Cooperation, -n: To act or work with another. To act together. To associate with another for mutual benefit. Common effort The association of persons for common benefit. A social process in which mutual benefits outweigh disadvantages.

Fairness is what you perceive to be true in a relationship (what you owe, what you deserve) that does or does not fit your expectations (what you want or need). Justice is the standard used to create your expectations (what you want or need).

Justice as the standard

Justice is defined in a variety of ways. One interpersonal application of justice is the process of sorting out what belongs to whom, and giving it back. Justice as the standard in relationships begins with individual competence to give and receive freely. Using cooperation to connect, both persons are intentional and responsible to own and take possession of only what is his or hers. Each person releases what is not his or hers and takes up what is his or hers. Justice involves drawing boundaries based on who I am rather than what I can do “for” another.

Making choices that account for, acknowledge and respect the presence of another while remaining separate characterizes cooperation. This ability to regulate oneself in close proximity to another is an indication of maturity. The possibility of being self-conscious without being self-absorbed, aware without being arrogant and connected without being invasive allows trust to develop in a relationship.

Justice recognizes that both persons have already taken possession of what is not theirs and are to give it back. Unlike fairness, in which one person’s gain is at the expense of the other, justice recognizes that returning what does not belong to you enriches both persons in different ways. While the goal of compromise is to get all you can from the other person based on how much you can give, the goal of cooperation is to live trustworthy even when it means you give away what you have come to believe is yours. Fairness begins by assuming the need to do “for” another in order to establish a connection while justice recognizes connection has already occurred and growth requires giving away what you thought was yours.

When a husband feels guilty and wants to blame his wife for “making him feel guilty,” doing justice involves both people. His wife doesn’t accept the blame for his guilt, but gives the guilt back to him recognizing his feelings are his. She may have triggered these feelings, but she isn’t responsible for them. At the same time, he stops and looks within to examine the reasons for his emotional reactivity.

Responsibility for oneself results from the gratitude a person feels when he or she receives freely. Finally, humility and self-regulation are the natural outgrowth when a person is fully and completely accepted in all the weakness and vulnerability he or she brings to the relationship.

Responsibility (Obligation) = Gratitude (Resentment) + Humility (Entitlement)

Self-regulation as the method for change

Justice as the standard for a relationship presupposes that people need to grow. Cooperation requires both persons to face the fear of their partner’s rejection and negative reactions as they reveal their inadequacies to each other. While these weaknesses and vulnerabilities have a profoundly negative effect on each person in the relationship, both person’s recognize their personal need for forgiveness and therefore give it willingly. Taking responsibility for these personal deficiencies is a function of self-regulation. Clearly, this self-regulation does not occur in the way or the timing of the other person waiting for it.
Allowing another’s inadequacies to impact your life requires the ability to accept your partner and stay connected, recognizing your suffering will develop perseverance and character in you. Rather than comparing how one has suffered more than another, both persons regulate their fears, anxiety and reactivity in response to this pain. Neither person wants to hurt the other, but both are willing to be in the process of growing and maturing always appreciating their partner is paying a price to remain connected, yet separate in the relationship. This is called self-regulation.
Mary’s fear that John will not spend time with her comes from her belief that he doesn’t want to spend time with her. Mary’s beliefs about John come from her erroneous assumption that her father didn’t want to spend time with her. (Her father was working.) This belief based on fear that John will never want to spend time with her binds her to will, shape and move him to spend time with her based on all she does “for” him. Of course this approach is based on compromise and fairness and does not work.

Cooperating with John, Mary makes room for John to spend more time with his friends than he wants to spend. This is overwhelmingly painful for her as it replicates her experience with her father. How can Mary encourage, foster, support, and facilitate the very fear she has lived with all her life? She can’t in her own strength!

Does she trust that he will ever regulate the time he spends with his friends? Does Mary have any evidence that he will regulate himself? Why doesn’t Mary trust that John will limit himself with his friends? Because she has never encouraged, even insisted that he spend more time with his friends than he wants to spend with them! Therefore, Mary’s mistrust of John has nothing to do with John.

Experiencing Mary’s acceptance and support, John will face his fear that she is really just manipulating him. His fear is that Mary will overwhelm him with her emotional demands and that he will not be able to measure up or be good enough for her. John’s assumptions about Mary are not about her at all. As a boy, John felt sorry for his mother and although he did everything to take the pressure off her it never seemed to be enough.

