ABSTRACT
There was a time when relational conflict between an obsessional husband and a histrionic wife was the most common presentation in couples therapy (Martin & Bird, 1959). Although today the borderline-narcissistic couple-or the "narcissistic/borderline" couple, to use Lachkar's (1992) designation-may be overrepresented in couples therapy, the histrionicobsessive couple is nevertheless still seen with regularity in clinical practice. Martin's research (1976, 1981) showed a preponderance of obsessive husbands and histrionic wives-represented by a couple he dubbed the "love sick wife and cold sick husband" -yet his data also showed a sizeable number of marriages with histrionic husbands and obsessive wives, which he called "in-search-of-a mother" marriages. In other words, either partner can manifest the obsessive or histrionic style. Nevertheless, the central conflicts are the same: intimacy (Barnett, 1971; Glick, Clarkin, & Kessler, 1987), power, and boundaries.
