From the author: A violent relationship in a couple is always a choice of two. The horror of tyranny is always a way to realize some important psychological needs of both partners. The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea ends, at first glance, happily. Carved from ivory by a sculptor’s chisel and revived by the will of Aphrodite, the girl becomes the queen of Cyprus. However, troubles begin where the sculptor’s material is not a hard tusk, but the living soul of another person.***They are both closer to thirty...First he called and he said that he wanted to send his wife to me. There's nothing wrong with him. And how does such nonsense come to my mind, how to offer a consultation to him himself. The wife needs to be corrected. And then there is a list of requirements that need to be done. And how. I politely interrupt. I answer that if anyone wants to contact me for a consultation, then they are welcome. You just have to call yourself. Voluntarily. And on their own initiative. Usually no one calls back. And then, surprisingly, there was a call. Record. Moreover, she came! “I’m bad!” And I can’t do anything about it.” - a waterfall of tears, bitter, sincere, hot. Not a bit fake. All her life she has been trying to live up to someone else's expectations. First, a strict mother - a responsible party worker, who at the end of her career found herself in the perestroika bind. Why has she become even more inconsistent and harsh in her messages. Then HIM - a demanding and stern husband who has been trying in vain for twelve years to “make a man out of his wife.” She came to me for a consultation because he thought it would be good for her. This will help her grow above herself and become what he wants her to be. After all, then he will love her. And this is where the problem lies. Instead of doing what he wants and “growing above herself,” for some reason (really, why would she?) “breaks down” all the time - she quits her newly found job, stops taking care of the house, and goes on a binge. And instead of “earning” love, she constantly provokes aggression and discontent from her husband. Without meaning to. The girl’s own “sabotage” is not obvious. She doesn't understand herself. It seems to her that her breakdowns are spontaneous, and stem from the “badness” of her nature. However, this is why I exist, to serve as a “mirror” to her strategies, to show what is happening and why. Awareness of strategy gives power over it. A person gains the freedom to change his behavior. And one of the reasons for a girl’s “breakdowns” is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to earn love. The need to “earn” someone’s favor all the time causes unconscious aggression. There is no better way to provoke someone’s resistance than to edifyingly say: “You should be like this.” However, the problem would have a chance to be resolved if the girl risked first admitting herself and then showing her anger towards her husband (of course , it’s safer to do this not with a real person, but in the space of a psychotherapeutic consultation). And through the manifestation of this anger, symbolically become equal to your husband, recognize your own adulthood. However, at the same time, such recognition means that it is no longer possible to receive love in the old familiar way. This means that the girl will have to grow up. Take the risk of becoming yourself, overcoming the fear of losing the love and approval of those closest to you. And finding yourself without this support (and this is partly inevitable), maintain inner stability, love and sympathy for yourself. To go through a process that the girl is so afraid of that she prefers to torture herself and meet the neurotic expectations of her husband, supporting her own neurosis and her own ill health for this. The benefit of refusing to grow up for both participants in this story is that neurosis is capable of welding their union together long years. But maturation can be completely destabilized and even destroyed... In a word, as soon as the girl began to change, the strict husband immediately called me back with criticism that I was treating his wife “wrong”, she became completely insubordinate. And again he began to “bring it into compliance.”…