The relationship with the other
Love, couples, parents, children, siblings, friends: the bonds in which we find ourselves and in which, sometimes, we lose ourselves.
Much of our suffering takes a relational form. What hurts us is not only what happens to us, but also the way others are, or are not, there beside us.
The way we love, argue or separate today bears the traces of our first bonds. Not because the past is a life sentence, but because what could not be understood at the time repeats itself so that it can, in the end, be understood. At the practice we will try to discover together what comes from further back, from our primary relationships, from traumas we are not aware of, what we unconsciously seek in the other and what we avoid. You can come alone or with your partner.
Love relationships
I love someone who doesn’t love me
An unrequited love hurts twice: because the other does not respond, and because it awakens an older question: “am I worthy of love?” Sometimes we are drawn precisely to those who cannot be present: from them we try to win what we lacked, long ago, in childhood. We give them everything and, in the end, we are left with nothing. Understanding this helps you take back what you have put into the other and make room for a love that responds to you.
I keep repeating the same story
Different people, the same story: an intense beginning, the feeling that this time it’s different, then the same disappointment. Without knowing it, we choose partners with whom we can play out the same old story again, in the hope that this time it will end differently. Or that we will understand and accept. Love and disappointment →
I can’t get into a relationship, or stay in one
You long for closeness and, at the same time, closeness frightens you. Being close can mean losing yourself in the other; being apart, remaining unbearably alone. Caught between these two fears, relationships end before they begin. Solitude can be a choice; but when it isn’t, it deserves to be understood.
When a couple drifts apart
We always argue about the same thing
The same argument, with different pretexts: money, housework, the children, who decides. An argument that keeps coming back is not about its subject, but about something that cannot be said directly: the need to be seen, not to carry everything alone any more. Sometimes each sees the other through the eyes of an older story, and the argument is really taking place between each partner’s ghosts. Couples counselling →
We live side by side, but we are no longer together
You only talk about logistics, each of you lives in your own world, and being alone together can be harder than being truly alone. The distance does not come from a lack of love, but from an accumulation of unspoken fears, unforgiven disappointments, anger covered over by silence. Distance can also be an unspoken pact: each keeps the other at a distance from a part of themselves that frightens them. Silence shields the relationship from conflict, but also from closeness, and so, slowly, drains it of life. Couples counselling →
Our families come between us
Parents or in-laws who always have an opinion, a partner who cannot set a limit with their own family. Each person brings into the couple invisible loyalties to the family they come from. Building a new family means separating from the old one without betraying it, a path we have to learn to walk.
Sexuality and intimacy
I no longer feel desire
Desire does not disappear without reason. Sometimes it withdraws after distance has set in, or after a wound that was never spoken. At other times the partner becomes “family”: tenderness grows, but desire needs a certain distance, an other who does not wholly belong to you. A lack of desire can say something about the relationship, but also about you: tiredness, sadness, grief, or an anger that finds no other way to be expressed.
I can’t reach orgasm
Pleasure asks for a certain surrender: letting go of control for a moment and giving yourself over to the other. For some people it is precisely this surrender that is difficult, because of shame, a guilt learned long ago, the fear of losing yourself, or experiences that have left their mark. Sometimes desire is not missing, but is stopped by an inner judge who forbids and punishes in advance. And the body says what words cannot say. The first step is a medical consultation; the second, a place where all this can be talked about without shame.
We can’t speak the language of the body
Some partners understand each other well in words and lose each other in intimacy. The body has its own language, learned very early: how we were held and looked at, what we learned about pleasure and about shame. In a couple, each person comes with their own dialect. Understanding yours and the other’s, without guilt and without judgement, can open a path that words alone cannot. Couples counselling →
When a relationship breaks down
Jealousy is poisoning my relationship
Checking the phone, questions that never stop, the constant fear that the other will leave. Some jealousy is part of any love. Some comes from an older fear of abandonment, or from our own desires, which we do not acknowledge and see instead in the other. When you understand where it comes from, jealousy loses its power.
