I haven’t done a scientific study, but I’d be willing to bet that among the problems most frequently submitted to agony columns is the kind that goes like this: “I’m seeing this woman, or man, and everything’s perfect, except for one thing…” The one thing varies, of course. Maybe her politics are the opposite of yours; perhaps his personal hygiene’s appalling, or you have totally different attitudes to money. But what all such dilemmas have in common is how utterly insoluble they feel. Everything except the one thing feels amazing – a chance you must seize, lest you spend the rest of your life regretting it. And yet the thing itself isn’t a minor flaw; it’s a true deal-breaker. “I’m thrilled and happy and we’re already talking about moving in because we ‘just know’,” as one man wrote to the therapist Lori Gottlieb, at New York magazine, the other day. “Except one thing… she has very strong feelings about not having children.” He wanted to know: could he change her mind? Or would two people madly in love with each other have to call it quits?

Whenever you feel torn between two equally compelling options, it’s likely there’s something you’re not seeing: a third alternative, a hidden assumption, a different way of framing the problem. And that’s often the case with what Gottlieb calls the “perfect-except paradox”. You might believe the person in question is perfect except for one thing, but there’s a good chance they really seem perfect to you because of that thing. This is your unconscious at work, Gottlieb argues. Maybe you’re scared of commitment, so you’re drawn precisely to a relationship that’s doomed to collapse. (See also: affairs with married people.) Or maybe you find a certain kind of person compelling, but for unhealthy reasons – they remind you of your drama-filled childhood, say – so your unconscious is actually protecting you, by zeroing in on someone who comes with a built-in reason not to proceed.

Does the unconscious really work this way, manoeuvring us into stressful situations so that we’re forced to reflect and learn something deep about ourselves? Many psychologists these days tend to doubt it. But for present purposes, I’m not sure it matters: merely entertaining that possibility is a way to find new choices in seemingly impossible situations. Faced with a problem, the temptation is always to ask how to solve it, or to get rid of it; but an alternative is to ask what it’s trying to tell you. “We must recognise that our problems have not been randomly inflicted on us,” write the Jungian psychologists Marcella Weiner and Mark Simmons. “They have a purpose, to act as guideposts pointing the way toward healing and wholeness.” Figure out why you’re drawn to someone you also in some ways can’t stand, then, and the question of whether you should stick it out or leave may suddenly seem rather obvious. Sometimes, at least – to quote the title of Weiner and Simmons’ book – the problem is the solution.

oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com