Couple’s shared project: deciding together

Q: How do we make a decision together without one of us fading out?

By starting with functions, not options: what the decision must protect or make possible for each person. Then each of you separates your core (what you’d lose yourself without) from your margin (what you prefer but can flex on). Finally, one option as a dated trial, with a review you actually hold. A voice that has named its function and its core won’t go quiet.

Q: Joint or separate accounts?

There is no right model. All joint, all separate, mixed: the three are equal. What makes an arrangement good comes down to three properties: chosen transparency, both voices on the shared part, and the possibility of revising it. And one rule: a couple almost never argues about amounts, they argue about what money means.

Q: How do we share the mental load?

Not in minutes: in load carried and freedom felt. The tool is a walk through the blocks (meals, laundry, admin, family, health), with four verbs per block: who anticipates, who plans, who remembers, who carries out. Then you renegotiate by season, in observable actions, and by whole blocks: hand over the mission, not the supervised chore.

What this dimension covers

A shared project is not first of all a project. A project is a goal with a date: buy, leave, launch. A shared project is something else: shared meaning, the sense that your life together tells a story, including the weeks with no goal in sight. The myth of the big project says the opposite, that a couple who matters must have a spectacular direction to show for itself, and it creates two kinds of pain: the race toward a goal, and the shame of not having one.

Meaning lives on four floors, which research on couples who last finds everywhere: rituals (Sunday coffee, the midday text), roles (who carries what, and whether it was chosen), goals (even tiny ones) and symbols (the object, the place, the word that says “us”). In every couple, at least one floor is lying fallow, and that is neither an exception nor a fault.

The dimension also covers everything you decide together: everyday choices, money, the big directions (where to live, careers, a child), how the load is shared, and the most delicate case, the one where your directions truly diverge. One conviction runs through all ten levels: choosing together doesn’t mean wanting the same thing. The danger isn’t the difference, it’s the voice that goes quiet.

Signs that something is stuck

You have “no project,” and it makes you feel ashamed or afraid.
One of your two voices gives in, choice after choice, and it looks like flexibility.
The decision happens before the conversation: “I booked it, I knew you’d be fine with it.”
The same topic comes back every three months, unchanged, with no progress.
You argue about amounts when the real subject is elsewhere: security, freedom, what money means.
One of you anticipates, plans and remembers everything, and the other carries out what they’re asked.
A big direction (leaving, a child, a career) waits in silence for things to sort themselves out.
Your rituals have disappeared without anyone deciding anything, or they carry on without saying anything anymore.

What the research says

Shared meaning comes from John Gottman: the top floor of his “sound relationship house,” made of rituals of connection, roles, goals and symbols, along with his method for reading the dreams inside disagreements, what each position protects or promises. Barbara Fiese established, in her work on families, the founding distinction between routine and ritual: a routine takes care of logistics, a ritual carries symbolic meaning, and rituals contribute to stability, identity and transmission. Arthur Aron showed with self-expansion that a couple is nourished by exploring together, which grounds the rule of building on what is alive before opening new projects.

On deciding together, Roger Fisher and William Ury offer the distinction between positions and interests: you unblock nothing by bargaining over positions, but you do by listening for functions, what the decision must protect or make possible for each person. This is the basis of the program’s method: functions first, the core and the margin, then one option chosen as a dated trial.

On money, Lauren Papp, Mark Cummings and Marcie Goeke-Morey showed in 2009 that money conflicts are more intense and more recurrent than others, and that they are rarely about amounts. On load, Arlie Hochschild named the “second shift” in 1989, and Allison Daminger described in 2019 the cognitive side of household work, anticipating, identifying, deciding, monitoring, which the program calls the four verbs of mental load.

On divergences, Andrew Christensen and Neil Jacobson showed, with integrative couple therapy, that accepting a difference is a lever of change in its own right, complementary to problem solving. And on economic control, permission required, accounts monitored, income confiscated, the program points to public resources: this is a different register from a couple’s disagreement, and help lines such as 3919 in France exist for exactly that.

The authors behind this dimension: Robert Sternberg, Helen Fisher, Arthur Aron. Each page explains their background, their concepts, their studies and the limits of their work.

How MyLoveLab measures it

In the MyLoveLab test, the “Shared project” dimension measures what you experience on this front: whether you have a shared direction, even a blurry one, whether decisions are made together or by wearing each other down, whether you feel free to voice a different wish, and whether the future is a topic or a silence. The test doesn’t ask you to have a plan: it looks at whether both voices exist.

The score out of 100 shows where this dimension stands compared with the other six. A low score doesn’t mean you have no future together: it often says a voice has gone quiet, a topic is waiting in silence, or shared meaning has lost a floor without anyone noticing. This score helps the program choose where to start.

