A Tale of Triangling Mothers

Seeing triangles provides a key to unlocking ways to bring our best to our most important relationships.

‘Jenny, today when I heard you describe your triangle with your mother I thought: “Oh my goodness – You are fuelling the problem in your family!” I can see for the first time that I’m adding to my husband feeling set aside and to inflaming his irritating ways of trying to insert his presence in his daughter’s and our family’s life. No one behaves at their best when they feel critically sidelined. I also see that I’m contributing to my daughter becoming arrogant and quite disrespectful towards her Dad.’

At a recent community seminar on marriage I shared about my triangle position in my family of origin. As I entered my teenage years my mother increasingly confided in me about broader family matters. In some ways I was being elevated to an informal leadership position in the family as my mother managed her stress about the family through using me as a sounding board. She would discuss her worries about my siblings amongst other things. At times she asked me to connect in a particular way to a sister in an effort to reverse the pattern of distancing that concerned my mother.

My alliance with my mother developed gradually through developing common interests including matters of faith. I’m sure my mother never intended to triangle me in this way. It emerged out of a growing friendship and it clearly filled some gaps in what she shared of herself in her marriage with my Dad. As I look back I can see that my father didn’t seem uncomfortable the growing closeness between myself and Mum. I assume that it took some pressure away from him by relieving an undercurrent of unmet expectations of him in the marriage. Hence both my mother and father unconsciously co- constructed the triangle, with myself as a willing participant.

Such triangles commonly emerge between parents and one of their children. In my family it functioned to relieve some pressures. The cost was that it contributed to some distance in my relationship with by sisters and brother and it primed me to be an “over -helper” in my adult relationships. For my parents, while it assisted with harmony in their marriage, it also prevented any breech in their emotional connection from being worked on and resolved. While it was a rewarding connection for me and my mother, it detracted from the growth of connection between my mother and each of my siblings. While there was not obvious tension in my relationship with my father, my alliance with my mother influenced my view towards men as lacking in their relational capacities – not a helpful posture to take into my own marriage as a young woman.

After sharing about my key triangle growing up at the recent seminar, a woman came up to me in the lunch break and expressed that she could recognise a similar triangle emerging in her family. She was alerted to the potential detriment of this triangle for her marriage and her teenage daughter. Here’s what she described to me in the course of our quite brief conversation:

“My eldest daughter has increasingly become a friend to me. We just seem to click! But I can see that there are problems developing as we are regularly taking sides against my husband. I complain to her about her Dad’s annoying ways. When the family is all together, she gives me a knowing critical look every time her Dad tries to give input. I realise that I’ve been encouraging this – it makes me feel good to have her in my corner. Tension is increasing in my daughter and her Dad’s relationship and I have been getting more frustrated with how he reacts to her. Today when I heard you describe your triangle with your mother I thought: “Oh my goodness – You are fuelling the problem in your family!” I can see for the first time that I’m adding to my husband feeling set aside and to inflaming his irritating ways of trying to insert his presence in his daughter’s and our family’s life. No one behaves at their best when they feel critically sidelined. I also see that I’m contributing to my daughter becoming arrogant and quite disrespectful towards her Dad. Last year my husband and I got some counselling for our marriage that didn’t get us very far. I couldn’t really understand our tensions and growing distance until today when I saw the triangle I was in with our daughter and its effect on our marriage. I can see that I need to stop inviting my daughter into the snug alliance that judges her Dad and my husband. She’s not going to like giving up this position but I know it is best for our whole family.”

I was impressed by this woman’s insight and her resolve to change her part. (Relationship triangles are often difficult to identify). Her husband was at the marriage seminar with her and she had the opportunity to talk to him about her realisations. I sense that this was the start of a constructive growing up effort for them both as spouses and parents. My own awareness of my primary triangle growing up has been enormously useful in helping me to manage unhelpful tendencies to align with those who confide in me, judge those who I hear complaints about and be too quick to step into the cosy elevated status of giving ear to other’s problems. I am committed to not becoming a part of issues being detoured from the relationships they belong in. For me, and for the insightful woman I met briefly at the community seminar, seeing triangles provides a key to unlocking ways to bring our best to our most important relationships.

What makes for healthy disagreements?

It’s not always about compromise

I was asked if the outcome of a constructive disagreement always involves compromise. It’s interesting that many people assume that resolution requires a degree of compromise or giving up something. When disagreements are managed maturely with good contact, avoidance of triangles and people expressing their own experience and perspective, there are a range of possible outcomes.

I asked a group of community group leaders: What they think makes for a healthy disagreement? I frequently ask this question of couples in counselling who are usually a bit taken aback that I think this is a more useful exploration than what makes for harmony.