Cooperating with Mary would mean he would face his fear of Mary and spend more time with her than she wants from him. But how can John spend more time with her than she wants when he has lived with the fear of not being good enough all his life? He can’t in his own strength!

Does John trust that Mary is sincere as she encourages him to spend more time with his friends? Does John have any evidence that Mary will be O.K. with him spending time with his friends? Why doesn’t John trust that Mary will limit her emotional demands of him? Because he has not spent more time with Mary than Mary wants him to spend with her. Therefore, John’s mistrust of Mary is not about Mary at all.

Mary and John have married into their respective weaknesses and are set up for failure or success based on how they approach their relationship. (We all marry into our weaknesses). Approaching their relationship from the framework of compromise seems reasonable yet will result in defeat and failure. But approaching their relationship using cooperation appears to be a formula for disaster, yet results in success and contentment.

Jesus told his disciples that whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. This paradox is apparent in compromise and cooperation. Efforts at saving one’s life through fairness, leverage and less responsibility results in a life lost. While losing one’s life through cooperation with your partner results in unexpected transformation resulting in a far better relationship than either person believed was possible.

The whole of the relationship is greater than the sum of the parts

Cooperation occurs when both persons recognize a bigger process is at work in their lives than either of them can create alone. Adding all that both people bring to the relationship does not account for all that makes up the relationship. The unique combination of both persons creates a third reality, a presence that both acknowledges and revere.

Listening, anticipating and experiencing this “presence” creates a reverential awareness and gives meaning to interaction. Humility takes on new significance as information is not accusation, comment is not criticism, and words designed to encourage do not discourage. Cooperation grows the relationship toward maturity and health with each person aspiring toward full responsibility.

Both persons remain present for the other in good times and in bad. When in need of direction in life, the other remains still and elicits courage to wait and listen beyond one’s self instead of giving into the anxiety by trying harder. Aware that frantic efforts at making life occur on your terms is misguided and short sighted patience allows both to “be still” and the lack of “willfulness” provides the energy to examine life.

Completely accepting each other in apparent transparency is disarming, yet frightening at the same time. Neither person needs to neither exert power nor persuade because both acknowledge a quite authority that transcends one’s personal power. Being emptied out of willfulness is what allows both persons to be trustworthy in their relationship. The capacity to listen, yet not judge may inspire the other as he or she recognizes their inability to do the same thing. Direction seems to come from beyond yet at the same time within the relationship. Integrity characterized this life together completely. Fully aware of this process both persons are humbled to be a small part of the relationship.

Experiencing all the weaknesses, failures, mistakes and setbacks a person can bring to the relationship is painful for both persons. While the partner who makes the error is grieved over the suffering caused by their failure, the other is also hurt by these weaknesses. Facing not only your weaknesses, but enduring the undeserved suffering of your partner, takes a sense that your partner will eventually come to regulate themselves in this growth area. In addition, it takes an appreciation that the innocent party has had occasion to be in that role as well and in need of patient forgiveness.

Mary has encouraged John to spend more time with his friends. She appreciates him as a gift in her life and knows she has grown spiritually by giving herself beyond anything she ever dreamed possible. Her relationship with God is stronger as a result of her love for her husband.

John is amazed that Mary would set him free, encouraging him to enjoy his friends. Understanding this is her weakness, he wants to spend time with her, gratefully expressing how much he loves her.

His response is not in her timing or in her way, but resurrection never occurs in your timing or the way you expect. Their relationship grows from Mary’s willingness to die on the cross of her anxiety and trust God to sustain her rather than her husband.

Because she has told her husband about her fear of being alone he understands the significance of her growth and cooperates with her by discussing his fear of closeness and emotional intimacy. Their relationship grows as they both acknowledge their weaknesses and give the gift of themselves to the other.

For Mary to confess her fear that John really doesn’t want to spend time with her brings a measure of healing and growth to Mary. Facing her fear of John’s rejection is difficult, yet liberating. Equally, John’s ability to tell Mary of his fear that she will limit or restrict him sets him free of this fear and the fear of communicating openly with her. He learns that Mary is not his mother and that she will regulate herself in ways he has never experienced.