A private coach for couples, families of adults, and separated parents
Get on the same side.
Each of you answers alone. Nobody sees anyone’s answers. Then a coach that thinks like a clinician writes your plan: eight weeks, one small practice at a time, tools for the hard moments, and a measure of whether it’s working.
Free assessment and personal plan. The shared plan’s first week is free too. Adults only. Or give it as a gift.
This week is about turning towards each other. Small bids, caught early, add up faster than grand gestures.
This week's practices
SharedCatch the bid · 5 min · each of you
Notice one small reach for attention a day and turn towards it.
Six-second hello · 2 min · together
Whoever gets home second gets six seconds of full attention.
A private note for Alex
Only you can see this.
Sam checked in · connection 7/10
Separate logins. Nobody sees anyone’s answers. The coach is the only reader.
A coach, not a referee. It teaches skills and names patterns. It never says who’s right.
One person pays for everyone. Free to start. Plus is £7.99 per person a month, or the eight-week programme once for £69. Co-parenting on your own is one seat.
How it works
Four steps. Twenty minutes each to start.
Each of you answers alone
About twenty minutes each, on your own phone, in your own time. Your styles, your needs, what’s working and what isn’t — and if you’re separated parents, a different set of questions about the arrangements rather than the romance. Your answers are never shown to anyone in your circle.
You set your boundaries
Mark any topic off-limits for the shared plan. Tell the coach anything that should stay private. Nothing goes into the shared plan without everyone’s consent.
The coach reads everyone
It finds where you’re aligned, where you’re not, and the pattern underneath. Then it writes an eight-week plan you can actually do on a weeknight.
You work on it, weekly
Two small practices and one conversation a week. A three-minute check-in each. The coach reads the check-ins and adjusts next week for you.
“Alex, Sam — you’ve each answered honestly and separately, and you’ve both chosen to do this together. That’s the hardest part done. When something’s wrong, one of you tends to move towards the conversation and one tends to move away. Each response makes sense on its own, and each makes the other more likely. The work is on the cycle, not on either of you.”
Every plan opens like this: by name, without revealing anyone’s answers, framing the pattern as the thing you’re both up against.
What the coach will do
- Read everyone’s answers and find where you’re aligned and where you’re not.
- Name the pattern between you: the pull-apart cycle, not the person.
- Give you two small practices and one conversation a week, sized to the time you actually have.
- Adjust the plan every week from your check-ins.
- Help you repair after a row, privately, before the next one.
What it won’t do
- Take sides, or tell you who’s right.
- Tell you to stay or to leave.
- Diagnose anyone, or label anyone.
- Show your answers to anyone in your circle. Ever.
- Cross a topic you’ve marked off-limits.
For the moment
Built for eleven at night, not just Sunday afternoon.
Most apps only work when you’re calm. Sameside has tools for the argument, the aftermath and the first sentence.
The Pause
Press it, and everyone in your circle sees “Alex has called a pause — back at 9.30”. Twenty minutes, breathing, and a promise to come back. A pause becomes something you do together.
Say it for me
Tell the coach what you can’t find the words for. From what it knows about you, it drafts the sentence — what you feel, about what, what you need — and you choose, change it, and send it. Separated parents get the same tool aimed at messages: paste what you were about to fire off, get it back brief, informative, friendly and firm.
Repair, after the row
Five private questions, the coach’s take on what was underneath, and a blame-free summary you can choose to share.
Hear each other
Say it privately. Hear it together.
Worksheets you each answer alone. The coach writes one page for everyone — never quoting anyone — and proposes an agreement you all ratify.
Between you, the household runs on more tasks than any one list showed. Several appear on more than one list, which usually means nobody is sure who owns them.
Proposed agreement
Hand over one recurring task completely, including the remembering, for two weeks.
- Our next year — an ordinary good day, a year from now
- The load, made visible — everything you carry, including the remembering
- Money, before the meeting — what money meant growing up, and now
- The unwritten rules — for families: the rules nobody agreed to
- Same team, same page — parenting: the one rule to align on first
Everything in Sameside
One coach. Thirty-two ways it helps.
All of it works for couples, for families of adults, and for separated parents co-parenting. Everyone in the circle gets everything.
Understand where you are
The assessment
Twenty minutes, alone, modelled on the checkup clinicians use.
Your personal plan
Ready the moment you finish: your style, your needs, three things to try.
The alignment map
Your scores, and how close you are to each other — never their numbers.
How the coach sees us
A formulation you can read and correct. It listens.