Responses at my talk included: being willing to listen well and creating trust. People found it much easier to answer the question: What things get in the way of constructive disagreements? Responses included: our pride, believing that we are right, a desire to not give in, pushing our point of view, anger and attack and talking over the other.

I suggested 3 guiding principles from Bowen family systems theory that may be helpful in dealing with conflict well. Of course with generalities it is wise to appreciate that specific conflict situations need to be thoughtfully examined to determine ways to manage self within it. This caveat aside, see what you think of these guidelines:

1: Stay in good contact with the person with whom tension or disagreement has arisen. In the face of relationship tension, we humans are primed to use distance as a quick way of reducing discomfort. While avoiding conflict can feel like an attractive option, distance predictably increases negative projections. The less contact with the other the more we tend to exaggerate differences and imagine negative motives. When 2 people avoid each other after a tense interaction it is highly likely that they each begin to escalate a negative emotion circuit.

It isn’t easy to stay in good contact in the face of tension but tolerating this discomfort is a key way of being able to work things out in a thoughtful way. Even the act of demonstrating a warm greeting after a tense encounter can calm things between people and lay the groundwork for talking out differences.

2: Resist detouring tension to a third party. As well as distancing in the face of relationship discord it is predictable that people go to another person and vent about the person they have had tension with. This triangling process seems so natural and yet it can reduce the chance of being able to resolve the difficulty in the original relationship. When we find a person who validates our experience of the “difficult” other we immediately calm down and are less inclined to go back to the upset relationship to hear each side of the situation.

Triangles also provide a mechanism for spreading the original relationship tension as the person who has been vented to is now more cautious and tense around the person they have heard complaints about. I am always asked about the value of seeking counsel from a third party which on the surface sounds like a reasonable strategy in the face of conflict. The key question to ask is:

Am I seeking someone to take my side and expecting them to validate me?

or am I wanting someone to help me get my emotions in check and to think objectively about how I am managing the relationship upset?

Gaining more of a factual view about how we contributed to the misunderstanding is valuable bit conversations directed at describing, analysing and diagnosing/blaming the other person is actually adding fuel to the intensity of the discord.

3: Stay responsible for representing yourself not changing the view of the other. When our energies go towards changing or blaming the other we are contributing to a defensive response that amplifies their own stance; However when we can express our own thinking and experience of the situation we are more likely to be heard by the other who will be equally listened to by us. Our listening is in order to learn about the other’s experience from where they sit in the relationship system that we share (family, workplace, community group etc.).

At the end of this presentation, I was asked if the outcome of a constructive disagreement always involves compromise. It’s interesting that many people assume that resolution requires a degree of compromise or giving up something. When disagreements are managed maturely with good contact, avoidance of triangles and people expressing their own experience and perspective, the outcome will be one of 3 possibilities:

  • Each person will maintain their own position with an appreciation and acceptance of the others different stance. This is not just agreeing to disagree but an informed choice to operate from different positions. Respect is maintained.
  • One person will discover and acknowledge that they did not have adequate information to make a judgement and that they were wrong in their position and will back down from it. And conversely one person will choose to maintain their position having explained it to the other and remaining convicted of their view.
  • One or both people will thoughtfully choses to adjust part of their position in light of what they learn from the discussion with the other. Compromise is not a kind of pretend harmony but something worked at through respectful dialogue.

All of this is quite easy to write about but in practice it is hard. It requires overriding the rush of strong emotions that are automatically activated in the face of relationship disruption. We can choose to move towards that tension and manage our selves maturely or to avoid it and potentially contribute to more layers in to the relationship tension. It’s hard to accept that being grown up means choosing to do what doesn’t come naturally!

A version of this blog fist appeared on the FSI web page in 2014. 

Side Taking or Triangling in a Helping Relationship

parent-blame-triangleGetting caught in becoming a third party detour is a central pitfall of any helping relationship (professional, family, friendships, congregations, work). Any struggling person will feel better when they find an empathic listening ear to their problems within another relationship.

Daniel is a committed helping professional in adolescent mental health services. He engages with young people well and is skilled at drawing them out to discuss the issues that are troubling them. One of the most common complaints he hears from his young clients is that parents or step parents just don’t understand them. They are too pushy and always on their back. They expect too much, they are disapproving of friends, they don’t convey trust, they set impossible limits, and they are intrusive. In hearing about the negatives of the adolescents’ adult carers Daniel would invite his clients to talk in more detail about the effects of these experiences of their parents. He asked about what they needed to feel better supported and conveyed that he appreciated what they were up against. He affirmed their strengths and sought to build their self-esteem as well as suggesting techniques for reducing negative thoughts and anxiety symptoms.

