Bleach 569 Spoiler

Nimaiya asked ichigo and renji about their relationship with their zampakuto and gave many alternatives all of which implied different degrees of closeness or intimacy. However each and every one of those is wrong. Treating a zampakuto as your friend, lover or anything of the sort makes no sense within the context of a zampakuto. Nimaiya asked the question of what came first, the shinigami or the zampakuto. Ichigo found the answer when he said "I won't ask for your power, I won't ask for your strength...." and all that stuff. Its not that ichigo suddenly turned into an asshole who forgot everything but rather the realization that neither comes first, they are all the same. Zangetsu's power is ichigo's, zangetsu is ichigo. That does not mean ichigo does not need to maintain a good relationship, it means that the only coherent way to treat a zampakuto is as it is an actual and inherent part of you. So, what should the relationship be for them? Zampakuto are born from the soul of a shinigami and realisitically speaking they do not have to conform to any social norms. Its a relationship in which there will never be anyone else involved no matter what. So in light of this I don't think the relationship being adversarial is necessarily a bad thing, the thing here is paying attention and getting to know the zampakuto. Even when shirosaki was taking over during the vizard training he didn't give ichigo a straight up "fuck you".

Even back then shirosaki made it clear that he was more than willing to cooperate with ichigo provided ichigo wasn't a wuss about to die. His threat was that if ichigo ever tripped he'd take over however in context the implication there was that shirosaki will follow ichigo as long as ichigo is worth following. Being that there are no social norms within an individuals' soul I would argue relationships with a zampakuto can take a myriad of perfectly valid forms without necessarily resembling friendship or love.