How are complementary pairs formed? If a person has endured a certain neurosis from a parent-child relationship, then he will find a person in a relationship with whom this neurosis will be constantly updated, or more precisely, he will find the same neurotic, and they will not be able to avoid getting hurt by each other.. If one of them becomes unbearable, then he will go to deal with his own relationships, and in the end he will heal his neurosis, and will either be able to harmonize existing relationships, or build new ones, in which there will no longer be such a need to update unresolved parent-child issues. Complementary couples are those couples who, in their marital relationships, reproduce their unresolved problems in their parental families, often their needs addressed to the partner are actually addressed to parental figures, and above all this is the need for recognition, acceptance and unconditional love, which a marriage partner cannot satisfy, because in a partnership there are completely different tasks, and these tasks involve the exchange and complementarity of two adults. But there may be others, as described in this case from practice, the problems of a man and a woman have a certain character and fit into each other, like puzzles, forming a certain relationship. A couple comes for a consultation; he comes from a family where there is an overbearing, suppressive mother, towards whom there are many retroflexed (unexpressed, directed towards oneself) various feelings, next to this mother, according to the law of the genre, is a weak drunkard father. And she, she has a controlling dad, who has a lot of expectations and anger towards his daughter if she doesn’t live up to these expectations, and she, of course, will never be able to justify them, accordingly, she also has a lot of different retroflexed feelings towards her dad. And so they meet each other and a relationship between two people begins, where there is no experience of close relationships and genuine interest and acceptance of the other as another, it is impossible to express feelings to each other, there is no understanding of how to talk about what is significant for each of them, and there is, in addition, on his part the fear of becoming “henpecked,” and on her part, protection and fear of control from men. And the real “dance of daffodils” begins, where it is difficult not to get hurt by each other and it is very difficult to get close, while there is an unconscious fear that if the other finds out what he really is, the other will refuse him. (“It’s scary to lose parents”). These people have reached therapy and they have a real chance to change their relationship within the couple or end their unresolved problems from an early relationship and understand that they both need another partner. The choice always remains with the couple, but I am for the opportunity to find resources for the couple that would allow them to maintain their current relationship. The goal of therapy will be to understand each of them's own family histories, to understand that many of the expectations and defenses towards each other are actually directed towards parental figures and to work with this in therapy, to develop retroflexive ways of dealing with one's feelings around another person, to work with the fear of presenting yourself in a relationship, without the fear of losing the other, establishing communication within a couple (how to talk about the significant needs of the other in order to be heard, listen and hear), working with the fear of control in relationships, moving away from the struggle for power in relationships to cooperation and mutual understanding and reaching a compromise. Author of the article: Kovalenko Raisa - psychologist, gestalt therapist