When couples come into my room, they usually arrive with a story. Communication has broken down. Desire has faded. One feels unseen, the other feels blamed. They’re tired of circling the same arguments and getting nowhere.

But I’m rarely listening only to what’s happening between them.

I’m looking at what’s standing behind them.

Almost every time, there’s more in the room than two people. Family of origin is always present, whether it’s acknowledged or not. Parents. Roles. Unfinished bonds. Invisible loyalties that shape how love moves – or gets blocked – in the relationship.

With men, I’m often looking first at the mother, and then at the father.

How close was he to his mother? Was he expected to take on adult responsibility too young? Did he become emotionally responsible for her wellbeing? Did closeness come with pressure? And just as importantly – was his father present enough for him to turn toward, identify with, and receive strength and direction from?

When the bond between father and son is strong, something important happens in adult relationships. The man stands more firmly in himself. He knows who he is and where he belongs. He doesn’t need his partner to hold him up emotionally or confirm his worth. He brings presence rather than pressure.

That strengthens polarity in the couple.

The woman feels met rather than burdened. The relationship becomes adult-to-adult. Desire has space to return. Respect flows more naturally. There’s less confusion about roles and less unconscious power struggle.

When that bond with the father is weak, absent, or unresolved, the man often carries uncertainty he can’t explain. He may withdraw, become defensive, or unconsciously place the woman in a position of authority over him. None of this is deliberate. It’s inherited. And the couple feels it.

With women, I’m looking closely at the father as well — how love was given, whether she felt chosen, protected, or emotionally alone — but there’s another layer I see just as often, and it runs even deeper.

Women rejecting their own female line.

Many women separate from their mothers early. Sometimes because the mother was overwhelmed. Sometimes because the girl decided she had to be different to survive – stronger, more capable, less emotional, less needy.

“I’m nothing like her.”
“I won’t live her life.”
“I had to grow up fast.”

What’s often rejected isn’t just the mother, but the feminine itself. Not consciously. Not intentionally. But in the body.

Later, this shows up as fatigue, anxiety, living in the head, constant thinking and managing, holding everything together – and very commonly, a loss of sexual desire. These women are often highly competent and deeply exhausted.

When a woman is able to take in her mother – not by approving of everything she did or rewriting history, but by allowing her a place – something settles. Her body softens. She stops bracing against life. She stops carrying everything alone.

And time and time again, I hear how desire returns.

The relationship strengthens because her partner is no longer asked to fill the gap left by the rejected female line.

These dynamics aren’t limited to heterosexual couples.

In same-sex couples, I’m not looking at gender – I’m looking at position.

Who is carrying responsibility?
Who is holding the emotional load?
Who was expected to grow up too early?
Who learned to manage others, stay strong, or disappear?

Family of origin shapes same-sex relationships in exactly the same way. One partner may unconsciously take on a parental role while the other responds from a younger place. When that happens, desire drops and resentment builds – not because love is gone, but because the relationship has slipped out of adult-to-adult.

Polarity strengthens when neither partner is standing in for a parent.

When both people are able to separate emotionally from their parents and stand in their own adult place, the relationship settles. Love flows without obligation. Closeness no longer comes with pressure.

The female line still matters here too. I see women in same-sex relationships who have rejected their mother or the feminine line, and the same patterns show up – fatigue, anxiety, living in the head, carrying too much, and far too much intellectualising. When that line is taken back in, the relationship stabilises because the partner is no longer carrying what belongs to the family system.

Across all couples, I see the same pattern again and again. A man who hasn’t fully separated from his mother and hasn’t fully received his father. A woman who has distanced herself from her mother and learned to rely only on herself. Or two partners unknowingly repeating parental roles with each other.

Both are strong.
Both are capable.
Both are tired.

Neither can fully relax into the relationship.

This is why couples can work endlessly on communication in talking therapies and still feel stuck. They’re trying to solve a present-day problem while something much older is running the dynamic.

When these family patterns are seen – without blame and without over-analysis – something reorganises. Men move forward when they no longer look back toward their mother. Women soften when they stop rejecting where they came from. Partners step out of parental roles they never chose.

The relationship no longer has to carry generations of unfinished business.

This is the impact of family of origin.

It shapes how love flows. It determines whether a relationship becomes a meeting between two adults – or a place where old roles are replayed.

This work isn’t about fixing couples.

It’s about restoring order.

When each person stands in the right place in their family system, the relationship doesn’t have to work so hard. It doesn’t have to compensate. It doesn’t have to repair the past.

It can finally be what it’s meant to be.

A meeting of two souls.