The problems arose for Daniel when he invited parents to counselling sessions. Having already conveyed assent for the young person’s criticisms of the parent he found that he was immediately biased towards parent blame. He worked to convey warmth towards the parent in order to engage them in exploring their relationship with the child but he was quick to be annoyed by what he perceived as their invalidating approach to their adolescent. Any slight gesture of negative body language from a parent would push Daniel’s emotional buttons of defence for his young client. Daniels focus would be on trying to help the parent see what their adolescent needed from them. There was little curiosity for what the parent was up against in relating to their adolescent or for the many years invested by the parent in trying to help their child. All he could see was the current conflict in the relationship and how this seemed to be causing emotional distress for the young person. Daniel was caught in a common helper’s triangle. He was on the side of his client and was unable to see the broader patterns of interaction as part of a complex backdrop to the adolescent’s current symptoms. Daniel genuinely believed in conveying warmth and respect for the parent but his side taking meant that the parent sensed that they were the focus of a blame and change effort. In turn the parent would be edgy with Daniel which gave him further confirmation of his biased view of their dismissive parenting style.

You may be wondering if it is ever possible to counsel one person without forming an alliance with their view of things. Without an understanding of relationship systems it is very difficult to avoid side taking. In particular, without an appreciation of the invitation to triangle, a helper inevitably falls into validating one person while blaming others – sometimes in subtle ways. A triangle is when a third party is used as a detour for dealing with an issue in the relationship between two people. When we are upset with another it is comforting to find a third party who will listen to our distress. The act of telling an outsider about our worry effectively calms us down. The predicament however is that the person is not working on their problem in the relationship in which it belongs. Additionally the third party now has a different view of the person who has been complained about. This infects a negative tone to the way they now relate to this person, as was happening with Daniel in his stance with his client’s parents.

When we construct our picture of a problem through the complaints and distress of an individual, it is natural that our focus will be helping them recover from what we perceive others have inflicted upon them. This forms the basis of the common helping triangle. Such side taking or triangling can be averted when the problem is explored through descriptions of patterns of interaction and how these relationships have adjusted to pressures of adverse circumstances over time. Exploring patterns of how each person has affected each other’s way of relating enables us to appreciate that every family member (or group member) has played a part in constructing current dynamics. Rather than draw out more details of a person’s complaint the helper asks: when does this happens, who is involved, how do they each respond, what is the effect of this?

Daniel was concerned about the blocks he experienced in working with parents of troubled adolescents. He knew their relationship with the young person was important to the adolescent recovering their wellbeing. As he came to see how he was getting caught in a triangle with the parents on the outside of his alliance with their child he began to work out ways to prevent this occurring. Rather than ask his young client to expand on their feelings of angst about their parents he would explore what they were doing to deal with their frustrations in their relationship. He tracked carefully the interactions the young person was regularly part of when conflicts or symptomatic behaviours escalated. As he saw a more objective view of parent-child relationships over time he began to appreciate how important it was to include parents in his counselling right up front. When parents expressed their grievances about the child (or the other parent) in counselling, he discovered that he could draw out how they were trying to address this in the relationship. This replaced his previous approach that provided a platform for making a case that another was the problem.

Getting caught in becoming a third party detour is a central pitfall of any helping relationship (professional, family, friendships, congregations, work). Any struggling person will feel better when they find an empathic listening ear to their problems within another relationship. The helper can also feel competent as they sense appreciation for providing positive validations that are missing from an important relationship. The short term relief of this alliance can easily give way to a helping impasse. While the upset person wants to feel supported, they have not been assisted to work their difficulty out in the important relationship in their life. When a helper shifts from encouraging venting about others, to identifying patterns in relationship with others, they can become a valuable resource for a person’s change process. They still convey respect and concern for the weight of the difficulty but they resist the invitation to side taking.

‘Side Taking or Triangling in a Helping Relationship’ – Jenny Brown

Triangles at Work

Triangle

‘I’m grateful for a theory that gives me a road map for tackling the inevitable triangling process at work. I’m reminded that when a negative report comes via a third party it’s likely to be exaggerated by the listener. Hearing things directly from another creates a clearer space in the relationship. It’s less likely that anxious negativity gets cultivated.’

In a recent meeting to review our training program, a remark was casually made that a team member (not in the meeting) was unhappy about a decision I had made.  Immediately I recognised a triangling process – when a problem between two people is detoured to, or through, a third person.  A genuine, concerned third party was conveying a message on behalf of another. It happens so naturally when there is some level of unease in relationships. The issue doesn’t get expressed between the two people with whom it belongs but gets conveyed via another who is instinctively acting as a mediator. It’s easier to express concerns indirectly and in turn to calm down if we sense that the third party shares our view. Hence Bowen proposed that the triangle is the most comfortable relationship (not to be confused as healthy), with the inevitable differences between two people making it inherently uncomfortable.

