Desire appears as aimed purely towards a satisfaction, but this is never simply the case. Neither is it aimed at itself, like the will to will, but at yourself as uniquely related to the imagined satisfaction. Hence desire is happiest when its keenness is not blunted by any satisfaction, and hence it is a wound to the self if some other is perceived as enjoying the very satisfaction that you desire. This wound might in some instances increase desire, mingling it with pain which serves as a catalyst to make it burn brighter, but often enough, when the ego component is sufficiently dominant, it destroys the desire and replaces it with another more internalised, 'higher' desire. And of course it is perfectly likely that you'll find in this case too that some other has pre-empted you in the satisfaction of this higher desire, which for them seems to be primary and not an elaborate compensation. And so in this way your defences bind you to an unending cycle of frustration. Structures of this kind are constitutive of the ego, endow it with an 'unconscious' and with a distinctive 'character'.