the volar father as house\home in two patients

From work with two borderline patients.

One patient has a mother who has been moving to a new home for 5 years. I don't have much to say about her except that she is a clear case of Lacanian desire in which she only wants the fantasy of the new home and doesn't want to ruin it by moving there to find out she'll still be unhappy because she's alienated most of her family and friends and will still be alone there. My patient openly hates that house they live in now. She won't shower there in a rusty shower and she can't stand the cracks in the walls and, in short, the house is all bad. In contrast, she can't wait to go live with her mother in her "beautiful" home. She'll shower there everyday and help out with all the chores because she'll have pride in such a magnificent house.

Listening to her I couldn't help but think about the deutero stage split of the denigrated father and the idealized father. The house provides a triangulation in which she'll be able to voyeuristically enjoy the union of the parents.

Another patient had a long term friend that "had never once fought with". She never saw her home but new it was beautiful and was very close to moving in but then her daughter got involved. Her daughter didn't want to move in the house for her own interest but wanted to move in purely "to take the satisfaction away from" my patient.    

Of course this envy also describes an important character trait of my patient and it seems like the volar stage, as the first stage of a whole object, may in fact be the birthplace of this relation.