Okay, that's good for these two people that they can do their own thing and the other will follow. But, for a lot of us, our partners don't always want to follow and, out there in life, a lot of people just go their own way and never follow each other at all and, of course, eventually divorce.
In the story about the acrobats, as much as I can remember it, there is a man acrobat and a young fella who's his junior partner. They're training, the man is underneath with the partner on his shoulders, and the man says, "Now listen, you take care of me and I'll take care of you and in that way we're going to have a great acrobatic team." The young fella knew a bit better and said to the acrobat man "Wait a minute, I'll watch myself really well, you watch yourself really well, and in that way we're going to be a great team."
One of the main purposes of this practice, the essence of this practice, is that we're going to watch ourselves; we're going to develop ourselves. In so doing, we become an example for other people. We will help people around us if we're an example. If we don't develop ourselves but try to develop everybody else all the time, saying, "You should this, you should do better, you should do that, you know, you know," it won't work. If we try all the time to point out flaws and tell others they should improve, but we don't develop ourselves, then the two people in the relationship will both be pointing at each other and saying to each other, "You improve and I'll be happy. You improve and I'll be happy." It just won't work right. But if this person improves themself and that person improves themself, then won't that automatically make the other person happy? Yes, it will.
Now with regards to your meditation practice if you have a partner, it's very common that one person just does not feel like meditating one night. Are you going to join them in not feeling like it that night, or go ahead, sit and let them go to sleep early? That's okay. We don't have to force them to join us, but it is important that they take responsibility for their actions. Rosemary and I don't always have perfect time synchronization for going to sleep, so one of us may go to bed early. Then, we shut the curtains, we put the light in a certain way, etc. It's fine. It's not something we have to force the other person to join us with all the time. But, in general, you do have to be going in the same direction. This is very real, that if you're a practitioner and you want to develop and grow, your partner's going to have to be developing and growing, also. That goes into more of what's called the four qualities that are needed for a relationship to work and that's another question someone may want to ask later.