Liquid love, fragile bonds: gender-based violence in the crisis of relationships

Abstract

We live in what Bauman (2003) [1] defined as a liquid society: a community characterized by increasingly unstable relationships, consumed quickly, sometimes worn out by the inability to tolerate the frustration of postponing personal needs, marked by the fear of commitment and the avoidance of conflict [2]. In this increasingly evanescent relationality, gender-based violence continues to take root—almost invisible in its beginnings, yet devastating in its outcomes. The more fragile the bonds become, the greater the need for control. And with it, the risk of abuse increases [3].

My clinical and research work has led me to recognize violence not only as an act, but as an internalized relational script, often learned since childhood and repeated in adult relationships. As I have thoroughly described in various presentations promoted at the local level for educational and preventive purposes, during the period I worked at the CAV (Anti-Violence Center), gender-based violence does not arise from a sudden outburst, but rather from a cultural and emotional structure that assigns rigid roles to genders: dominance and control to men, submission and renunciation to women [4, 5].

This structure is formed in early childhood, in that relational area where the needs for attachment, protection, and recognition intertwine. As Ligabue [6] states, the development of the self is organized within the first significant relationships through the construction of the ego states [7] and internal working models [8], which regulate our ability to relate, love, and protect ourselves. When these relationships are marked by neglect, devaluation, or oppression, scripts based on inadequacy, guilt, or fear are internalized.

The manifestations of violence are many: psychological, economic, physical, sexual. But the common thread is always control. To control means to deny the other’s autonomy, to prevent their subjectivity. Often what is mistaken for love is actually possession: a “bad love” – as defined by the title of the film directed by Francesca Schirru, released in theaters on May 8, 2025 – which fuels the toxic dynamic and finds justification in the surrounding social and family models.

The body, as Ligabue [6] reminds us again, is not only a witness of violence but also a relational archive. Postures, symptoms, tensions, and somatizations are traces of a preverbal language that tells what the mind often does not dare to name [9]. The bodyscript, in Transactional Analysis, is precisely this embodied memory of the relationship, the place where the script takes shape and becomes fixed.

If it is true that violence is learned in relationship, it is equally true that only through new relationships can it be unlearned or healed. This is why it is urgent to invest in affective education, capable of distinguishing between care and control, between love and dependence, between need and manipulation.

A cultural revolution is only possible if we act on the level of awareness, empathy, and respect for differences. Recognizing and interrupting the cycle of violence is not only a therapeutic or political act but a deeply human one.

We are called to rewrite our relational, cultural, and transgenerational script. To move from the need to possess the other as an object of pleasure to the art of loving.

And in this transition, every educational gesture, every meaningful relationship, every nonviolent gaze, every expression of kindness can become a revolutionary act.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest related to the contents of this work.