A variational principle of maximal decoupling between the collective and noncollective subspaces has recently been proposed to pin down the collective degrees of freedom of the nuclear many-body problem. This maximal-decoupling variational principle is further utilized here to determine in an optimal way the auxiliary Hamiltonians to be used in severely truncated boson-space calculations for nuclear collective motions. In the present method one treats the spurious-state problem in truncated boson-space calculations by using appropriate auxiliary boson Hamiltonians. The viability of the method is demonstrated through its application to a simplified shell model containing only the monopole pairing interactions.