Let us present several brief vignettes illustrating changes within a couple and invite you to reflect on this type of interaction.

Example:

The husband's unconscious shift from the role of the sexually dominant and excited male penetrating his wife and symbolically enacting the loving and sexually accepting father to the role of the satisfied infant who has been nourished by mother, symbolically represented by the woman who has given him the gift of her orgasm. He may then become the dependent child of a maternal woman who tucks him in, feeds him, and puts him to sleep or he may actively shift into a fatherly role toward a dependent daughter by repairing a broken lamp, which she cannot (or pretends she cannot) do.

Or:

The wife may shift from the role of adult sexual partner to dependent daughter of a protective mother, or to that of the motherly woman who feeds her little boy-man. Or she may become the guilty little girl who is seduced into sex by a sadistic father; or she is "raped" in her fantasy during sexual intercourse, thus confirming her lack of guilt for sexual enjoyment; or she may ashamedly exhibit herself, thus expiating her sexual pleasure while obtaining the gratification of being admired by the man who loves her.

Or:

A man may shift from guilt-ridden little boy being scolded by a perfectionistic mother to the envious little boy watching the mysteries of adult female concerns and interests. Or he may become resentful of a woman's dedication to her profession or to their baby because he feels like a neglected child, the counterpart to a woman's unconscious resentment of her husband's professional success because it reactivates early envy of men.

Such variability reflects the psychological flexibility of each partner and the richness of the couple’s inner life, as it simultaneously contains love and hate—that is, the integration of aggression within a loving relationship.

Dr. Otto Kernberg, M.D., when describing these situations, emphasizes that shifts in roles within a couple do not in themselves indicate pathology (despite a certain regressive quality of some roles). On the contrary, situations in which partners are able to move between different roles—at times active, at times dependent, at times caring—reflect psychological mobility and a relative integration of object relations. This role variability may include regressive, aggressive, or infantile elements, but as long as flexibility is preserved, it is not destructive to the couple.

Risk emerges, however, when role dynamics lose flexibility and turn into rigid fixation, with partners locked into stable complementary positions. According to Kernberg, it is precisely this rigidity that leads to typical chronic conflicts, such as:

- the dependent, clinging, love-hungry woman and the narcissistic, indifferent, self-centered man; 

- the dominant, powerful, and controlling woman who wants an adult man as her partner and feels frustrated by her insecure, childlike boy-man, having difficulty perceiving the self-perpetuating nature of their relationship. 

- the "sex-hungry" man who cannot understand the limited sexual interest of his wife. 

- the guilty partner and the accusatory one in all their variations.

Rigid role fixations usually reflect enactments of underlying dissociated scenarios and an incapacity to accept or carry out the functions of discontinuity related to oedipal guilt or narcissistic fixations. 

Such rigidity—rather than the mere presence of infantile or perverse fantasies—leads to chronic conflict, mutual frustration, and repetitive patterns of suffering. In these situations, partners become unable to move flexibly between roles.

Thus, the key criterion is not the specific content of the roles, but the degree to which they are fixed. Flexible, reversible shifts between roles are relatively normative, whereas rigid stabilization of roles points to a pathological pattern of object relations.

For the therapist, it is essential not only to notice these roles but also to understand which aspects of object relations the patient is reenacting, what unconscious function these roles serve, and what exactly becomes the source of suffering. Awareness of these processes opens the way to deeper therapeutic work — both in couple therapy and in individual treatment.

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(c) Yuliia Holopiorova,

Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy