Kathleen P. Eagan, M.S.

Most adults automatically understand the meaning of the term "love triangle". Love triangles are everywhere in society. We may see love triangles in our own relationships, in the relationships of members of our family, or in our friends, or in our coworkers, or in the lives of public figures or celebrities reported in the news, or in fictional characters we encounter in books, film, or television, or on the never-ending parade of sleazy love triangles presented on TV talk shows.

We live with love triangles all around us, all the time, and yet we rarely do anything to overcome or solve this problem. And some would say that love triangles are just part of life, and not a problem which can be solved or eliminated. Some would say that it is foolish, unrealistic, and counterproductive in life to attempt to eliminate love triangles.

To a certain degree, the authors agree with this idea. The authors would regard any project which would attempt to eliminate love triangles in society as impossible and unrealistic. However, the authors are engaged in no such project of social change. Instead, the authors assert that it is elimination of love triangles in the individual life that is important and necessary. While elimination of love triangles is impossible in society at large, it is definitely possible to eliminate the presence of love triangles in any individual’s life or relationships.

The authors wish to add that the elimination of love triangles is completely necessary for any individual to achieve true happiness in a love relationship. Without resolving the tendency to become involved in love triangles, one’s relationship life is filled with anguish and torment, while the elimination of love triangles leads to a feeling of happiness and peace in life and love.

Some would say, "I don’t want peace, I want to stir up a little trouble and fun". And so of course the person who is willing to stir his or her own emotions up again and again over love triangles is destined to continue to chase after one new misguided impulse after the other, in a restless search for another "love partner" who will somehow be better, or have something, that will make the person feel better in life, or happier, or better about themselves.

It seems unarguable that the person prone to developing love triangles is using each relationship involvement as an attempt at relief or self-healing, and using each person more as a substitute therapist and parent than as a love partner. Each new triangle is an attempt at self-healing, but the method of self-healing is always to repeat the past by recreating the love triangle situation, which can then be "fixed" or "repaired".

Exactly what love triangle of the past is being repeated or recreated? What happened in the individual’s past that must be "fixed" or "repaired" before the compulsion to repeat the past over and over can be broken?

This question can only be answered usefully from the insights of psychoanalysis. Freud first described the fact that a love triangle exists in the early childhood of every individual. The triangle consists of father, mother, and the child. Even though the child is just a child, and not a true "competitor" against either father or mother, Freud revealed to the world the fact that interpersonal dynamics (interaction patterns) in the childhood triangle seem to contain all the elements of adult love triangles – including feelings of jealousy, possessiveness, anger or rage, disappointment, loyalty, betrayal, intense love, and even sexuality.

It is entirely up to the parents how they handle the love triangle aspects of raising their child. If the parents have not achieved a very high level of understanding of these crucial matters, then they cannot communicate health or valid modeling to their children, but instead communicate and reproduce their own defects in their children.

Children are completely helpless in this unfolding drama. They are always victims, in that they always become "carriers" of the same problem. Even when the individual has a conscious desire to "never be like my parents", the compulsion to enter a love triangle remains. The person unconsciously spreads their own personal form of "love triangle" through each new relationship they attempt.

The individual unknowingly looks to each new relationship as an opportunity to conquer the unfinished love triangle of childhood. Unfortunately, this usually involves an enactment of the child’s fantasies of conquest of the desired parent. The little boy dreams of running away with and "marrying" mother, while father is left behind. Or, the young girl becomes the favorite of father, while mother is left out in the cold. These childhood fantasies are not usually remembered, but reenactments of these themes can be identified again and again in the adult relationships of the individual.

Although the individual is ultimately attempting, although unconsciously, to solve a severe self-esteem problem by entering a love triangle, it is also clear that the triangle itself becomes a detriment to self-esteem. A vicious circle is set up, in which participating in a love triangle damages self-esteem, while the problems of self-esteem keep compelling the individual to unconsciously seek out new triangles within which to reenact the family love triangles of early childhood. They are really not going from relationship to relationship, but from triangle to triangle. It is clear that the person prone to love triangles needs to be in a triangle, and feels uncomfortable or "bored" when involved with one person only.

We can now return to the question of "boredom" introduced earlier. We mentioned that some persons would reject peace and contentment, and insist on the need to "stir up a little fun". Whenever the person with triangulation illness attempts to be loyal and focused on one person, or even if they contemplate a commitment of loyalty to one of their love partners, then the person may feel an overwhelming and painful sense of "boredom", which is really an immediate reliving of the feeling of emotional emptiness and desolation associated with the parents’ marriage. The fear of ending up with a marriage or relationship like one’s parents , and the fear of the possible depression, emptiness, and emotional isolation of such a circumstance engulfs the individual, and contaminates any current relationship.

The expectation that one can get one’s emotional needs met with one partner only is not frightening to the person who has solved the problem of love triangles, and found the right partner, but remains a source of worry and despair to the person who cannot feel any peace with one partner only. The needed emotional "supplies" in life are split into parts supplied by different individuals. The core emotional problem of the person who engages in love triangles is the inability to combine all the needed feelings for a partner in life in one person. Qualities and needs are unnaturally split into separate persons as an avoidance of the amount of intensity and intimacy that occur when one attempts to combine these in one relationship.

Ultimately, the love triangle is used by the person as an avoidance of intimacy and closeness, because of the threat of feelings of depression and even "deadness" which they fear may follow, and which were a real part of the individual’s early life.

The person must learn that some of this feeling of boredom is normal, and that much of it is a contaminating memory from childhood, which truly was emotionally desolate. Most of all, the person must remember that their parents’ marriage seems undesirable to them essentially because the parents had no intimacy, intensity, or great love and loyalty to share, model, and pass down to their children. The individual who wants love and intensity in a relationship, and will not settle for the "boredom" of a weak relationship, is never likely to repeat their parents marriage of boredom. They are, however, very likely to unconsciously recreate and relive their early childhood by compulsively participating in love triangles which block their ability to ever achieve relationship success.

The individual must become dedicated to overcoming the problem of love triangles, and must be aware that no matter how successful one is in solving the problem of love triangles , that one’s partner could always become disloyal to us, could desert us, and make us the victim of their new love triangle. It is a basic fact of reality that even if we pledge never to hurt another person again by being the cause of triangulation, we could always be hurt by someone else. Ultimately, we can only solve triangulation in one person, within ourselves, within oneself. The correct self-statement is "I can only solve triangulation in me, and hope that others will treat me with a similar ethic and value".

The following "rules for overcoming love triangles" is not therefore a set of rules in any real sense, but instead a set of rules for oneself only, for self-improvement, self-control, and self-respect.

SUMMARY OF "RULES" FOR OVERCOMING LOVE TRIANGLES:

1. Never begin a new relationship before terminating existing relationships.

2. Never use the pleasure of a new involvement to offset the loss of another relationship. Terminate the existing relationship first, and deal with the grief or sense of loss completely. If you cannot bear the emotional pain or grief, you may reconsider whether you really want to terminate your existing relationship. Many people return to their existing relationship at this stage. It must be validly handled without the fantasy and dishonesty involved in adding any third parties to the situation. Also, the emotional feeling for the new third party is always false, as it results from a tendency to idealize any new party to a love triangle.

3. You must work to eliminate ALL forms of triangulation that may impact your love relationship. If you merely refrain from participating in new love triangles, although this is potentially a form of progress, it is not likely to promote much lasting change within yourself. If you allow other, more subtle forms of triangulation in your life and relationship, then you will be merely hiding the tendency to triangulate within some seemingly innocent behavior or aspect of your personality. As long as you allow the tendency to triangulate to remain as a valid part of your personality, then it can always return to the sphere of romantic relationships again in the future in the form of new love triangles. Unless the tendency to triangulate is systematically eliminated in all its forms, both obvious and subtle, then no true mastery of the problem has occurred.

4. Eliminating all forms of triangulation means to never allow your primary love relationship to be compromised by any form of triangulation or jealousy. Do not give your relationship partner cause to feel jealousy or insecurity about your relationships with any other persons. This only occurs when the individual communicates to their relationship partner that the other person or activity is more important, and more of a source of pleasure or enjoyment, than their love partner.

Specifically, never give your relationship partner cause to feel that you prefer any pet or animal over them, any recreation or pastime over them (TV, sports), any activity over them, your job or occupation over them, any person over them, including any of your family members over them, any of your friends or coworkers over them, any other former or current boyfriends or girlfriends over them, any new acquaintances over them, any strangers over them, any celebrities or other famous persons over them, or that you fantasize a replacement for your partner who you would prefer over them.

When you find yourself unable to maintain this detached attitude towards the other people or activities in your life, you should remove yourself from the presence of these things. If, for example, you find yourself consistently preferring one of your coworkers to your partner, then you should get yourself transferred or removed from any such persons, or get a new job. However impractical or costly this may seem, once you begin to tolerate triangulated feelings within yourself, you are sacrificing your relationship and your relationship partner, for the sake of money, position, advantage, etc.

If you succeed at eliminating all these forms of triangulation in your life and relationship, and your partner still feels insecure, it may be that some time for healing needs to pass, that your partner will need to experience the enjoyment and feeling of security resulting from your adjustments for a period of time before a complete feeling of trust and security can be established.

5. If you have succeeded at eliminating all these forms of triangulation in your life, and your partner is still insecure about your loyalty, then it may be that your partner is the one with the problem. If your partner cannot overcome fears and paranoia about new love triangles, then it may be that this partner would feel jealous no matter what you might do. Or possibly, so much emotional hurt has been caused by prior love triangles that the person cannot recover from these injuries. Psychotherapy or counseling are often helpful in overcoming accumulated past grief and hurt over love triangles, as long as the triangulation situation does not continue.

6. Most of all, try to resolve your existing relationships using these guidelines, and likely one of them will work out more successfully than has occurred during your prior relationship attempts. If none of your existing relationships works under these guidelines, then consider new relationship prospects one at a time, and also according to the same guidelines we have presented.

Solving the problem of love triangles is an essential step along the path to achieving a successful love life and love relationship. Loyalty is the essential emotional "glue" which binds people together over long periods of time in all love relationships, including family, close friends, and love partners. Where there is no loyalty, there is no strong emotional bond or love. Especially to persons who have struggled with love triangles in life, a feeling of freedom from the prior guilts and conflicts which love triangles often cause, can be the step of a lifetime, a true leap of personal evolution that is worth every step of struggle and cost to achieve.

We would be foolish to disregard the opinion of Freud almost 100 year ago, that once the individual has overcome the childhood love triangle and its growth-limiting effects, that personality development towards the true adult personality could now continue unimpeded. Freud also believed that resolution of the childhood love triangle was possibly the most important developmental step of childhood, a fundamental cornerstone of many crucial aspects of personal development.

The individual who overcomes the problem of love triangles can anticipate access to many new aspects of self, and an increased feeling of wholeness, soundness, and inner strength. New avenues of personal development may open in multiple directions at once, as the person’s capacity for evolution, previously bound up in triangulation issues, is now unleashed and available for channeling into new areas of fulfillment, productivity, and happiness. Resolving the problem of love triangles is usually the first step toward happiness and contentment in love relationships, and through this, to happiness in life itself.