Once your type of alliance has been determined, it is important to understand that it only requires one of the two partners to change it so that it becomes collaborative.

A collaborative alliance works and strengthens our emotional balance. An alliance of this type requires seeing your couple as a team ready to confront itself and, if necessary, confront its partner about the lack of collaborative alliance. It is the ability of each person to evaluate and self-criticize by taking responsibility and promoting honesty with oneself and one’s partner.

• Take the time to confront ourselves about our involvement in the dynamics of the couple and sexuality
• Do not distort the truth or remove information to manipulate your partner.
• Being completely honest with your partner, even when it puts you at a disadvantage or is difficult

• Maintain the collaborative alliance, even if the partner has let it down
• Don’t let our feelings get the better of us and focus on what needs to be done.

• Rebuilding the alliance is more important than losing

it

• Understand when and why you lost your collaborative

alliance

• Confront your partner about the loss of the alliance by remaining open to their perception and our potential contribution to this loss
• A collaborative alliance tests your integrity

A collaborative alliance is not the first reflex that the majority of people will have. It is not always advantageous and pleasant to maintain. On the other hand, it reveals your ability to remain honest and loyal to yourself and your partner. It is based on a deep friendship that forces you to become better people and be a better partner. It allows you to overcome the biggest conflicts in a couple and thus build a relationship on the right foundations or for some rebuild them.

It is difficult to maintain, because it forces us to question ourselves by shaking our identity. This reflection can create an identity crisis where we are forced to redefine ourselves without losing our integrity. It forces us to make heartbreaking choices that determine the nature of our relationship and the future with our partner. The collaborative alliance launches us into our discomfort zones where it is necessary to face if we want to improve our relationship.

It is also present or absent during sexual relations. If a partner focuses on something other than the intimate present moment and stays somewhere else, the partner has abandoned the collaborative alliance. If the other member of the couple is unaware of the missing connection, it is possible that he or she colluded with his or her spouse to avoid creating a conflict or that there was simply no alliance from the start.

In a collaborative alliance, we are willing to push our sexual limits to develop our eroticism and maximize our intimacy with our partner. We dare more in sexual behavior, because we consider that our relationship and our sex life are more important than our difficulties and limits. We make a decision to become more sexually mature and flourish in our relationship. We value ourselves and inhibitions fall to bring out our sexual self to its full potential.

Too often we drop the wedding ring due to our emotions. When discomfort, discomfort or nervousness begin to appear, many tend to take a toll and enter into other types of alliances. We must not let our emotions dictate our behavior and the future of our relationship. If we always trusted our emotions, we wouldn’t move forward in life, because at the slightest sign of unhappiness we would return to the original point. Learn to comfort yourself and face your limits to reach your abilities.

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Francois Renaud,
sexologist, Montreal

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Text Series: Sexual


Intimacy*text inspired by the book Intimacy and Desire by David Schnarch