Donald and Melania Trump have an unhappy relationship. Each of them inflicts suffering on the other and receives hurts in return. Why do they stay together?

David Leonhardt has noted Trump’s masochism (see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/bob-corker-donald-trump.html). Few observers have noted Melania’s. Their relationship is clearly sadomasochistic. Each of them is compulsively repeating an unhappy early relationship with a rejecting parent in a desperate unconscious attempt to reverse it, which tragically only yields more rejection (see https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evil-deeds/200806/essential-secrets-psychotherapy-repetitive-relationship-patterns).

Donald was rejected by his mother at a very early age, after she almost died when giving birth to his younger brother, and he clung to her for dear life (see https://www.amazon.com/Trumps-Three-Generations-Builders-President/dp/0743210794 p. 227). Throughout his life, despite its seeming successes, he has been self-destructive (see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/bob-corker-donald-trump.html).

In choosing the cold, reserved Melania for his wife, Donald unconsciously replicated his early rejection by his mother. He had chosen other women like her before and after. He is not a misogynist, as the “media” like to portray him. Rather, his entire life has been marked by his unstable relationships with beautiful women, whom he at first idealizes and loves, but later denigrates and hates, unconsciously repeating his early splitting of his internal image of his mother.

Melania herself also had an unhappy childhood (see https://www.cheatsheet.com/health-fitness/melanias-grim-childhood-reveals-why-she-married-someone-like-donald-trump.html/). She may also have been rejected by a parent. She was the youngest child of her Slovenian parents, and was born a daughter when her father, who had been estranged from his first wife and son, and already had a daughter, may have wanted a son.

Melania has always been shy and reserved (see https://www.amazon.com/Melania-Trump-Inside-Story-Potential/dp/0692764844 pp. 7, 15, 116, 160, 262, ). As a child she read a great deal, but was socially withdrawn. She began modeling at the age of sixteen, perhaps unconsciously trying to get the love she missed by displaying her beautiful body. At the age of seventeen she enrolled at the university of Ljubljana, but dropped out after only one year (see https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/tv/did-melania-trump-go-to-college.html/). Melania seems to have problems with her self-esteem and self-acceptance. She Germanized both her first and last names (from Melanija Knavs to Melania Knauss). She did not like her small breasts, undergoing plastic surgery to enlarge them. As an American, she was ashamed of her Slovenian origins, insisting on speaking English with former Slovenian lovers and friends, which earned her a storm of hostile reactions in her native land (see https://www.amazon.com/Melania-Trump-Inside-Story-Potential/dp/0692764844 pp. 29-30).