Triangulation

Love, power and the erasure of the Other

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are words that only gain meaning once they are embodied. Triangulation was such a word for me. It sounds abstract, as if it refers to lines and angles, but in reality it is an intersection that cuts straight through your heart. It is the experience of love no longer flowing between two people, but always being refracted through a third. It is the subtle game of comparison, rivalry, and power, in which you can never be enough, because there is always someone else watching — real or imagined.

 

I remember vividly how this unfolded in the relationship with my ex, when we got back together after almost three months apart. During that time she had been sexually involved with two men (that I know of). With one of them she had even started a relationship, which she ended in order to return to me. But when I asked her to delete his contact information, or at least unfollow him on Instagram, she flatly refused. Later she even said, almost casually: “He was really nice, you know.” As if those words meant nothing. When I replied that she was free to go back to him, she insisted that was not what she meant. Yet in that offhand remark, a fracture took place. A third had entered between us, invisible but decisive.

 

Triangulation acts like a constant shadow. You never know whether the other’s gaze is truly directed at you, or at the mirror someone else is holding up to her. What unfolded between us therefore never became fully us, but always also him. And it did not stop with this one moment. Time and again a third was drawn in, until I began to understand that triangulation was not a slip, but a recurring pattern.

 

 

 

Jealousy, insecurity and power

Another moment that has stayed with me came weeks after it had taken place. She told me, almost in passing, that her ex — the father of her children — had texted her asking if she would please be his girlfriend again. No open conversation, no sharing what this stirred in her — just a casual remark, dropped between sentences, as if it meant nothing at all.

 

It was precisely that nonchalance that cut deep. In reality, I was thrown off balance in an instant: another figure had stepped into the wings, a former lover suddenly reintroduced into our story. It felt as if the ground shifted beneath my feet. Not because I was jealous of him as a person, but because his presence was used to undermine my place.

 

In psychological terms, this is the essence of triangulation: a third is introduced not to share or clarify, but to create tension. The effect is confusion, insecurity and a subtle shift in power. The one who triangulates can mirror themselves in the desire of the other — I am still wanted — while forcing the partner into a position of uncertainty: am I enough?

 

In this way triangulation deforms the very fabric of intimacy. Where love could have been a safe ground in which two people truly see and recognize each other, a tear is introduced: there is always an outsider in the story. And that makes the relationship restless, permanently out of balance.

 

 

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The Other who is never truly present

It was not only former lovers who were brought in. Sometimes even random passersby or imagined scenes would intrude into our relationship. During a lunch together, this became painfully clear. She was already there, absorbed in a book about overstimulation of the brain. When I joined her, we looked through the menu, a moment of everyday simplicity. But suddenly something else slipped between us. She began telling me about two men who had been sitting at the table next to her just before I arrived. According to her, one of them had stood up saying, “Come on, let’s go, my brain is getting overstimulated.” To which the other supposedly replied: “Not only my brain.” Then she looked at me and, with a smile, added: “You would have punched him in the face if you had been here.”

 

The absurdity of that remark struck me. I’m not a violent woman and have never used physical force in my life, yet a role was imposed on me in a fantasy that had taken place outside of me. Two strangers were staged as a backdrop, their words turned into a mirror in which I was expected to react, compete, or defend myself.

 

Philosophically, this is the essence of how triangulation distorts the space between two people. Where an I–Thou relationship could have emerged, as Martin Buber described, I was reduced to a function in a story that was not mine — an I–It relationship. I was not seen in my being, but used as a pawn in a play where others, present or imagined, were given the leading role.

 

Emmanuel Levinas would say that recognition broke down here: the other no longer appeared as a face calling me to responsibility, but as a player in a power game. And René Girard would hear in it an echo of mimetic desire — desire that always runs through the other, never directly, but always in comparison.

 

 

 

The ultimate fracture line – sexuality as the stage of triangulation

Nowhere did her triangulation cut more deeply than in the realm of sexuality. Where love should have found an intimate grounding, the game was played at its harshest. Perhaps the most painful example unfolded around the after-school care worker of her children. After having unsafe sex with him multiple times, we had agreed that there would be no further private contact, and that there would be openness and clarity if he did take any initiative. Safety seemed possible, though fragile.

 

But weeks later I heard that he had sent her messages filled with heart emojis on several occasions. That disclosure was dropped casually, and the entire agreement we had made about openness was denied. Not long after, she told me that she wanted to remain friends with him — as if everything that had happened before, the unsafe sex, the lies and betrayals, the boundary-crossing behavior, could be wiped clean by labeling it “friendship.”

 

Here the ultimate form of triangulation revealed itself: intimacy that should have been exclusive was shared with another, and I was continually pushed to the margins. Sexuality was no longer a place of encounter, but an instrument by which power, secrecy, and confusion were maintained.

 

 

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Covert narcissism and triangulation as manipulation

It was precisely here that it became clear to me that triangulation was not just an unfortunate dynamic, but a deliberate strategy. For someone with hidden narcissism, triangulation is no accidental slip, but a carefully chosen tool. It is a way to preserve power, to feel in control, and to see themselves confirmed in the desire of others. In truth, the narcissist does not draw nourishment from the third person as such, but from the effect that this third has on the partner and on the relational dynamic. The presence of another — real or imagined — becomes an instrument for sowing doubt, shifting the balance, and demonstrating: I am never yours alone.

