Cooperating with others
Cooperative relationships — with partners, friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors, and even strangers — are essential for personal peace and peace with others. Cooperation is about building relationships rooted in mutual respect, shared goals, and a dedication to everyone’s well-being.
I am married to a wonderful woman. She is kind, caring, a hard worker, and shares what she has with everyone. I’m a very lucky guy. It hasn’t always been easy. We are from different cultures, different age groups, and do not share the same native language. But what we do have in common is a sense of shared cooperation based on a deep love for one another.
Early in our marriage our relationship was in trouble. My adult children — her stepchildren — had returned home under adverse circumstances. My son was recently released from prison, and my daughter was recovering from major surgery. Both were unstable and dealing with substance abuse or recovery. I was away much of the time for work, so the burden of dealing with a volatile situation was mostly on my wife’s shoulders.
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The situation reached a boiling point. My wife told me in no uncertain terms that if the situation didn’t change she was moving out. I took a leave of absence to sort things out. At first I was defensive and in denial. This had happened before, it would sort itself out. That wasn’t good enough anymore.
We were all forced into an intense round of emotional dialog, looking for a solution to what seemed unsolvable. I had to face a difficult truth — my children were not her problem. I needed to establish boundaries that were uncomfortable for all of us, but necessary. I had to ask my son to leave the house, without a safe place to go. He was the cause of us losing our peace, and had to find a solution to his problems that didn’t involve destroying our family.
Eventually he stabilized and we had many years of happy family times after the crisis. It took an uncomfortable confrontation as a couple to come to terms with cooperation, compromise and working together as a blended family. It took compassion, empathy, and setting boundaries.
Cooperation in relationships requires a shift in mindset, from competing to collaborating, from asserting dominance to engaging in dialogue, and from focusing on self-interest to emphasizing shared interests.
