Love is a team sport

Real partnership looks like this

Love is not enough. In a great relationship, you also need to act like a team.

Acting like a team can look like cooking dinner for the other person when you know they're overwhelmed. Taking something off their plate without being asked. Handling the boring logistics, because you know it reduces their stress. Backing them up in a room full of people, and dealing with the nuance later, in private. Remembering what's a lot for them right now, and adjusting how you show up.

Acting like a team is about making decisions with “What's best for us?” instead of “What do I want in this moment?”

In the moments, it feels obvious. We’re on the same side and we’re moving in the same direction.

But sometimes something goes sideways. A booking gets messed up, a plan falls apart, something happens in an inconvenient way (pretty typical of life!), and suddenly, we’re no longer on the same side.

We get annoyed, frustrated, angry, and instead of seeing the challenge as something to solve together, we end up pointing fingers, getting defensive, and building resentment.

The team mentality dissolves, and we don’t always notice it happening.

True partnership means staying on the same side, not just when it’s easy, but especially when it isn’t.

It's the shift from “You did this” to “Okay, this happened, so let's handle it.” It's not you versus me. It's us against the problem. (And I'll be the first to admit, this is often easier said than done. I've been in situations where it's so tempting to point a finger and to focus the frustration on the other person. But that behavior does nothing for the relationship except create more distance.)

I’m a big believer that real team-type love lives in the smallest, most ordinary moments. It’s doesn’t have to be a grand declaration. Instead, it’s the way someone doesn’t make you feel stupid for breaking a glass, or forgetting something at the store, or booking the wrong night at the hotel. It’s the way a frustrating situation becomes our problem to solve, not your issue to own.

(Side note: “Acting like a team” gets misunderstood sometimes. It doesn’t mean becoming one person, or absorbing all of your partner’s emotions as your own, like taking on their anxiety, their frustration, and their bad days. That’s enmeshment. And honestly? It’s exhausting. We’re talking about facing challenges together. Same direction, but separate selves.)

Last week, I was cooking in the kitchen, and an entire glass bottle of cinnamon fell out of my hand and dusted every inch of the newly-cleaned kitchen floor.

My fiancé heard the noise and ran into the kitchen right away.

He wasn’t frustrated, he wasn’t bothered by what had happened, nor was there any blame. Instead, he grabbed the vacuum while I grabbed a wet rag, and we both handled the issue together.

It sounds so small. But it meant so much to me, especially because this kind of behavior was something I never witnessed growing up at home. It helped me realize that this is what being a team looks like; it’s in the ordinary moments of life.

Psychology research agrees that couples who navigate stress together, who adapt to each other’s needs and face challenges as a single unit, are more resilient, more connected, and more satisfied in their relationships. (Source: University of Tennessee and eHarmony.)

When you’re genuinely on someone’s team, something shifts. You stop keeping score. You stop looking for evidence that the other person is failing you. The missed booking stops being about who was careless. These things simply become what they are: small inconveniences in a life you’re building together, with someone.

This is what real, conscious love is all about. It’s not about grand gestures or perfect communication or the absence of messiness. It’s about looking at challenging or annoying moments and saying, “We’ve got this, together.”

That’s the team. And that’s the only game worth playing.

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Teamwork is one of the most important values my partner and I share, and we built it through intentional conversation. Getting aligned on what we each need, how we handle stress, and what we actually want from our relationship and our life.

That’s exactly what A Love Plan was born from. It’s a workbook I co-wrote with my partner to help couples get aligned, go deeper, and build the relationship they actually want, through prompts, conversation starters, and research-backed tools. It’s available in digital and physical format. You can grab A Love Plan here.

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I’m curious, what does "acting like a team" look like in your relationship? I'd love to hear your version of the cinnamon moment.

Unlike this solo-rower, true partnership requires team work. Photo by me, taken in Austria, September, 2023.