 

In this way, triangulation becomes a method of avoiding intimacy. Where love calls for closeness, triangulation secures distance. The gaze never needs to be fully on you; there is always someone else in the wings who breaks open the scene. For the narcissist, this means that true vulnerability can be evaded. They never have to fully show themselves, because the relationship is constantly interrupted by a third figure who diverts attention.

 

What is gained here is not love, but power. Not genuine encounter, but a confirmation of one’s existence through the confusion of the other. Triangulation is therefore not so much a gesture toward the third, but rather a gesture against the partner: a subtle but constant denial of the possibility of safe ground.

 

 

 

The wound of triangulation – truth and inner life

For the one who undergoes it, triangulation is devastating. What makes it so destructive is not only that a third is drawn in, but that your reality itself is slowly hollowed out. The other’s gaze keeps sliding away: today toward a former lover, tomorrow toward a colleague, the next day toward someone who exists only in her story. You may be present, but you are not truly seen. You become part of a game that pulls you ever further from your own center.

 

What remains is not only distrust, but also a reality that grows increasingly diffuse. I remember how she once told me that, after an argument during which we had separated for a while, she had asked her ex to bring her cigarettes. She said she was sad, and that they had lain spooning on the couch. When he left, he supposedly tried to kiss her, but according to her she turned her head away. That was how the story was told: enough to suggest there were boundaries, yet enough to leave me with questions that would never be answered. Because what really happened that evening, I will never know.

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That is the cruelest effect of triangulation: that the truth always remains diffuse. Just enough is shared to sow tension, but never enough to offer solid ground. It is the art of the incomplete story — and that is precisely what keeps you trapped in doubt, longing for clarity, and in the pain of a truth that remains just beyond reach.

 

For me it felt as if the ground kept being pulled out from under my feet. Not so much because I feared losing her to someone else, but because my place was never affirmed. Triangulation forces you to constantly prove that you exist, that you are enough, that you are truly present. And yet that proof can never be delivered, because the rules of the game are always changing.

 

In those days, my journals became my salvation. There I could give words to what was really happening, no matter how subtle the dynamics were. On paper I knew: this is the truth. It gave me an anchor in a sea of gaslighting and confusion. Because truth has an inner resonance. You can feel it, even when those around you deny it.

 

And that is where triangulation touches on something greater: it is not only a relational dynamic, but an assault on inner life itself. Where love asks for openness, truth, and presence, triangulation creates a stage on which truth is replaced by strategy. What remains is an emptiness disguised as connection, but which in reality has no ground at all.

 

 

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Conclusion – triangulation as a mirror of culture

What I experienced in my relationship was painfully personal. But triangulation goes beyond the private sphere. It is also a mirror of the world we live in. A culture driven by comparison, competition, and scarcity. Capitalism feeds on triangulation: you never own enough, because there is always someone who has more. You are never beautiful enough, because there is always someone more attractive. There is always a third who relativizes your place.

 

In this way the social fabric becomes infused with the same logic: a constant threat of replaceability. Just as in the intimate relationship, trust and rest can hardly find a ground. Connection is confused with possession, recognition with status, and love with a game of mirrors.

 

Opposite this stands another principle. Love as a grounding force, as a safe bedrock. Love needs no third to affirm itself, no competition to prove its worth. True love does not see the other as a pawn in a play, but as a being who is. Only in that pure recognition can inner life open up and truth take root.

 

Triangulation shows what happens when that grounding is absent: the bond becomes a battlefield, truth grows diffuse, and the soul experiences loneliness in the very midst of a relationship. Yet it was precisely through this experience that I realized another path exists. A path in which love is not built on scarcity, but on abundance. Not on comparison, but on presence.

 

Perhaps that is the deepest meaning I can give to all of this: triangulation exposes how vulnerable we become when love turns into strategy. And at the same time it points toward the necessity of a love that truly carries — not as a power game, but as a fabric of recognition, truth, and connection.

 

There is, however, another side to triangulation, one that is almost tragic. For those who employ it reveal not only manipulation and power, but also a profound emptiness. It is an attempt to feel affirmed through the eyes of another, but never directly, never in the vulnerable closeness of a partner. There must always be a third, a mirror to artificially sustain self-worth.

 

That makes triangulation a poor game. For a moment it seems to give something — the feeling of still being desired, of still being wanted, of always having alternatives in reserve — but in reality it undermines precisely what it longs for most: intimacy and safety. It is like trying to quench your thirst with salt water. You drink, but only grow more parched.

 

This is why triangulation is not only cruel to the one who endures it, but also tragic for the one who employs it. What is longed for is love. What is sought is recognition. But what is chosen is a detour that makes both impossible. Instead of the ground of truth, there arises a theater of mirrors, in which the other is pushed ever further away.

 

But tragedy is not the same as innocence. The fact that someone is inwardly impoverished does not erase the destructive force of their actions. Triangulation is not merely a symptom of emptiness, it is also an act of denial and dehumanization of the other. That duality makes it so insidious: beneath it lies sorrow, but its effect is devastating.