I responded to the detoured message with a tweak of frustration. Why hadn’t this person come to me directly? I expressed my concern about needing to work out how to deal with this triangle information to the 2 people in the meeting. They each suggested that I ignore the comment as if it had not been spoken— a withdrawal of the remark.  The problem with this is that once the concern is expressed, it is in the system of relationships and will consequently affect the way I relate to this absent person.  When we next connect, it’s likely to be a little edgy, with me perceiving a tension attached to the complaint that wasn’t expressed directly to me. Even if nothing is said, the impact of the detoured message will create some instability in the relationship – silence does not fool a relationship. The other person will sense that something has shifted and will not know why. They in turn will add their own reactive interpretation to this.

I determined that the best way to de-triangle was to let this colleague know how I’d heard about the upset regarding allocation of some training work. This is a way of putting whatever the issue might be, back into the relationship in which it belongs. I reflected that I had not been making sufficient effort to be in contact with this colleague. Our busy schedules meant that we were rarely in the office on the same days. I needed to address my part in increasing the likelihood of triangled communication by making better contact. As soon as possible I arranged a time to catch up over lunch. Over our casual catch up I made every effort to share updates about each of our lives; to hear about her recent travels to visit family and to share some of the non-work related things I had been up to. I know how important it is NOT to attempt to bridge distance by raising a potentially stressful issue.  A relationship needs to be sufficiently relaxed to be able to tackle points of difference. After our conversation moved to chatting about various professional endeavours, I mentioned how I had heard about her concern about the training related matter. She conveyed that while she had initially been taken aback by the information, she was comfortable with the situation when she heard more details.  Any tension between us that could have festered was simply cleared up in this exchange. Whether or not my colleague was reporting the situation factually is not the issue. The whole point of the effort is to ensure a more open, person to person relationship.

I left the lunch grateful for a theory that gives me a road map for tackling the inevitable triangling process at work. I was also reminded that when a negative report comes via a third party it is likely to be exaggerated in the listener’s psychology (in this case my own). Hearing things directly from another creates a clearer space in the relationship. It’s less likely that anxious negativity gets cultivated. As a leader I’m reminded once again of the importance of remaining in good enough contact with the people I work with. – Contact that is calm, not intensely self-disclosing and that best facilitates others being able to focus on their job duties. While distance is an issue, so too is intense monitoring that will just as surely trigger anxious relationship patterns such as triangle detours that can spread quickly through other triangles. I don’t always get this right but I do have a way of recognising the effect of triangles and in turn having the option to address my part. My goal is to relate in an open way to those I work with and to put detoured issues back where they belong.  A quote from a talk by Dr Michael Kerr has stuck with me: that differentiation of self/ maturity is having the capacity to keep a problem in the relationship from which it is trying to escape.

Questions for Reflection:

  • Can I recognise when information is being conveyed through a third party?
  • Do I notice when I feel compelled to share something about another to a third party?
  • When I hear a third party’s complaint about another how can I do my bit to get it back into the relevant relationship?
  • Is my distance from a person I work with increasing the likelihood of triangle communication?
  • What was my predictable triangle position in my family growing up? Was I quick to jump in and listen to the detoured concerns of a parent/family member? Was I a ‘distancer’ who made it hard for a parent to talk directly with me? Was I a mediator who was often overly sensitive to disharmony between parents or siblings? Was I a reactor who deflected receiving direct feedback from a parent?
  • What ways can I work at connecting with others without needing to discuss absent third parties?

Key quotes from Bowen

‘A “differentiated self” is one who can maintain emotional objectivity while in the midst of an [anxious] emotional system, yet at the same time actively relate to key people in the system. …Gossip is one of the principle mechanisms for “triangling” another into an emotional field between two people…..’ FTCP p 485

‘A two person relationship is unstable in that it forms itself into a three-person relationship under stress. A system larger than three persons becomes a series of interlocking triangles….As tension mounts in a two person system, it is usual for one to be more uncomfortable than the other and for the uncomfortable one to “triangle in” a third person by telling the second person a story about the triangle one. This relives the tension between the first two and shifts the tension between the second and third. ‘FTCP p 478

‘When there is finally one who can control his/her emotional responsiveness and not take sides with either of the other two, and stay constantly in contact with the other two, the emotional intensity within the twosome will decrease and both will move to a higher level of differentiation (maturity)’ FTCP p 480

‘Triangles at Work’Jenny Brown