Revisiting the sadomasochistic marriage: the paranoid-masochistic relationship

The sadomasochistic marriage is thought to be very resistant to change because of the object relations of each member of a couple as well as the sadomasochistic dynamics within the couple. However, the picture may be even more complex because there are times when a psychoanalytic therapist may mistakenly believe he or she is treating a sadomasochistic couple when the couple actually is functioning in a paranoid-masochistic relationship. The present paper reexamines the sadomasochistic marriage by revisiting the work of Nydes, who formulated the concept of paranoid-masochism in individuals and contrasted it to the more commonly understood sadomasochist dynamic. This paper applies his concepts to couples: Just as we understand some couples to be sadomasochistic, other couples may have paranoid-masochistic dynamics, which may require a somewhat different kind of understanding and technical approach than the dynamics of a sadomasochistic couple at the same level of object relations. This may be the reason why some marriages, misdiagnosed as sadomasochistic, are even more difficult to treat than others, because they might be more accurately treated as paranoid-masochistic.