How to find an emotional triangle in the family and get out of it

The publishing house "Bombora" published a book by psychologist Julia Hill "Nobody asks you!». In it, the author explains why power struggles arise in many families, and gives recommendations that help establish healthy relationships between relatives.

Emotional triangles are a common cause of family conflicts. Read about what it is and what harm it brings in an excerpt from the chapter “Why does the family need a “third leg””.

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The Emotional Triangle is a relationship with three channels of communication. Someone (or something) third is included in the relationship between two people and defuses the situation, taking on fire or distracting attention. In this way, an optimal balance of intimacy in the pair is achieved.

Triangles are activated at moments of crisis or peak tension in a relationship.

According to the founder of systemic family therapy, Murray Bowen, the triangle represents the molecule of stable relationships. The third can be a person, a pet, work, as well as all kinds of hobbies of family members - computer games, volunteering, fitness classes, gardening in the country and addictions, for example alcohol.

The emotional triangle in the family is arranged as follows:

• Two unite common cause, problem, interest, they are on the same wavelength, cling to each other and form a coalition.
• The third is not on the wave with them, he is on the sidelines. Two can solve his problems, try to change, "cure", attract to their side, make a mediator, be friends against. The third participant removes the tension that arises between those two who cannot solve the problem in relations between themselves.

Emotional triangles arise in relationships:

• with parents;
• with kids;
• with families of spouses;
• in families with remarriage;
• outer triangles (with lovers, friends, employees, etc.).

How to detect an emotional triangle in your family?

Almost every family has emotional triangles. Sometimes they are in a "sleeping", inconspicuous state, without affecting the life of the household. When the family has significant events, which require a redistribution of forces, a revision of roles or decision-making, while family members are not ready for them - triangles come to life and help to cope with growing anxiety. Not always in an ideal way, but on an unconscious level, the family, as a system, as a single organism, seeks to maintain its integrity, not to fall apart. And therefore, he often looks for a solution to the problem that will allow him to avoid cardinal changes - everything new brings uncertaintyand with it anxiety.

Let's try to find some emotional triangles in your family. Answer the following questions:

• When you are happy or upset, is there a person in the family with whom you primarily share experiences (other than your partner)?
• Do you ever discuss, complain or judge your spouse with your parents/child/other relatives?
• Do you feel like not everyone in your family can be trusted? Does this feeling make you look for workarounds to solve problems that arise instead of direct dialogue?
• Do you know for sure what to expect from each member of your family? Does this knowledge affect the relationship with him?
• Do family members sometimes invite you to take sides in their own conflict, ask you to judge, or relay messages through you to another?
• Have you ever found yourself in a situation where all family members, for no reason you understand, took up arms against you?
• Do your family use such methods of clarifying the relationship as demonstrative silence, ignoring?
• Is there a person in your family whom everyone considers unlucky, guilty of all troubles, or, on the contrary, universal pride, support?
• How is it customary in your family to express love to loved ones? Is it used to express feelings such as anger, disagreement, sadness, accusation?

If you answered yes to more than three of the above questions, then there is an active emotional triangle in your family (maybe more than one).

I'll ask you a little more. Did the answers to these questions help you understand who you usually ally with and against? And who is friends "against you"? If your answer is yes, congratulations, you have found the emotional triangle. About what to do with it, I will tell further.

The third is not superfluous

The classic emotional triangle in the family: husband, wife and child. The birth of a baby often (but not always) gives relationships a new meaning, is seen as the development of the family. Spouses are already less focused on each other. In any case, for some time everyone plunges headlong into the feeding-walk schedule, is touched by how the child coos and smacks its lips in a dream. There are new joint rituals. For example, everyone is waiting for their father to bathe the little one after work.

The "third force" inspires, inspires partners, strengthens the connection and promotes intimacy, creates common goals and interests.

Confidential communication allows you to openly discuss sensitive topics, seek solutions in a safe dialogue.

For the same reason, the spouses, having grown and letting go in the adult life of children, give birth to animals. The pet saves two from the need to "stew in their own juice", adds pleasant troubles and topics for conversation, and often stands up to protect the boundaries of the family. For example, to refuse a request for a good reason: “We can’t, Chapa and I need to go for a walk.”

Finding support on the side

But someone else can bring even more contention into the relationship if, instead of solving problems among themselves, some family members begin to “befriend” the other.

This happens if:

• One of the family members begins to devote more time and attention to someone else, while the other feels that his interests and needs are being ignored. […]
• One of the family members becomes unavailable for emotional contactwhile the other feels abandoned. […]
• A third person intervenes in a tense relationship in order to reconcile the spouses or support one of them. […]

The third person involved to strengthen the positions of one of the parties is assigned to one of the conditional roles. The role depends on the type of support expected of him.

Roles in triangles

peacemaker

The peacekeeper passes from one family member to another, tries to smooth over differences and becomes a means of communication between the warring parties.

Situationally, any member of the family can play this role: to help avoid conflict, clarify, resolve the dispute - a good deed. It’s bad when this role becomes “chronic” and goes to the child.

