In this article I would like to show how the difference in the level of personal development of spouses negatively affects pair interaction and how individual psychotherapy could help one of the spouses. In most cases, similar the difference lies not only in the typological characteristics of the personality of each of them, but also in the level of formation of the necessary personal abilities. The more developed the personality, the more successfully the person copes with life’s difficulties. Accordingly, the less developed a person’s personality, the faster he “breaks” under the influence of difficulties. One of these abilities is the ability to independently determine when a person needs help and seek it. That is, in fact, why in my practical work I pay great attention to personal development and, along with family counseling and psychotherapy, I conduct individual therapy and group classes on personal growth. A simple example of help from a family psychologist to a young couple. A young couple without children (the spouses have been together for 7 years) has had constant financial problems for the last five years. The man simply cannot find a stable job: either the income is unstable, or the income is insufficient to support the family, or, in general, there is no work at all. Tension is growing in the family - the wife is dissatisfied, complaining that it is difficult for her to provide an acceptable standard of living alone, and then the husband insists on realizing his fantasy of a threesome. Since such a relationship is unacceptable for a woman, she persuaded her husband to see a psychologist to resolve the acute situation. The main request was: “Tell me, what should we do?” To clarify the request, the family psychologist turned to the husband, how does he react to his wife’s proposal? The man responded with approval and support, because: “Previously there were no quarrels in the relationship.” On the one hand, from systemic family psychotherapy we know that a family psychologist is usually approached by the carrier of the symptom (a person who cannot cope with the situation), but in practice, it turns out that if one of the partners has a more developed personality and is able to assess that he needs help and seek it, then most likely this indicates health than its absence. In this couple, the woman’s personality is definitely better formed and turned out to be more developed. She has a stable job with average earnings, smooth relationships at work, and has close friends with whom she regularly meets and communicates. Despite life's difficulties, she maintains a positive attitude and is ready to consciously respond to emerging problems. Emotionally stable. He retains and maintains close, warm relationships with his mother and sister. She correctly assesses what suits her and what does not and maintains the firmness of her position. Why does she stay in this relationship? She grew up in a single-parent family and the value of a relationship with a man, even a psychologically unstable one, is high for her: “I love him.” In principle, she is happy with the relationship, since the couple has mutual understanding and love. However, it becomes difficult for her when she is faced with her husband’s “incomprehensible” desires, she begins to get nervous, and, accordingly, does not accept them, and her husband insists on translating them into reality. On the other hand, the husband does not have constant communication with friends - they meet on occasion or communication is limited only to interactions with work colleagues and wife. My husband grew up in a complete family. However, the husband’s relationship with his parental family is complex and conflict-ridden, which he experiences very hard. The main cycle of life follows the principle - work - home - work. There has been no stable work for the last five years. He is very worried about the inability to provide a decent financial level. However, anxiety is not conscious, as is tension due to conflicts with parents (only anger is conscious). After several clarifying questions, the man admits that it “is hard for him and there is tension.” However, it cannotdifferentiate anxiety, but emphasizes that thoughts about the future do not allow you to sleep peacefully at night, also poorly differentiates your own emotional states, and pays attention only to strong emotions. When discussing the topic of relationships with parents, he becomes emotional, speaks abruptly, the intonation of his voice rises noticeably, and his face changes. He began to fantasize about a threesome after some television program that amazed him: “I was pierced.” Fantasies are cyclical, they appear and disappear. As a rule, they appear at work when he is “on duty” and is forced to spend a lot of time alone. It is in solitude that, as a rule, obsessive fantasies appear, and this indicates that the level of anxiety increases, which is very typical. The meaning of the fantasies boils down to the fact that he is watching another man having sex with his wife. At the moment of fantasy, he experiences jealousy, fear that if this actually happens, the wife may become more interested in another man and leave him. However, when he imagines such a picture, then, along with negative experiences, he receives pleasure from what the other man is doing with his wife. Sometimes in his fantasies he simultaneously with another man takes possession of his woman: “... yes, oral and vaginal at the same time.” When I asked him how his wife might feel in this situation, he answered that he wanted her to be happy. Hypothetically, it can be assumed that the husband has pronounced sadomasochistic tendencies, which may indicate a lack of self-confidence and self-affirmation. Clarifying my assumptions, I asked the man how he assessed himself as a professional. To which he replied that from a professional point of view he is satisfied with his achievements, but notes that he is always “fixated” on something. However, the wife says that she does not feel any pleasure from such fantasies of her husband: “It turns out that he, as if he were a pimp, and I was, as it were, a prostitute, and he “puts” me under another man. I do not like it. Sometimes I think that if he doesn’t stop, then things may come to a divorce.” When I tried to clarify with the woman exactly what feelings were causing her unpleasant experience, she became withdrawn, which was a signal to me that she was very hurt by the current situation and could not openly express all her feelings next to her husband. When asked what was stopping her from saying exactly what feelings she was having, she replied that she was also not against something spicy, but within reason. In response to my comment, what feelings would I have in connection with this situation (anxiety: “what’s going on?”, the situation would seem unsafe to me: I would feel fear, think: “does my husband value me personally and our relationship” , “does he love me?”, that is, the basic motivations of the relationship would be at risk for me), she remained silent. However, I considered it necessary to clarify that perhaps the husband would not be so insistent on realizing his fantasies if he knew the true feelings of his wife and could understand why exactly she refuses to support him. In response to such a remark from the wife and my comment , the husband said that he is afraid of losing their relationship because he loves his wife and does not want her to be unpleasant, but cannot get rid of fantasies. Since the man himself was able to focus his problem, I was able to further narrow down the problem and emphasize that, indeed, it can be assumed that fantasies serve as a release (deflection is a mechanism for interrupting contact in Gestalt therapy), with the help of which he can somehow that time to get rid of stress and anxiety arising from real life events. The man clarified how anxiety manifests itself, I explained. After thinking, the man agreed that fantasies really save. Here we see a fairly common mechanism - the sexualization of anxiety. Accordingly,"