EMOTIONAL MATURITY AND TRIANGLES

"You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son" (Psalms 50:20).

"A two-person system may be stable as long as it is calm, but since that level of calm is very difficult to maintain, a two-person system is more accurately characterized as unstable. When anxiety increases, a third person becomes involved in the tension of the twosome, creating a triangle. This involvement of a third person decreases anxiety in the twosome by spreading it through three relationships" (Kerr/Bowen, 134).

Children learn early in life what a triangle is. Children also learn early how to triangle relationships. When sibling disagreement occurs, one of the siblings will run to one of the parents. This dynamic is carried into adulthood into adult relationships. When there is tension in a relationship, it has already been learned to go to another for support. Gossip is one of the ways this is done; so is having an affair. The third "person" in the triangle doesn't have to be a person at all; it can be a substitute like food, work, hobby or medication. The same emotional process at the root of an affair is at the root of obesity. Of course, going to a counselor, to God, or pastor, "God" with skin on, is triangulation too. Forming a triangle is not a bad thing, though we have seen that it can be, it just depends on who the "third person" is. A mature third person will support the person, but will not enable destructive emotional release! Many times immature people will not accept that and will find a new "third person;" one can always find a counselor that makes them happy.

I've run into several family problems that have incorporated this kind of triangle. A child makes himself a problem when tension reaches a certain level between his parents. This draws one or both parents' focus to him, thus reducing the emotional tension between them. Many, many "kid" problems find relief in marital therapy.

All psychotherapy is family therapy. None of us live our lives in solitary, though many attempt it. Even the apparent lack of relationships is a reaction to a relationship with someone. Any time a person has a problem, think in triangles.

Grace&Peace;
Tom