"Stop fighting and kiss now!" - Five-year-old Nastya brings up her parents when they argue or speak in raised tones. Of course, mom and dad immediately forget about the differences and laugh: “The commander has come. Just like an adult!”

In families where conflicts often occur, the child himself takes on the role of a peacemaker in order to glue collapsing relationship parents. Usually these are sensitive, vulnerable children, literally catching signs of a brewing quarrel by the tension in the air.

The most striking example of a child-peacemaker is present in families where there is a drinking parent. His actions compensate for the inadequacy of adults and harmonize the family.

A child peacemaker, even growing up, lives his life in other people's feelings, has great patience and believes that in order to be loved, he must give away more than receiving. Such a person:

• Rarely knows how to rejoice and relax, because this means a loss of control over the situation.
• He is sensitive to the manifestation of resentment, anger, grief by others, and by all means tries to prevent their appearance or save people close to him from them.
• He knows how to turn any difficult moment into a joke, neutralize someone else's irritation. One gets the impression that he has no problems: even in the most difficult situations, he masks his pain with jokes.
• He cannot stand pauses or silence, because he perceives them as harbingers of a storm. Can't stand it when people fight.
• He is kind and willing to take the blame for others. Associates his well-being with the opinions of others, which makes him vulnerable to criticism and dependent on the opinions of others.
• He is easy to manage, because he himself does not mind - "if only everyone was happy."

IN his marriage a person who has been accustomed to extinguishing conflicts since childhood is likely to take on a familiar role.

Deputy

This family role is somewhat similar to that of a pet, but they are called upon to perform different tasks. The "favorite" helps one party to create a strengthened coalition against the other, and the deputy acts as another family member, thereby forcing him out of the relationship.

There are many examples of substitution. For example, an adult getting divorced and turns the child into a functional spouse: equally distributes responsibility, shares intimate secrets, seeks protection. The latter becomes a consolation to a parent who is going through hard times, feels himself chosen: he is not just the youngest member of the family, but a support. […]

Scapegoat

A "scapegoat" is a family member who is blamed for any family troubles in order to mask the true problems. Its task is to shift the focus of attention to itself with the help of "bad" behavior.

The role of the "scapegoat" is usually assigned to that member of the family with whom the rest are in a state of open or covert war, whose behavior "deviates" from the family norm.

Relatives and friends will always find a reason to complain about the difficulties that he causes. They tell him that it is because of him that they do not sleep at night, swear, get sick, work hard, etc. (Underline whatever applicable). The family is convinced that if the "scapegoat" is corrected, re-educated, then their life will become ideal.

In fact, the “culprit of all misfortunes” (without suspecting it) renders a huge service to the family by helping:

• To get closer to those family members between whom there has been no understanding for a long time, to unite against problemsthat he creates.
• The rest of the family members consider themselves emotionally healthy and stable, do not take responsibility for their behavior and mistakes.
• Ignore the real problem, the solution of which can lead to the destruction of the family, divorce.
• To maintain the status of a significant and necessary one with the most controlling member of the family due to his “merits” in the fight against the troubles that the “scapegoat” brings to everyone. […]

To understand that a person unwittingly turned out to be the bearer of this role is not easy. As a rule, people with such an unenviable status complain about depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and believe that indeed they are to blame for all the troubles themselves.

If the role of the scapegoat goes to a child, he grows up feeling that he betrayed his family. Encapsulation occurs, a certain family belief based on anxiety is fixed inside the psyche in the form of guilt: “I am not like everyone else. There's something wrong with me." He can live better, brighter than relatives, but at the same time feel abnormal, selfish, a liar, heartless - these are the words that relatives condemn his way of life. Advantages are downplayed, and disadvantages are exaggerated. No matter how others value him, for them he is still a "swindler" who he can't do anything, and everything is achieved by deceit and cunning.

Adults with this role often have a shattered sense of "normality" - up to distrust of themselves and others. They continue to blame themselves for any failures in the relationship, considering themselves flawed and worthless. The "scapegoat" constantly strives to become his own for his relatives, but often fails. He is accepted into the “game” only if someone else appears in the family who attracts the negative attention of everyone else.

pet

The role of the pet at first glance seems enviable. He is idolized, everything beautiful in the family and on earth is attributed to him. He is singled out among the rest, pampered and turn a blind eye even to very irresponsible acts.

In fact, the "favorite" is the object of manipulation, he is involved in the struggle for power, which is fought between other family members. He is loaded with expectations of what to be in order to please the one who chose him for this role.

Often the "favorite" becomes a child - the only one or one among several with which the parent is easiest to negotiate.

[…]

Instigator

The role of the instigator is given to the family member who provokes conflicts, manipulates others, pursuing his own benefit. His goal: to make the two quarrel among themselves, but at the same time he would remain the best friend of each, retaining his own influence and control everywhere. […]

In families where there is a struggle for power, there are always those who are at enmity, and those who mediate, smoothing out the conflict, reconciling or switching attention to themselves.

In calm periods of family life, two people are close “friends”, and the third one interferes. As the tension between the two increases, one of the couple tries to increase their influence by attracting a third to their side. Thus, coalitions are formed in the family and additional conditions are created for rivalry.

