Even if you and your partner have typically been able to resolve your differences, there may come a time when you are at a stalemate. One person wants to move and the other doesn’t. One person is spending money on things that the other deems frivolous. One person wants more sex, and the other person would prefer less – or no sex at all. The possibilities for disagreement are endless in any long-term partnership.
Regardless of what precisely is gnawing at both of you, you may find yourself looking for support for your position in the disagreement. This may start innocently over coffee with a pal or during a phone conversation with a family member. Before you know it, the friend or family member is involved in the disagreement too. The original issue may start to become obscured as this third person takes on more of a role in the situation. Drama can easily ensue.
The process just described has a fancy name: triangulation.
Triangulation occurs whenever a third person intervenes or is drawn into a conflict between two individuals, in an effort to resolve the issue. The third person may become part of the situation unwittingly, may make a conscious choice to intervene, or may be drawn in skillfully by one of the two people who had the original disagreement. The net result is that one of the two individuals involved in the root conflict draws support from the third person, while the other person in the conflict feels rejected, excluded or overpowered. Some people have more of a tendency to create this sort of pattern in their relationships.
When this happens, you may question how things could possibly go so wrong just because you talked things over with a friend or family member. And, indeed, if your chosen confidante merely listens, empathizes and offers ideas for resolution – but stops short of actually stepping into the fray with you – this would your ideal scenario. No one ever has all the answers. We all sometimes need a sounding board for the stories of our lives. If, after speaking with your chosen confidante, you are able to return to your partner and have a more productive and insightful conversation, it is possible that both you and your confidant are already savvy to the mess that triangulation can create. You are both smart enough to steer clear of this.
Your conversation with you friend or family member might also generate objection from your partner to the disclosure of personal matters to others. This compounds the root disagreement between the two of you. Your partner may or may not share the same sort of trusting relationship that you have with your chosen confidante. The strength of your partner’s relationship with the confidante may, in fact, determine the extent to which you partner feels threatened by you seeking out the confidante and the potential for your partner to object to this offline discussion of your marital business.
It is important to realize, too, that at some point you may find yourself cast in the role of confidante for another. Depending upon your friend or family member’s level of distress and proclivity for triangulation, you may find yourself being drawn into the friend or family member’s situation. As hard as it may be, under these circumstances, the best gift that you can give is to stand back. By allying yourself with your friend or family member – triangulating – you may feel a sense of satisfaction that you are assisting someone who appears to be genuinely in need of support. However, that there is a strong probability that you will also fuel the fires of drama and thereby perpetuate – rather than mitigate – any ongoing dispute.