Murray Bowen
Pulling in a third person
The tension gets fixed in place
Bowen on triangles
A problem between two people always seems to end up being three people's problem. What that costs.
What actually happened?
Bowen states it as a rule of the system: when the tension between two people runs too high, a third is automatically drawn in. Complaining about a partner to a friend, parents pulling a child into their own quarrel, colleagues who go around rather than through — the relief is real, and the price is that the original pair no longer has to settle anything, because the pressure now has somewhere to go. He called it triangling, and thought it the most stable structure in a family: once formed, a triangle can run for decades with the third person held in the middle.
Relief and permanence are one movement
Bringing in a third party works precisely because it bleeds off pressure, and once the pressure is off the original two lose the motive to fix anything. That is why the relationships people complain about longest are so often the ones that never change.
Every week you tell a friend what he did. You feel better each time, and a year on you have never said any of it to him.
The child is the one most often pulled in
Where the tension between parents is high, a child is the easiest third point: through attention, through a tug of war, or by developing a problem that takes the pressure off. It is why Bowen treated a child's symptoms as belonging to the system rather than to the child.
The parents start fighting as soon as the child improves. That usually means the problem had been standing in front of the marriage.
The way out is a direct conversation, not a side
When you are being triangled, taking sides is the least useful thing available. What works is declining the role: not judging, not carrying messages, handing the problem back to the two who own it. It sounds cold and it is the only route by which they solve it.
Both parents complain to you about each other. I am not going to sit in the middle, the two of you have to talk, does more than persuading either one.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: two people have been stuck for years and there is always a third person in the middle.
Ask first: is that third person bleeding off their pressure? What part am I playing in it?
Where it goes wrong: reading do not triangulate as never ask anyone for support. The difference is whether you are looking for support or standing in for the conversation that should be happening.
Lines to keep
Too much tension between two people automatically pulls in a third.
The triangle is the basic building block of an emotional system.
Bringing in a third relieves the pressure and removes the motive.
Same situation, other people are asking
My parents each complain to me about the other.I vent about him to everyone except him.I'm stuck in the middle · all 2 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.