In my work as a therapist, I often see clients struggling with the gap between what they long for in a relationship — closeness, affection, connection — and what they actually experience. This is sometimes clearest when love and sex stop belonging together.
This post is about one such man. We’ll call him Guillaume.
Though fictionalised, Guillaume’s story is based on many real experiences I’ve encountered. His is a tale of contradiction — a man who desperately wants love but finds that emotional closeness blocks his sexual desire. The women he sleeps with are not the ones he stays with. The women he loves, he can’t seem to touch.
This emotional split has a name in psychoanalytic theory. Freud called it the Madonna–Whore complex.
What Is the Madonna–Whore Complex?
Sigmund Freud observed that some men divide women into two categories: the virtuous, loving “Madonna” (the idealised mother figure), and the erotic “Whore” (a sexual object with no emotional value). In such men’s minds, love and sex belong to different worlds. A woman they respect and love cannot be desired. A woman they desire must not be someone they truly care about.
The result? A painful, isolating split. These men often find themselves trapped, unable to feel whole in a relationship. They may retreat into sexual fantasy or seek casual sex outside their relationship. Their partners, meanwhile, often feel rejected, confused, and unseen.
Guillaume’s Story
Guillaume is in his mid-thirties, attractive and well-dressed. He’s successful, confident, and socially at ease. On paper, he seems to have it all. But in his romantic life, he is quietly tormented.
When he meets a woman who is warm, kind, and genuinely interested in him — he feels paralysed. He is affectionate but avoids intimacy. He is helpful and generous but avoids sex. He speaks to his partner in baby talk, kisses her forehead, and tells her how much he adores her. But weeks or months can go by without a single sexual gesture.
Guillaume doesn’t understand why he feels so blocked. “She’s perfect,” he says. “She’s everything I want. So why don’t I want her?”
The Split: Little Boy vs. Conqueror
In therapy, Guillaume begins to explore his internal world. He describes how with women he barely knew — at parties, on dating apps — he was sexually confident and uninhibited. There was a thrill in the chase, in asserting his masculinity. He recalls hundreds of sexual encounters. But none of those women made him feel seen. They weren’t supposed to. They were performances, roles he played to prove something — to himself, or to someone else.
With his current partner, everything is different. She sees through the performance. She speaks to the little boy inside him — the vulnerable child who needed to be adored, accepted, safe. He regresses in her presence. He wants to be held and soothed, not aroused or arousing.
In one imagined vignette, Guillaume says:
“When I look at her, I feel so much love… like she’s the only person in the world who really understands me. But when she wants to kiss me passionately or initiate sex, I freeze. It’s like… she’s my safe place. I can’t violate that.”
Moments later, he shifts:
“But then, sometimes, when I’m alone, I fantasise about other women — women I don’t know, strangers. It’s like I become someone else. William the Conqueror. I can be rough, dominant. But I can’t bring that part of me into the relationship. It would feel… wrong.”
These two parts — the regressed little boy and the sexual conqueror — live in two separate rooms in Guillaume’s psyche. The therapy must find a corridor between them.
British Psychoanalytic Reflections
British Object Relations theory, particularly the work of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott, helps us understand Guillaume’s internal struggle.
Klein described how early experiences with the mother shape our capacity to integrate love and aggression. In the Madonna–Whore complex, the maternal object is split — idealised as perfect and loving (Madonna) or degraded as seductive and bad (Whore). The man cannot tolerate the ambivalence of desire within love, so he splits them apart.
Winnicott’s idea of the “false self” is also relevant. Guillaume learned to perform a sexual identity — the confident seducer — to survive in a world where tenderness felt unsafe or unfamiliar. His true self — the part that longs for care, for holding — only emerges in a context of safety, which paradoxically disables his sexual confidence.
Therapy becomes a space where these fragmented parts can meet, where Guillaume doesn’t have to choose between being powerful or being loved.
The Impact on Partners
Guillaume’s partner, meanwhile, is quietly breaking down. She feels undesired, unattractive, unloved. She wonders what’s wrong with her. No matter how many times he says he loves her, the absence of sexual intimacy feels like rejection. Her confidence erodes.
This dynamic is common in relationships affected by this split. The partner becomes the container of the man’s projected purity. She is desexualised and, over time, may internalise the rejection as shame.
Can This Change?
The good news is — yes. But it takes time, courage, and honest work.
Guillaume’s healing begins when he stops blaming his partner or his past and starts becoming curious about his inner world. When he recognises that the problem is not her — it’s the split inside him. Therapy helps him tolerate the discomfort of bringing love and desire into the same room. It allows him to explore sexuality not just as performance but as communication, as play, as vulnerability.
The work is not easy. There are setbacks. Sometimes Guillaume reverts to fantasy or avoidance. But slowly, he begins to imagine being both seen and desired, to touch without fear, to bring the conqueror and the child into dialogue.
Final Thoughts
If you or your partner struggle with a similar dynamic, know that you’re not alone. The Madonna–Whore complex isn’t about you not being “enough.” It’s about a deeper psychic structure that needs understanding and repair.
Therapy can help bridge the internal split. It can support both partners in finding their way back to each other — not as perfect or broken, but as whole, complex, and fully human.
If this speaks to your experience, you’re welcome to reach out. This is the kind of work I do.
Let’s explore what’s possible, together.
👉 Book an introductory session or get in touch here.
Ari Sotiriou
Online Therapy for Individuals and Couples
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Photo Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko @Pexels