How Together works

Before you start: what this is

Two people, one shared thread, and a coach that reads what you both wrote and answers into the middle of it. It is not therapy, not mediation and not a crisis service, and it will not tell you who is right. What it does is slow a conversation down enough that you can each hear the other one — see what Together is for the longer version, and what it costs.

Both of you need a paid plan, and the two permissions are not the same: joining a conversation is the cheaper one, and opening one generally needs the tier above it — though a newer account can open one during its own first month. You only meet that once, at the moment it matters, and the app names the cheapest plan that unblocks you rather than the most expensive one.

1. One of you creates the link

Whoever starts it opens Together and taps Create a link. You give the conversation a name, then answer a few short safety questions. It is quick, and it all happens before anyone else is involved. (What you actually want to talk about is asked later, at the start of each sitting, rather than pinned once at the top.)

At the end you get a short code. Only the person who opens the conversation answers those questions — this part is one-sided on purpose, and the other person does not repeat it.

2. You send them the code

The code travels however you already talk to each other — a message, an email, read out loud across a table. Haven does not send it for you and never asks for their email address, so nothing is delivered to anyone until you decide to hand it over.

Until they use it, the conversation sits waiting. You are not stuck in the meantime: you can already talk to the coach on your own side while it waits.

3. They accept it

They open Together on their own account, tap Accept a link, and paste the code. Pasting a code they were deliberately given joins them straight away — they already know whose conversation it is, because you handed it to them.

An invitation opened as a link works differently, and on purpose: before anything is joined it names whose conversation it is and offers two real choices — accept, or decline — and closing the screen does neither. That check exists because a forwarded link used to be a one-tap accident, where the first thing the wrong person learned about whose conversation it was came after their name was already written into a thread nobody can edit.

4. You both agree how to use it

Before the shared thread opens, each of you sees the same short agreement — plus up to a couple of house rules you can each add, like "no bringing up last summer" or "we stop at eleven."

Both lists are visible to both of you. A rule the other person cannot see would be a trap rather than an agreement, so there is no private half here. Both of you press Agree; then the shared thread opens.

5. You talk, with the coach in the middle

You take turns. The coach reads what you have both written and answers into the shared thread, so neither of you has to repeat or re-explain the other one. Both of you see every word of that half.

6. Your private word stays private

Alongside the shared thread, each of you has a private side with the coach. The other person never sees it — not what you wrote, and not that you wrote anything at all. It is where you can say the version you are not ready to say out loud yet, and get help shaping it before it goes in the middle.

If you have a therapist connected to your Haven account, they do not see any of this either. A Together conversation is not something the sharing surface can reach at all — not the shared half, and not your private side — see how private Haven is.

7. Leaving, and coming back

Leaving is a real decision, not closing a window, which is why the control says Leave. It writes a line into the shared thread saying you left — so it is never a silent exit — and it gives up your seat.

If the conversation is still open you can take your seat back later. If nobody ever accepted the invitation, leaving closes it for good. And if you just want to step back to your own private reflections for a while, that is a different thing entirely: switch to Solo, keep your seat, and tell nobody.

What Together will not do

• It will not decide who is right, or whether you should stay together.
• It will not carry a message from one of you to the other — the shared thread is the only shared part.
• It will not show either of you the other's private side, ever.
• It is not therapy, mediation, or a crisis service.

If it stops feeling safe

Every Together screen carries a support-lines link. It opens real help in a new tab — the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and the domestic violence line, because in a conversation between two people the danger may be the other person. Opening it announces nothing to them.

If you are afraid of the person you would be inviting, this is the wrong tool, and no set of house rules fixes that. In the US, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.

Common questions