PERSONALITY DISORDERS

4 Reasons Why People with Personality Disorders Triangulate in Relationships

A deeper look into what purpose triangulation serves

Triangulation is a form of manipulation. It describes a person’s use of threats of exclusion, a typical behaviour seen in people with a personality disorder. I’m diagnosed with one, and I decided to examine four possible reasons why I engaged in triangulation or why people I’ve met who also had a personality disorder seemed to engage in it.

1. The “Do You Still Love Me?” Triangulation

This is the most commonly seen type in people who fear abandonment. I used to be in a relationship with a guy who had Paranoid Personality Disorder a few years back now, and he engaged in this a lot. He kept on bringing up how one of his new close friends was a model, and he kept on complimenting other women in front of me constantly, trying to get a reaction.

Jealousy is a sign that you care — it comes from fear of losing someone. You would not feel jealous over someone if you could let go of them. People with personality disorders know this. They also believe that love and attachment are weaknesses. Jealousy, therefore, is a sign of weakness they would try to provoke in you to reassure themselves that you like them.

2. The “I Don’t Care About You That Much” Triangulation

This is the type I used a lot because I’m dismissive-avoidantly attached. Growing up in my family environment, I learned that if you care too much, your feelings will be used against you to subjugate you, so over time, I got very good at creating a facade of indifference and in many cases even actually becoming indifferent.

For the most part, my triangulations in relationships didn’t involve another man. Instead, I would triangulate using my friends — I would ensure it was evident that I cared about my friends a lot, would go out of my way to help them and trusted them when I didn’t trust my partners. I would happily show affection and attention to my friends yet withhold it from my partners. In a way, this wasn’t a lie — I am securely attached to my friends, and I trust them fully, yet, I struggle to trust and get close to people I’m in a relationship with. The problem was I would go out of my way to overemphasize this to make my partners feel insecure and not valued.

Another variation of this is I noticed a friend of mine often used her dog to triangulate — she would purposefully always talk about how her dog is the number 1 priority for her — more important to her than everyone else. This basically invalidated her partner because usually, in relationships, it is expected that you are each other’s top priority. It was a subtle way of rejecting him basically and saying she doesn’t care about him as much as other things. So triangulation can be very subtle. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve the opposite gender.

3. The “No One Tells Me What to Do” Triangulation

This is another type I used a lot. I grew up in an overprotective home, and I felt like I never had the freedom to do what I wanted. This is where my fear of intimacy comes from — I hate being restricted. So I saw relationships and commitment as a restriction on my freedom. To be honest, I still avoid commitment now because it feels suffocating.

That said, I wasn’t too bad about this until I got into one relationship where the guy wouldn’t let go, and the police had to get involved — I was never the same after that. In the relationships following that, whenever I was out drinking or partying, I made sure my partners knew about it, yet I never told them where I was going or who I was with. It was a way for me to test them — I wanted to check and double-check to make sure they wouldn’t try to control me. I was constantly freaked out about the possibility of someone trying to lock me in a house in the future. So even though I never cheated, I never gave partners that reassurance either. I always left things ambivalent, which made them very anxious. I believed if I gave them a sense of safety, they would suddenly decide that they have power over me and try to restrict my freedom.

4. The Punitive Triangulation

This is a revenge-oriented triangulation where the purpose is to punish the intimate partner. In general, people with personality disorders tend to become quite punitive when hurt or betrayed. I did this to one person who was paranoid that I would cheat on him but then cheated on me himself. I did break up with him, but I had a friend he was jealous of so I made sure to sleep with this friend after the break-up and tell him that I did. I also pretended to get into a new relationship just to spite him. I hated him though so I can’t say I regret this. I think depending on how severe someone is, it’s possible they will engage in punitive triangulation attempts for more insignificant reasons.

Can this behaviour be changed?

Sort of. I’m still commitment-phobic and I’m not good at giving people reassurance but I have definitely improved. What helped was learning where my need to engage in triangulation comes from and realizing that it does the opposite of what I want in a relationship. Essentially, my goal is not to be controlled, but triangulation only makes people anxious and more likely to be controlling, as control is an anxiety behaviour.

I have also learnt to stand up for myself more, so I no longer need to triangulate to emphasize how little I care about my partners with the hopes of preventing them from trying to restrain me. Now it’s different — they can try, but I can say no and defend myself, whereas, in the past, I found this more difficult.

I still catch myself engaging in triangulation from time to time — I noticed it’s something I do automatically to dismiss any relationship I’m in because subconsciously, I always feel the need to put a distance between myself and other people. So I try to pay attention and notice when I’m doing it to stop myself because I now realize there is no point in making people insecure for no reason.

I don’t think it’s possible to change this in other people, though. Or what I mean is, change is only possible if someone wants it for themselves, not when others are pushing you to do it. However, knowing why I engaged in it stopped me from taking it personally when others tried to do it to me. Because I don’t think it was personal in my case. 99% of the time, I was just scared of allowing partners even to think that they might have power over me because, in a way, they actually did. I realized when you stop taking things personally and accept people as they are, it’s easier to walk away from bad relationships as well because it stops you from having high expectations of people.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to read more, you can subscribe here — https://medium.com/subscribe/@ella_harris to get an email whenever I publish a story. You can also buy me ☕ via — https://ko-fi.com/ella_harris

This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I will earn a commission. Thanks.