Work on it, weekly
The shared plan
Eight weeks: two practices, one conversation, one reflection a week.
This week’s session
Review, why, practices, talk, check in — twenty-five minutes across the week.
One word a day
A private daily word and mood the coach reads; it shapes next week.
Check-ins the coach reads
Three minutes each, measured with the CSI-4. The coach rewrites next week if it needs to.
For the moment
The Pause
One tap; everyone sees you’ve paused and when you’ll be back.
Say it for me — or “Send it better”
The coach drafts the sentence you can’t find, in your voice. Co-parenting, it rewrites the message you were about to fire off: brief, informative, friendly, firm.
Cool-down and gentle start-up
Twenty minutes with breathing; then the first sentence, built without “you always”.
Repair and live conversation
After a row, and a timed speaker–listener guide for one shared device.
Hear each other
Worksheets
Answer privately; the coach writes one page for everyone, never quoting anyone.
Team agreements
Small promises everyone ratifies. The coach keeps them in mind every week.
Ask the coach
A private chat that remembers you and points to the right tool or read.
Appreciations
Specific thank-yous, sent to a person.
Keep it going
Rituals
The moments you keep on purpose. What survives after week eight.
The checkup
The same questions again, so the change is real. A progress report, area by area.
Programmes
Keep it going, one area properly, or the family reset — written fresh each time.
Together
A shared feed and milestones. Shared things only.
Private by design
Separate logins
Nobody sees anyone’s answers. The coach is the only reader.
Boundaries that hold
Off-limits topics are checked out of every shared sentence.
A wellbeing check and a support plan
Private, gated, stored as a level or not at all. Quick exit on every page.
Your data
See what the coach can see. Export or delete everything.
Co-parenting
The week
Who they’re with each day, written down, with the next handover on your home page.
Changes in writing
Ask for a swap, get a yes or a no. Never at a handover, never through a child.
Send it better
Paste the message you were about to fire off; get it back brief, informative, friendly, firm.
What to say to them
Age-banded words for the conversations parents dread, and a monthly read on how they seem.
Beyond the app
Install it as an app
Once you’re signed in, add Sameside to your home screen in ten seconds: full-screen, signed in, with shortcuts for the pause and the check-in. No app store.
Working with a counsellor
Link their code; with everyone’s consent they receive the progress report, never your answers.
Give it as a gift
The eight-week programme as one code — for a wedding, an anniversary, a hard year.
The free checkup and a real person
Four questions, one minute, no account — and a contact form that reaches a person.
For families of adults
Parents and grown-up children, siblings, in-laws — up to six adults in one circle. The questions change (roles, expectations, independence; no intimacy items), the family meeting guide and the family reset programme are built for it, and the privacy rules are exactly the same.
And for separated parents
The relationship ended; the co-parenting didn’t. Same privacy, same weekly rhythm, different job: messages that don’t escalate, handovers that work, and the children out of the middle. It measures what they’re exposed to rather than how you feel about each other — and it works on your own if the other parent isn’t ready.
The evidence
Built on the research that actually predicts what lasts.
Not opinions, and not one person’s method. Everything the coach does comes from work you can look up — and it measures your relationship with the same instrument the researchers use, so you can see it working.
Four decades of observation
The Gottman Institute followed thousands of couples: turning towards each other’s small bids predicted stability, contempt predicted breakdown, and around 69% of problems turned out to be perpetual rather than solvable. Sameside’s practices come from that work.
Trials, not opinions
Emotionally Focused Therapy shows large effects in meta-analyses, with most couples moving out of distress. The OurRelationship programme — an online adaptation of IBCT — has randomised controlled trials behind it. Both are in the coach’s knowledge base.
A measure you can hold us to
The Couples Satisfaction Index is the four-item measure used in couple-therapy research: 0–22, with 13.5 the distress line and three points a real change. Co-parenting, the measure is different: how much conflict the children were exposed to. You see your own number at the start, every week, and at the checkup.
What actually harms children
Four decades of separation research, and the basis of the UK’s Reducing Parental Conflict programme: it is not separation that harms children, it is being caught in the conflict afterwards. Everything in the co-parenting plan aims at lowering that one number.
See for yourself before you decide. The free one-minute checkup gives you your score with no account and no email, and the assessment, your personal plan and the first week cost nothing. More about who makes this
Measured
You’ll know whether it worked.
The Couples Satisfaction Index — the measure used in couple-therapy research — at the start, every week, and at the checkup. Three points is real change. The coach reads the trend and lightens the load when a week goes badly.
