The Strange Logic of Love

The Hidden Function of Symptoms:

What if the things that bother us most — in ourselves or in the people we love — are not simply problems to remove, but the very things holding everything together?

In psychoanalysis, the symptom is not simply a fault. It is the way a person’s system holds together. It is what organises their psychic structure.

I often like to use the metaphor of ugly duct tape covering a leak. Seeing it may disturb you. But if you tear it off before understanding its role, you may end up flooding the whole house.

The Symptoms of Everyday Life:

Most people jump to judgement when they meet someone — a partner, for instance — and quickly focus on what bothers them. Others remain on the surface.

Yet a symptom can also be something quite ordinary… Always needing reassurance. Overthinking small situations. Keeping everything perfectly organised. Avoiding conflict. Throwing oneself entirely into work, a hobby, or even into a relationship.

Which brings us to today’s theme: the partner as a symptom.

When a Partner Becomes the Duct Tape:

Seen through this lens, what people often call “dysfunctional” in a relationship may actually be what sustains it.

A partner can function like that piece of duct tape — something that bothers them to a certain extent, yet something they remain attached to.

Most people know a friend who regularly complains about their partner or their marriage. And yet, ten years later, they are still together.

What irritates someone the most is often closely tied to what first drew them in.

The Attraction of Opposites:

Take a simple example.

A meticulous person who likes everything tidy unexpectedly falls for someone delightfully chaotic.

At first the disorder seems charming. Later, once they move in together, arguments begin about where things belong and who should do what.

Yet they remain strangely glued to each other.

So how does this operate in relationships?

What do people unconsciously seek?

What We Seek in Love:

Individuals do not enter love with what they have, so much as with what they lack. As the phrase often suggests, to love is to wish to be loved.

In that sense, people seek to be loved precisely where they feel their leaks are — the place where the duct tape covers something fragile.

Not for the well-functioning façade they present.

If love were truly sustained by the façade alone, movie stars, singers, and influencers would be the happiest people on earth.

Yet many things suggest otherwise.

The Dance of Love:

A simple, perhaps slightly cliché, vignette can illustrate this.

For some reason — call it X — Person A is looking for a partner who can provide.

In love-terms this becomes:

If my partner provides, they love me. Then I feel loved.

For another reason — call it Y — Person B is looking for someone to provide for.

In love-terms this becomes:

If I provide for my partner, they will love me. Then I feel loved.

Fate, Tinder, Cupid — take your pick.

Person A meets Person B.

A match is made.

The circuit runs.

A asks and B provides.

Both feel loved.

When the Dance Breaks:

But life continues. People evolve. Symptoms shift.

Person A may begin to want more independence.

Person B may no longer want their worth to depend on providing.

And then the squeaks, leaks, and slips begin.

Person B might say:

“You only love me because of what I have, not because of who I am.”

“I’m a person, not a wallet.”

Person A might respond:

“I don’t want an allowance. I want to feel held.”

“You buy things so you don’t have to be here.”

At that point the relationship begins leaking again.

It may evolve. Reinvent itself. Find a new arrangement that allows it to continue.

Or it may break.

Our X’s and Our Y’s:

And when it breaks, if neither partner understands the X or the Y that structured their meeting in the first place, guilt, anxiety, and insecurity often rush in to fill the gap.

There is, perhaps, something strangely beautiful about relationships.

Even when they are difficult, or gloriously singular, they offer a chance to learn something about ourselves.

Our symptoms.

Our X’s (our exes).

And our Y’s (our whys).

A Different Way to Look at Love:

I tend to think this sheds a slightly different light on the phrases people often use in love.

My other half.

My life.

My loved one.

Perhaps it is less about possessing the other and more about recognising that the partner sets in motion parts of ourselves that we do not yet fully understand.

So if you take anything from this, let it simply be a playful invitation to look differently at what bothers you in love. Just perhaps keep it to yourself.

Otherwise people might start introducing their partner not as “my love”, but as “my symptom.”