Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: divorce in cohousing

[Jenny Guy (jenstermeister]

Hi Doug, I know what you mean about the surprising amount of the sentiment
that people don't want to be told what to do, in cohousing.... not what I
expected either. And if you try to have a policy for every eventuality that
might or might not happen, you'll spend all your time writing and revising
policies, but then there's always something that comes up where you really
wish you'd provided for it in advance.

Hoping your community can come to a way to clarify all this.

best,
Jenny


On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 9:05 AM, Doug Huston <huston [at] ashlandcoho.com> 
wrote:

>
> <snip> 
> Although I think we anticipated many things well and crafted appropriate
> policies (in part because of the experiences of other communities - and
> thank yous to this list serve), we couldn't and didn't choose to anticipate
> all scenarios.
> I've framed some of this as a divorce situation for a rather narrow policy.
> Some members view it more like Sharon (posted on 2/10 - "I think it is too
> complicated to try to write a policy for any specific problem but easier to
> have a conflict resolution process that can be initiated by any member of
> the community for any reason.") and see it as a conflict resolution problem.
> Others have also discussed addressing it sort of how you are - as an issue
> of clarity about offsite members. That discussion has included simply
> eliminating that kind of membership.
> And there are almost always some sentiments akin to "let's not tell others
> what to do" or "don't tell me what to do." I keep trying to remind myself
> to be unsurprised by this sentiment, but struggle with that. I didn't think
> it would be so prevalent living in community. Silly me.
> Thanks for your thoughtful response.
>
>