At the start
11/22
strained
Week 6
15/22
building
Checkup
18/22
real change
Illustrative scores. Yours are yours; nobody in your circle sees them.
Privacy and safety
Your answers are yours.
Separate logins. No shared answer screens. A private wellbeing check that stores a level, never the answers. A Quick exit button on every page. A page that shows you exactly what the coach can see, and one tap to export or delete everything.
If you’re not safe, the plan isn’t the priority.
If the wellbeing check suggests fear, control or harm, the coach won’t build a joint plan that could make things worse. You’ll get support privately. The other person is not told.
Support that’s available nowPricing
Free to start. Then pay per person, for everyone.
Couples and families: one account holder pays for the whole circle, and every extra adult is cheaper. Co-parenting works the other way round — you each pay for yourself.
Free
£0
For finding out where you stand.
- The full assessment, for everyone in the circle
- Your personal plan and alignment map
- The shared plan’s opener, strengths, focus areas and week one
- Appreciations, journal, one repair, five coach messages
Plus
£7.99 per person a month
A couple pays £15.98 a month or £109 a year; extra adults £4.99. Or the eight-week programme once, £69 for two.
- All eight weeks, with the coach’s weekly review
- Unlimited Ask the coach and repair sessions
- Rituals, progress over time, plan regeneration
- Cancel any time from your billing page
Co-parenting: you each pay for your own seat
See the detail£7.99 a month each, paid separately. Two people who have separated can’t reasonably be asked to share a card, and neither of them should control the other’s access — so a co-parenting circle has no account holder. You pay for yourself, they pay for themselves, and either of you can stop without affecting the other. Connecting takes a six-character code rather than an invitation, so you never have to hand over an email address. On your own it’s a single seat: £7.99 a month, or £39 once for the eight-week programme.
Questions
Things people ask first.
We’ve separated — is this still for us?
Yes, and there’s a version built for it. Co-parenting circles get a different assessment (arrangements, handovers, communication — no questions about the relationship), a plan aimed at lowering what the children are exposed to, and a tool that rewrites the message you were about to send. It works on your own if the other parent isn’t ready. It is not a court tool and gives no legal advice.
Can my partner see my answers?
No. Never. Each person logs in separately and the coach is the only reader. The shared plan describes patterns and suggests practices; it never says who said what. Your data page shows exactly what the coach can see.
Is this therapy?
No. Sameside is a coaching tool. It teaches skills and suggests small practices. It doesn’t diagnose, take sides, or tell you whether to stay together. If a counsellor would serve you better, the coach will say so and point you to Relate and the BACP directory.
What if my partner won’t join?
You still get a full personal plan from your own answers, plus the coach, the journal and the repair tool. The shared plan needs everyone; the personal one only needs you.
Does it work for families, not just couples?
Yes, for adults. A family circle can hold up to six people over 18: parents and grown-up children, siblings, in-laws. The questions adapt, and intimacy questions are removed.
What happens if someone isn’t safe?
The assessment includes a private wellbeing check that only you ever see. If it suggests fear, control or harm, the coach won’t build a joint plan that could make things worse, and you’ll get support options privately. The other person is not told. There’s a Quick exit button on every page.
Who it’s for
Built for the situation you’re actually in.
- Separated or separating
- New parents
- The mental load
- Money arguments
- Rebuilding trust
- Long distance
- Blended families
- Parents and adult children
- Adult siblings
- Reconnecting after distance
- ADHD and autism
Co-parenting after separation
Messages, handovers and the children out of the middle — on your own if you need to.
Relationship help for new parents
Two-thirds of couples see their relationship dip after a baby.
Arguing about housework and the mental load
The noticing, planning and remembering are work.
Arguing about money with your partner
Money rows are meaning rows: security, freedom, fairness, control.
Rebuilding trust after it was broken
Atone, attune, attach — in that order.
Long-distance relationship help
Predictability beats spontaneity.
Blended and step-family help
Step-parents earn authority slowly, loyalty binds are normal, and the couple needs protected time.
Parents and adult children: repairing the relationship
Advice by invitation, strings named, hierarchy renegotiated.
Adult siblings: sharing the care, the money and the holidays
Old roles resurface under stress.
Reconnecting after family estrangement
About one in five UK families is touched by estrangement.
ADHD, autism and relationships
A parent–child dynamic creeps in when one partner becomes the reminder.
Start with twenty minutes, alone.
Your personal plan is ready the moment you finish. The shared one follows when everyone’s in.