How to work with, not against, your partner
When couples first start therapy, they often come in as opposing attorneys. Each has their case, their evidence, and their opening argument: I’m right, and if you’d just see that, we’d be fine.
But love doesn’t thrive in a courtroom. It thrives in a laboratory—a place of curiosity, open communication, experiment, and discovery.
That’s what collaboration is about. It’s the third step in the PACER model of relationships we describe in our book Love. Crash. Rebuild, the space where partners stop defending themselves and begin creating something together.
Collaboration doesn’t mean agreement or giving up your truth. It means accepting that two views can coexist—and that love grows when partners work with each other with curiosity, not against each other.
When Connection Feels Like Competition
Dana and Luis had been together for six years. They were deeply in love, but lately their relationship had started to feel like a debate club with no judges and no end.
Luis wanted more closeness. “You pull away,” he said. “I never know if you want me or just tolerate me.”
Dana sighed. “You’re always asking if I love you. I start to feel smothered.”
Neither could see that they were both protecting themselves—Luis from rejection and distance, Dana from engulfment. Each thought the other was the problem.
In the early sessions, they kept talking at each other. Dana criticised Luis’ “neediness.” Luis accused Dana of indifference.
A Shift Toward Collaboration
One afternoon, Dana looked at Luis and said, “I feel like you don’t trust me. No matter what I say, you don’t feel secure.”
Luis started to interrupt, but I (Mark) asked him to wait—to just let Dana finish.
“When you keep checking in—‘Are you mad?’ ‘Do you still love me?’—I feel pressure to reassure you. I get annoyed; then I pull away. And that probably makes you feel worse.”
Luis exhaled. “It does,” he said. “But I’m asking because I need to feel close to you.”
For a moment, they were quiet.
“That right there,” I said, “is collaboration. You’re starting to work on the same problem together. You’re describing the system you both get caught in.”
Collaboration begins when partners realize that they are the system. As interpersonal psychoanalyst Harold Searles (1955) noted, relationships are reciprocal: We are always shaping and reshaping one another. Collaboration starts when we stop asking, “Who started it?” and start asking, “What are we creating together to bring more closeness into our relationship?”
Love as a Practice
In the following session, Luis said something that changed the tone of their work: “I used to think if Dana loved me, he’d know what I need. Now I think maybe love means showing him how.”
That statement captured what social psychologist Erich Fromm (1956) called the art of loving, love as a practice of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge—not a feeling that happens to us but a choice we keep making.
Collaboration requires that same practice. It’s not about waiting to feel close; it’s about acting in ways that create closeness. Dana tried to initiate small gestures—sending a text during the day, sitting beside Luis instead of scrolling on the other end of the couch. Luis, in turn, practiced giving Dana space without interpreting it as rejection.
They were no longer attempting to fix each other—or blame or pathologize each other. They were learning to co-create a loving space for vulnerability.
Relational Heroism
Of course, collaboration takes courage. Terry Real (2007) calls this relational heroism—the bravery to drop your defenses and reach across the divide. It’s choosing connection over control.
In one session, Dana said, “When we argue, I hear this voice in my head saying, ‘Don’t give in.’ It’s like if I admit anything, I lose.”
Luis nodded. “I have the same voice, but it says, ‘Don’t back down.’”
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s the battle you both keep fighting—and it’s against the wrong enemy. The goal isn’t to win; it’s to remain vulnerable and stay connected.”
That became their mantra: Connection, not victory.
Collaboration in Practice
Over time, Dana and Luis started holding short “collaboration check-ins” at the end of tough days. No agenda. Just:
“What’s something I did today that made you feel close?”
“What’s something I did that made you pull back?”
These questions changed everything. They started to laugh again. Disagreements didn’t feel like battles; they felt like shared projects. They were learning that intimacy is not the absence of conflict but the ability to stay emotionally alive inside it.
Why Collaboration Matters
Collaboration is what makes the earlier steps—Pause and Accountability—come to life. The pause regulates reactivity; accountability restores self-awareness. Collaboration builds something new in that cleared space.
Collaboration is “the rejoining point,” the moment when partners begin to shift from two competing individuals into a relationship that can also be felt as a third entity: us. Paradoxically, it is often through the cycle of rupture and repair that this shared “us” is strengthened. Conflict exposes the sticky edges where two internal worlds collide, but collaboration allows couples to experience the relationship itself as something alive, something they are co-creating and responsible for together, even when they crash.
How to Practice Collaboration
- Ask, “What’s happening to us?” instead of “Who’s right?” or “Who’s wrong?”
- Use both/and language: “I want closeness, and I need space.”
- Define teamwork goals: “How can we protect our connection during stress?”
- Be a relational hero: Reach out even when pride tells you to retreat; learn to be vulnerable.