Our Five Years

What we are building between now and the end of 2031 — the decisions we owe each other, the dates we owe them by, and what I am promising to do about them.

Drafted 18 August 2026 · Reviewed every quarter · Nothing here changes except on purpose, together

Why this exists

This is not a wish list. It is a set of promises with dates attached, written down so that neither of us has to carry them alone — and so that in three years we can look back and see plainly whether I did what I said I would.

Most of what follows is mine to do. Some of it I need from you. The parts that matter most are ours, and those are the ones I have been slowest to bring to you properly: where we actually live, what happens to the Warsaw house, and what kind of summers our children get. I would rather we decided those on a date we chose than let them get decided by default, one deferred conversation at a time.

So the point of this document is narrow and honest: put the drifting decisions on a calendar, and put my name against the work.

Where we are trying to get to

By the end of 2031 our youngest will be around thirteen and our eldest around seventeen. This plan covers the last five years in which both of them still live with us full time. That is the real deadline underneath every date below, and it is the reason I do not want to spend another year deciding nothing.

If we get this right, then at the end of 2031:

• We live in one country we chose deliberately — because we weighed it and picked it, not because moving felt like too much effort in any particular year.
• The Warsaw house is finished. Not a standing project, not a thing I keep meaning to deal with. Either a home we use or an asset that runs itself cleanly.
• We have a place by water that we own outright and go to every summer — and the children think of it as somewhere that has always been theirs.
• Our money sits in a structure we both understand. Not one portfolio I run and explain afterwards; something you can open and read without me in the room.
• Both children are genuinely at home in both their countries — the languages, the families, the sense that neither half is the holiday half.
• And we are still choosing each other on purpose, with time in the calendar that is ours and not negotiable.

What we hold to

1. Every decision gets a date. A decision without a date is a decision to keep drifting, and drifting has been the expensive option.
2. No surprises about money. Everything visible to both of us, in one place, including the parts that are not going well.
3. We buy things we will use, not things we will own. A plot we visit twice is a worse outcome than a rental we love.
4. The children's stability outranks optimisation. If the tax-efficient answer and the good-for-them answer disagree, they win.
5. One large move at a time. We do not relocate, renovate and buy abroad in the same year. Sequence is a feature.
6. This document changes only on purpose. In a review, together, with the reason written down.

The decisions we owe each other

Four of these are genuinely joint. They are ordered by when they expire, not by how big they are — the first one expires in days, not months.

What I commit to

What I am asking of you

I have deliberately not written your commitments for you — that would make this my plan with your name on it. What I am asking is narrower:

• Tell me your non-negotiables on where we live, in writing, before we compare notes. Not what you think is realistic — what you actually need. I will do the same, separately, and we will read them at the same time.
• Come to the quarterly review. Ninety minutes, four times a year. It is the only mechanism that makes any of this real.
• Push back on this document. Anything in it that is mine rather than ours, say so and we will change it.

What we do together

• Neither of us commits to anything above [agree a threshold] without the other — property, capital, or a year of our lives.
• We choose the summer-home track together, in December, having actually visited at least one option on each side.
• We tell the children about any move before it is decided, not after.

How we keep this honest

Four times a year, on the first weekend after the quarter ends, ninety minutes with the roadmap open. Three questions and no others:

1. What actually moved? Not what we intended — what changed.
2. What did not, and why? If something has slipped two quarters running, it either gets a smaller first step or it comes off the board honestly.
3. What changes now? Any change to this document gets written down here with its reason.

First review: the weekend of 3–4 October 2026. It is in the calendar. If we miss it, the whole thing is decoration.

What this document does not yet know

• The Netherlands. It is on the list because it is on my mind, but I have done no work on it at all. If it is real, it needs the same scrutiny as the other two. If it is not, we should take it off.
• The Mediterranean option. No region, no budget, no view on renting versus buying. Currently an idea, not a plan.
• What any of this costs us. Household budget, school fees, the mortgage picture — none of it is written down in one place. That is the first thing the money workstream fixes.
• The threshold above. We have never agreed a number at which one of us has to ask the other. We should pick one at the first review.