Measure your Project dimension in 15 minutes

How the program works on it

Ten levels that go from the map of us to a compass written in your own hands. Understand: where meaning lives, the rituals that hold, the dreams under the choices, the inventory. Practice: deciding together, money, the big directions. Co-create: load and roles, diverging directions, and the compass, the last page of your couple’s charter. It is the seventh dimension, the one that closes the entire program.

1The map of us, shared meaning rather than the big project, two voices for one direction, the four floors of meaning, reading the fallow ground without blame, the seasonal map.
2The rituals that hold the ‘us’ together, a ritual is a habit that says something: what it does for the bond, the inventory and the witness ritual, the two ways a ritual dies, protecting the meaning rather than the form.
3The dreams under the choices, under every wish, a dream: a dream needs a safe place, the three-question dream interview, when the other’s dream worries you, listening before you referee.
4The inventory of us, rereading the three maps, the five laws of the dimension, crossing the maps, setting the irreducibles down in peace, the bridge to practice.
5Deciding together, four false decisions and one real one, functions first, the core and the margin, the dated trial, the five-step method learned on small decisions.
6Money for two, what money means, money stories as strategies, the money conversation with numbers last, no single right model for accounts, the cold-start money date.
7The big directions, the direction and its worst enemy, silence; the dream under the direction, breaking it into reversible steps, a dated horizon that can breathe, the opening gesture.
8Load and roles, the three layers of the load, fairness as load carried and freedom felt, the audit without a ledger, handing over the mission rather than the supervised chore.
9When directions diverge, recognizing a true divergence, the two losses (forcing, fading out), the horizon set together, four dignified outcomes, getting through it while loving each other all the way.
10The compass, harvesting the tools that work, the four-floor compass written from what you’ve observed, the charter page and its revision clause, the program complete.

Exercise to try tonight · level 5

The dated trial

Many decisions get stuck because they feel final: each person defends a position as if everything were being settled right now. The dated trial lowers the stakes. The formula has three pieces: one option, a duration, a review date. Experience replaces speculation.

Pick the next small decision that keeps coming up at home: how an evening is organized, a split of tasks, a time slot. Not a big direction.
Propose it as a trial, all three pieces said out loud: “Let’s try grocery shopping on Tuesday nights for a month, and talk about it again on the 1st.”
Keep the review. It’s what keeps the trial honest: with no date, it’s a decision in disguise; with a skipped review, it’s a trap.

Four traps: the trial with no date, the skipped review, the rigged trial, the endless trial. And if everything still stalls even as a trial, check that an irreducible hasn’t disguised itself as a decision.

Frequently asked questions

We don’t have the same life plans. Is it over?

Not necessarily. First check that it’s a true divergence: have each person’s dreams been heard, have in-between forms been explored, has time been given? As long as one condition is missing, it’s a conversation that isn’t finished. If it really is a divergence, there are four dignified outcomes: following with open eyes, transforming, holding the disagreement open with a horizon, or separating your paths. Neither forcing nor fading out.

How do we make a decision together without one of us fading out?

By starting with functions, not options: what the decision must protect or make possible for each person. Then each of you separates your core (what you’d lose yourself without) from your margin (what you prefer but can flex on). Finally, one option as a dated trial, with a review you actually hold. A voice that has named its function and its core won’t go quiet.

Joint or separate accounts?

There is no right model. All joint, all separate, mixed: the three are equal. What makes an arrangement good comes down to three properties: chosen transparency, both voices on the shared part, and the possibility of revising it. And one rule: a couple almost never argues about amounts, they argue about what money means.

How do we share the mental load?

Not in minutes: in load carried and freedom felt. The tool is a walk through the blocks (meals, laundry, admin, family, health), with four verbs per block: who anticipates, who plans, who remembers, who carries out. Then you renegotiate by season, in observable actions, and by whole blocks: hand over the mission, not the supervised chore.

Do you need a big project to be a real couple?

No. A shared project is not first of all a project: it’s shared meaning, which lives in ordinary life, in rituals, roles, even tiny goals, and symbols. Wanting fewer projects than your partner is a dignified voice, not a flaw. The useful question isn’t “what’s our direction?” but “what, this week, said our us?”

Going further

The test measures this dimension along with the other six. Take it to get your score, your level (fragile, needs work, solid or excellent) and which dimension to start with in the program.

Different Life Goals in a Relationship: How to Talk About It Without Breaking Up

Podcasts on this topic

To keep going by listening: French-language shows hosted by therapists and psychologists, chosen for this dimension. The official players are on our podcasts page.

Couples En Thérapie, Mathilde Defer (psychologist and couples therapist for over 8 years)
Les chemins du couple, Céline Domecq (therapist and coach for over 15 years, specializing in couple relationships)
Yes, I Do !, Carole Rocha (podcaster, true love stories and advice episodes)
EX…, Agathe Lecaron (journalist and TV host)