Zoya Mesaric
Most couples think they argue about sex or money. Yet, in many relationships, those are only the symptoms. What they are genuinely struggling with is recognition — the need to feel seen, heard, and safe without losing themselves in the process. In couples and sex psychotherapy, I see again and again that love rarely ends in chaos. It ends in silence, in the slow erosion of words. When both partners feel misunderstood, and yet neither knows how to speak without starting a war.
Many relationships carry an invisible agreement, which I call an "unconscious contract". It is neither written nor spoken, yet both people follow it as if it were law. It determines who apologizes first, who withdraws, who takes care, who controls, and what love is supposed to cost.
Even if you are not married, you might have signed one too. It is quiet: "I will stay small if you do not leave." The unspoken: "I will take care of everything if you love me back." The internal: "I will pretend I am fine if that keeps the peace." These contracts are not logical; they are emotional, formed in our earliest attachments, long before we had language for them. Through "repetition", we unconsciously recreate the emotional conditions of early love, trying to repair in the present what could not be fixed in the past.
They originate in our earliest relationships, long before we had language for them
"If we do not talk about it, it cannot hurt us."
Both partners avoid conflict to maintain peace. However, peace without honesty is merely distance with better manners.
Both partners avoid conflict
"If I do enough, you will stay."
Love becomes something to earn. One gives, pleases, and over-functions; the other grows passive. The relationship starts to feel efficient but empty.
"If I fix you, I matter."
This contract is driven by anxiety and control. One partner assumes the role of savior, psychotherapist, parent, or the one who knows best. It looks caring, but it is a defense against helplessness. The rescuer cannot bear the other's pain without trying to erase it, because it stirs their own unresolved fear of failure or abandonment.
This contract is driven by anxiety and control
"You keep me safe; I will keep us stable."
Here, one partner becomes the emotional regulator for both. The caretaker's identity depends on being needed; the dependent partner unconsciously maintains fragility to preserve attachment. The result is pseudo-intimacy: closeness without equality. The caretaker eventually collapses under the weight of being indispensable.
"If I cannot reach you, I will control you."
When tenderness feels dangerous or unmet, aggression becomes a form of communication. Violence, whether physical, emotional, or verbal, is often a desperate attempt to re-establish connection when recognition has failed. It is the point where longing and terror collapse into one: "If I cannot make you love me, I will make you fear losing me." In psychoanalytic terms, this is the return of the repressed, the eruption of early, unmentalized rage that once had no witness.
Violence in relationships is not only an act of domination; it can often be a symptom of despair, a language of collapse when recognition feels impossible. It shows where language has broken down completely, where the contract has become unbearable.
When tenderness feels dangerous or unmet, aggression becomes a form of communication
These patterns do not mean love has failed. They mean the past has entered the present. The child who once had to perform for attention now performs for love. The one who feared conflict now fears honesty. The one who learned to fix others now feels safest with those who are broken.
Psychoanalytically, this is called "repetition compulsion", the drive to recreate earlier pain, hoping this time it will end differently. This is why so many couples find themselves in the same fights, even with different partners. It is not self-sabotage; it is the psyche's attempt at mastery, turning trauma into understanding.
We repeat what hurts
Healing does not happen when couples stop fighting. It begins when they start understanding why they fight the way they do. When "You never listen" becomes "I feel invisible." When "You are distant" becomes "I am afraid you no longer need me." That is when the unconscious contract begins to loosen. Couples psychotherapy helps partners find that language again, to turn emotion into meaning instead of accusation. Because communication is not simply talking; it is recognizing the person across from you as real, not as the projection of one's own wounds.
Moreover, when sexual problems arise, as they often do, we work with them too. However, difficulties in the erotic field are rarely isolated. They are part of a more complex emotional system, revealing where desire has been replaced by fear, routine, or the residue of unspoken resentment. Sexual issues rarely stand alone; they are often the body's way of expressing where the relationship has fallen silent.
When love speaks again
Awareness doesn’t rewrite the past, but it changes how we love in the present. There is no new contract, only awareness. When partners begin to recognize the invisible rules that govern their love, the dynamic itself begins to change. Honesty replaces performance; dialogue replaces defense. Love is not the absence of conflict; it is the capacity to stay in it without destruction. To speak even when silence feels safer. To see the other clearly and remain present, even when the truth hurts.
Love endures not through harmony but through honesty, through the slow, humbling work of learning what our desire, our fear, and our need for recognition have always tried to say.
About the author
Psychotherapist at Siffi
Zoya Mesaric is a psychoanalyst in training, executive coach, writer, and speaker. She offers trauma-informed psychotherapy and executive coaching, helping individuals and teams thrive without burnout. Zoya writes for Elle and recently spoke at the World Congress for Psychotherapy in Vienna on how trauma, sexuality, and identity shape the way we live, work, and lead.
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