The degree to which couples keep each other engulfed in projective identifications can escalate to intolerable levels, especially with couples struggling with problems of the self. Even with more organized couples, the urgency of transference needs can create serious obstacles to treatment. I explore the trajectory of a couple in which transference demands became so imperative, they regularly eclipsed even hard-won insights. The clamor of these demands grew even louder when the couple felt closer and more vulnerable. During these moments, they'd lure each other into all kinds of interpenetrating mix-ups. Analyzing these transference entanglements gradually increased the couple's capacity to hold onto affection and insights. The cycle would then repeat in a new, often wrenching, permutation, as deepening layers of transference paradigms re-aroused old traumatic experiences in their individual histories. As the couple grew more able to explore how they'd placed traumatized parts of themselves into each other, they grew more loving and trusting. At this promising juncture, they came face to face with a predicament so disturbing to both that, despite all they had gained, the fate of the relationship - and their capacity to reflect - were placed in jeopardy.