours, we would most likely bike to school. We would of
course continue to use the car as our main transportation for groceries,
going out, etc.
8. Do you plan to rent or buy a house?
a. We dont plan on ever buying a house until we are somewhere we both
absolutely love and enjoy being. For now, and for quite some time we
will continue to rent since it is the most affordable and intelligent thing
to do at this point.
9. Will finances be combined or kept separate? How will money be
managed? What kind of budget will you keep?
a. We will combine finances and manage money and budget together.
b. We think this is the best thing to do because we are together and we
need to do these things together.
9. How will you spend holidays (e.g. Will you split holidays between both
sides of the family)? How much time will you spend with one anothers
family?)
a. We currently have to already do this. We fly back home for Christmas
and have it so he comes to my house with my parents for Christmas
eve, and on Christmas day I go to his parents house. This works very
well, and our family are complete fine with it. Any other holidays we
may go to either his family or mine, or split the day in half.

10. Do you plan on having children? If so, how many? Who will take care of
the children?
a. We think we want to in the far future. If we do, we dont want any
more than 2 children. As far as taking care of the kids, we both will. It
will be easier for James to take care of them at home due to the type of
job he will have, but It is so far in the future from now, anything could
happen, so we havent planned too much on it.
11. Will both parents continue to work after the baby is born? If so, who will
take care of the child while you are at work? If not, who will stay home?
How will you account for the differences in income if one parent stays
home?
a. We would porbobly both be working. If anything, I would take time
off while having the child of course, but we plan on living next to both
of our parents so we will have other sources. If not that, I would be the
one who would most likely be working, and James would be working
from home due to his type of job. When it comes to income, I will be
most likely making the most money, so it will not be a big deal.
12. What kind of discipline will you use? Will one parent be more
responsible for the discipline? If so, why?
a. We will both be equally authoritative parents. (thats our ideal at least)
We would want to be fair to our kids but provide authority. We would
work as a team rather than individuals to deal with our children.
13. Where will they go to school? Do you plan on sending your child to
college? If so how will you finance it?
a. They would probably go to either a private or public school. I would
hope they would want to go to college, if not, that is theyre decision
depending on there career choice. We would start a savings from birth
for our kids that would go on until they are ready for college.
14. How much time will you spend together?
a. We love spending all the time we can together. He is my best friend,
and I am his. We love doing everything together, and plan to keep it
like this no matter what.

15. How will you handle marital conflict?

a. We handle conflict very maturely. We never lash out at each other and
always talk about what is wrong, or if something is bothering us. He is
extremely good at talking about his feelings and knowing if I feel hurt

or upset about something. I feel that I have a harder time expressing

my emotions sometimes, but he is so caring and patient with me, that
we end up resolving everything.
16. What will you do for leisure time activities?
a. For leisure time we enjoy going out and exploring, whether it is going
on a hike, enjoying the city, snowboarding, biking, going out with
friends, etc. If we are just sitting around the house we tend to play
video games with each other for hours on end. We love doing this as a
past time because we have fun, it releases stress, and we can do it
together.
17. How much time will be spent with friends and co-workers?
a. We will probably spend a decent amount of time with both. We
generally share friends because we all seem to naturally get along
when ever we meet one of each others friends, so this increases
spending time. We both also understand individual time together with
a friend is important too, and value those times.
Summary
After going over this questioner with James, we both realized how
much we already knew and planned out our lives with each other. We
both have talked about our future quite a bit and know where, when
and how we want to be in the future. This is both very important to us
because we care so much about each other and what we want in the
future.
The most controversial thing would have to be taking care of
children. We both want to move back to Hawaii where we were both
raised and both of our familys are. We want to also have kids with two
being the max, and have successful careers. We know that this could
run into some issues but we are willing to face these problems. James
knows that becoming a doctor, and moving towards my careers is very
important to me. James enjoys computer science but knows that it is a

lenient career, and he also has options due to some family businesses.
After thinking about this, we have found it to be difficult but also very
due able.
Overall, I thought this was a very interesting questioner. I think
we both got a lot our of it and have really reflected on what we want
from each other and the future. We both are able to rationally thinking
about these things. We are to demonstrate subjective thoughts (rising
from personal experiences and perceptions) while also being able to
think objectively (using logical thinking, and being objective of our
situations). Our cognitive flexibility involves working together such as
problem solving, talking through problems, research on problem
solving abilities. Overall, I recognized that we were able to
demonstrate most queues of cognitive development in our Emerging
adulthood.