My partner cheated on me
Finding out that you have been cheated on shakes not only your trust in the other, but also your trust in yourself. Beyond the injustice of the betrayal, an even deeper wound opens: that you were not enough. What is more, it echoes the very old pain of being left out by two others. Healing takes time; the path cannot be shortened, and it should not be walked without help. Infidelity →
I love two people
Loving two people is not only a moral dilemma. It is often a way of not choosing: between loyalty and desire, between security and life, between two parts of yourself that do not fit into the same relationship. Counselling does not judge and does not decide for you; it helps you understand what you are looking for in each of the two bonds. Infidelity →
I don’t know whether to stay or leave
Loving and being angry with the same person, wanting to leave and fearing the emptiness: this ambivalence does not mean that something is wrong with you, but that the bond is both precious and painful. The decision is yours. Counselling helps you make it with greater clarity, not out of confusion, guilt or fear. Breakup →
My partner left me
A breakup you did not choose strikes twice: you lose the person and, with them, part of your image of yourself. The phone you keep checking, the unanswered questions, the impossibility of forgetting show that a part of you has not yet accepted the departure. Only once the loss has been mourned can love let go of the one who has left. Breakup → · Grief and loss →
The relationship is hurting me, but I can’t leave
Criticism, control, the feeling that you are always the one to blame, and yet you can’t leave, or you go back every time. It is not weakness. We are often bound not to what is good for us, but to what is familiar: a painful bond can seem more bearable than emptiness. But what is understood can, slowly, be transformed.
I am afraid of my partner
When there is violence in a relationship, whether physical, verbal, economic or psychological, couples counselling is not the right setting. The first step is your safety, and I can help you find the right resources. If you are in immediate danger, call 112.
Relationships with others
I can no longer talk to my parents
Ageing parents, roles that are reversed, old reproaches left unspoken, the need to please them even at forty. We separate from our parents not when we leave home, but when we can see them as they are: neither idealised nor to blame for everything. Only then does it become possible to talk to them again.
My child has grown distant from me
The child who no longer talks to you, the adolescent who slams the door, the adult child who has moved far away or chosen something other than what you would have wished. Letting your child go without losing them is one of the hardest tasks a parent faces; it often awakens the memory of your own separations. The child → · The adolescent →
I have fallen out with my brother or sister
The rivalry that never died down, the inheritance that divided you, the brother or sister who was always said to be “fine”, or, on the contrary, to be the family’s problem. Siblings are our first rivals and our first allies: between them they share out their parents’ love, places and possessions and, later on, the worries. When the healthy sibling becomes invisible →
My friends have drifted away
A friendship that has cooled without explanation, loneliness among people, the difficulty of getting close to someone or keeping them close. Paradoxically, the capacity to be alone without feeling abandoned is learned in someone’s presence; it is also what makes it possible to get close to others without the fear of losing yourself. It is worth asking not only what has happened with the others, but also how you are with them.
I am shy
You want to be among people and yet you withdraw: you don’t say what you think, you don’t take the first step, you feel watched and judged. Shyness can conceal a strong desire to be seen and appreciated, of which you are, at the same time, ashamed. Understanding it can give you the courage to show yourself as you are. Anxiety →
Relationships at work are wearing me down
A boss in front of whom you feel like a child again, a colleague who occupies your thoughts even after hours, a team in which tensions are never spoken about directly. We bring our old relationships to work too: with authority, with rivalry, with the need for recognition. When a relationship at work affects you more than it should, it is usually touching something older. Burnout →
If what you are looking for has more to do with your growth as a leader or with achieving specific goals and projects, we can work together within the framework of systemic coaching.
If you recognise yourself here, write to me →
Who it is for
- Anyone who feels that an important relationship hurts: individual counselling, without the other person present
- Couples: come together, both partners
What my experience is made of
I am a clinical psychologist licensed in Romania (reg. no. 36518) and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in training. I work from a psychoanalytic perspective: I am interested not only in what is happening now between you and the other, but also in what each of you brings to the relationship from your own story.
Loyalty, autonomy, love and desire were the themes of my bachelor’s thesis in psychology, “Loyalty and Autonomy in Adult Relationships”, and of my master’s dissertation in psychoanalysis, “Loyalty and Sexuality: Love with a Forbidden Aim”.
How it works
- Write to me using the form below or by email. A few lines are enough; there is no need to explain everything.
- I reply within 1–2 working days and we arrange the time of the first meeting together.
- The first meeting, 45 minutes long, at the practice or online, is devoted to understanding the situation. Only then do we decide together whether and how to continue.
The framework
Sessions last 45 minutes and take place at the practice or online: individually or, for couples, with both partners. Fees: 250 lei per individual session; 300 lei per couples session.
First meeting
Write me a few lines about what brings you. There is no need to explain everything.
Or write to me directly at radutudorache@protonmail.com.
Psychological counselling does not replace a psychiatric consultation when one is needed.