I have my life. He has his. I get on with my life. He gets on with his. My life is none of his business, unless I invite him into it. His life is none of my business, unless he invites me into it.
There is a common domain. What we do and how we do it in this domain is negotiated pragmatically, cordially, and calmly. We want it to work, so it does. We each bring what we wish to the common domain: there are no obligations.
When we can't be calm, we withdraw till we are calm. It's OK for us to have negative emotions. We just don't spray them on each other.
A couple of don'ts:
Zero demands. This means I'm not 'entitled' to anything from him. If he has to work 12, 13 hours and has no energy afterwards to even talk to me or acknowledge me when I walk in the room, that's OK. If he doesn't want to do anything together on a Saturday, that's OK. He gets to organise his life as he wishes. It's OK for both of us to have downtime, do our own thing, be quiet, and hibernate; it's OK for both of us to want to chat to others but not each other; it's OK for both of us to do what we need to do to be OK.
Zero criticism. This means zero criticism. Nada. We can jointly discuss ways of doing things differently together. But never, ever with a spirit of criticism.
A couple of dos:
Give maximally. Sometimes I have a lot to give; sometimes, a little. But, of what I have to give, I give maximally. He does the same.
Yield maximally. This means I default to doing what he wants or suggests, and he does the same. This means we always meet in the middle, and impasses or conflicts are incredibly rare and of short duration.
A few basic premises:
We both want peace.
We both want the relationship to work
We are willing to adjust in whatever way is necessary to bring these about.
A few caveats:
This works because we're both signed up to it.
This works because we've both done enough work to be stable, successful, peaceful, and happy on our own account, so there is no baggage brought into the relationship.
Such baggage as there is within us we are able to contain and deal with appropriately. We do not let the pig run around the farmhouse. Adults contain themselves in public and at work. Just so in company at home. The baggage does need to be dealt with, but with the right person and at the right time.
It's impossible to have a healthy relationship with a fundamentally unhealthy person. It's possible to interact healthily with an unhealthy person, but this requires containment measures, boundaries, and resilience to tolerate the pushback, the rage, the uncooperativeness, the confounded objectives, and the opponent's countermeasures.
That's doable, but the possibility of closeness, which is really the purpose of the relationship, along with the functioning of the system, is destroyed. Alliances work only if there is free trade across the borders. If there is a wall with guard posts, dogs, and machine guns, there is peace, but there is no common ground, and there is no easy interchange of goods and services.
This approach is effective when dealing with difficult people at work, in the community, at an AA group, etc., but it's not something I want or need in my home, so I don't bother. Life is hard enough without having a hot or cold war in the one controllable environment.
I no longer eat unbaked cookie dough. I eat cookies.