Two people living under the same roof have to cooperate, at least somewhat. Similarly, nations on the same planet must cooperate, even though in some cases it’s very hard to find the cooperation for all the belligerence.

Much cooperation is situationally necessary. (I remember a film from way back in which two convicts who were chained to each other managed to escape from jail and had to cooperate while they were on the run, although they started out hating each other.)

At the other end of the cooperation continuum are those special relationships in which the cooperation is so profound that from it develops a deep and rewarding couple-ness (an “us” so rich that it has a reality of its own — you, me and us. (Suggestion: If you and your partner have such a richly-developed “we,” imagine, each of you, that your “we” actually is a third person in the relationship. Describe that person.)

If you start out with a taste for cooperation and your partner doesn’t, for whatever reason — you become the person in charge of the cooperation venture, and here is what you need to do:

• You need to make it unnecessary for your partner to continue being competitive and
• You need to make “we cooperating with each other” a rewarding and attractive prospect for your partner as well as for yourself.

You need to help your partner realize that s/he loses nothing important by building a good “we” with you. Start out by joining your partner in activities that your partner especially likes and won’t mind having you along. Do so in such a way that your joining your partner strengthens his/her sense of well-being.

Your aim here is to demonstrate to your partner that s/he doesn’t have to oppose you in order to feel safe and strong.

An example might be going to hockey games with your husband or joining your wife in a course that she wants to take. In either case, do your best to celebrate the we experience afterward, without faking it, of course.

Then add more we experiences that are pleasurable and adventurous for you both. When you sense that your partner’s attitude toward cooperating with you has increased to the point that s/he likes being “the two of us together,” then introduce activities that are more tilted toward your own interests.

“Why should I take the lead in this?” you may be asking. Answer: You should because you are the one who starts out wanting it, because you enjoy being “us together” and can introduce the pleasures of that condition to your partner — and because if you are reading this blog, you are probably someone who wants to be more loving, and here is an opportunity. Enjoy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 8:07 PM and is filed under Cooperation, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.