The application provides a receiving method in cooperative communications. A signal-receiving node demodulates a first signal received from a local end to obtain a first log-likelihood ratio. The signal-receiving node further demodulates a second signal received from a relay node to obtain a second log-likelihood ratio. The second signal is a signal obtained by the relay node through network coding the first signal and a third signal received from a peer end. The signal-receiving node calculates a prior log-likelihood ratio according to the first log-likelihood ratio and the second log-likelihood ratio, and decodes the second signal by using the prior log-likelihood ratio to obtain the third signal.