Vest for tears

Mila left home at eighteen. The parents stayed in their hometown. She did not leave with a light heart: her father, though not as before, but drank. There are quiet drunkards - they will take them on their chests and sleep, Milin's father was one of the violent ones. While drunk, he made a row and chased after his mother. Sometimes with a knife. It didn’t come to trouble, but it was scary: how to know what alcoholic in my head. Mila was especially worried about this, but she no longer had the strength to endure parental showdowns.

When my father reached the condition, my mother called Mila and cried. One evening she called, sobbing: “He is on the horns again! I locked myself in the bathroom, waiting for it to settle down. We talked, everything seemed to calm down. In the morning, Mila called her mother - there was no answer. Then dialed again - silence. The girl called before dinner, scrolling through the most terrible pictures in her head: at night, her drunken father got up, took a knife and... At two o'clock in the afternoon, she finally got through. The mother picked up the phone and said in a cheerful voice: “Daughter, hello! And we are at the dacha with my father. We are digging in the ground, we did not hear the phone.

Mila wanted to scream in despair, but she found the strength to ask: “Mom, is it hard to call and say that everything is in order with you? I'm worried after yesterday!

In the emotional triangle of mother and father, the daughter played the role of "vests». Mom habitually called Mila to complain, talk out and cry, but when the father woke up and life got better, the need for comfort disappeared. […]

How to get out of the emotional triangle

So, you found yourself in a pathological emotional triangle - it doesn’t matter as “who you are friends with” or “who you are friends against.”

What you definitely shouldn't do:

1. Be influenced by other people's emotions. Those close to us, who seek to win us over to their side, share their views on the current situation, sometimes dramatizing or exaggerating events.
2. Take sides, supporting one of the participants in the conflict. Remember that it is not about you, but about two other people and their relationship.
3. Try to reason, reconcile, reason. You can’t calmly look - express your opinion and step aside. Otherwise, you will be drawn into the proceedings, and then they will also make you guilty.
4. Make excuses or blame in response if a coalition is formed against you. Everything you say will only convince the “opponents” that they are right and encourage them to unite against you even more.
5. Angry, offended, indignant, being thus the "third wheel". No, of course you are entitled to any feelings. But in a triangle, we often experience not our own emotions, but those of others, being infected by them, as chicken pox in kindergarten. Two adults, not having the skills to build relationships, decided to make them better with your help. Your emotional response will benefit: those two will become closer to each other, but you will pay for it.

What to do:

1. Understand your own position in relation to what is happening. What exactly triggers your emotions, preventing you from remaining neutral? Perhaps the habitual pattern of your behavior in similar situations is triggered. For example, as a child, you could not watch your parents swear, it was unbearably scary. And then you separated them, tried to reconcile, divert attention to yourself.
2. Determine who actually needs to resolve the conflict. Does the problem really concern you and requires your participation, or are you being drawn into the showdown of other people's relationships. We can not change others, but we can change our role in what is happening.
3. Take the position of an outside observer by reducing emotional involvement. Each member of the family triangle gets a "role". By agreeing with her, you are automatically drawn into the game of "judging cannot be pardoned." Give two people the opportunity to sort out their relationship without the involvement of third parties. Don't take sides in a conflict. Try to look at the situation through the eyes of each family member, while maintaining neutrality.
4. If you find yourself drawn into a coalition, maintain symmetrical contact with each family member. Maintain a polite friendly attitude, be available, don't blame and don't push it to your side.
5. If they are trying to convey something to another person through you, offer to say it directly. Approximately so: - Your father is insufferable! I'm tired of his character all my life! It's time to split up! - the mother says to her daughter in her hearts. Yes, Mom, I understand. But it's your relationship, and I think you should tell him directly about it.
6. Allow others to be leaders in areas where they are more competent. Sometimes your loved ones really understand something better than you - give them the opportunity to cope with the task on their own. They can do without your participation - we are often driven by our own ambitions and the need to be irreplaceable.
7. Be ready to resist. People are unhappy when we stop being "convenient" for them. They will be angry, appeal to conscience, accuse. For 20 years, the daughter rushed between her father and mother, was a psychological crutch in their relationship. The day came when she asked her parents to resolve their differences without her participation. The new behavior looked unusual for the mother, and she was indignant: “How ungrateful you are!” Natural reaction. It will pass. Or it will not pass, but you will be freed from imposed roles and you will build your relationships, and not live with strangers.
8. Don't get tired of repeating. The body strives to conserve energy, so the psyche resists changes. You may not be heard / not understood / or not wanted to be understood the first time. And from one hundred and one, too. Stay true to your opinion and remind others of it as much as necessary.
9. Be mindful and control your emotional reactivity. Once in a triangle, we react automatically, try to observe emotions and translate them into predictable, manageable ones.

The book "No one asks you!" worth reading if you want to understand if there is competition between members of your family, who competes with whom and against whom, and what manipulations they use. The author will share professional advice on how to salvage strained relationships and build trust.

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