Breaking Old Patterns: Productive Pathways of Communication

How many people get into an argument with a family member and then turn to a friend, child or parent for comfort? We all have. After expressing our frustrations to someone else, it seems easier to return to the offender in a calm frame of mind. For the moment, our tension has lessened.

Here’s a hypothetical situation: Bill has a tough day at work, and when he arrives home, he brings his frustration with him to his family life. Jane, his wife, perceives him as grumpy and distant. Not knowing the cause of Bill’s mood, Jane talks to her best friend, complaining that her relationship is not as intimate as she desires. Jane might feel better after her talk, but nothing has been solved. Bill continues to come home grumpy, and Jane keeps turning to her friend in frustration. Eventually, as dissatisfaction builds, talking to a friend no longer helps. The situation explodes. Sound familiar?

In these types of interactions, where is the opportunity to take another, more productive path? Common sense tells us that direct communication is needed: turning to a third party does not solve the problem. Instead, it creates a relationship triangle; the emotional tension between two members runs high, so a third member is brought into the relationship in order to lower the original emotional intensity. The spouses have resolved nothing, succeeding only in hiding their problems by funneling their discontent with the relationship into the third party.

While direct communication might make common sense, there’s a reason why relationship triangles persist, even across generations. Often, the anxiety is produced by the status quo is less powerful that the anxiety provoked by direct confrontation. Why deal with the problem when we can get a third party to meet our needs, even if only temporarily?

Is there any hope of escape from this situation? Of course. The couple needs to detrianglize. They need to remove the emotional involvement of the third party so that the couple can turn their attention to the underlying problems causing their disagreements. Since triangles are so basic to how we function in relationships, including a neutral third person can often be the best way to break the emotional displacement which occurs within highly charged family triangles.

Family therapists specialize in acting as that neutral third member for the relationship. Being neutral means that the therapist places no emotional investment in changing the view points of either person in the relationship; their main purpose is to reduce the tension which normally exists between the spouses and encourage the opening of new, productive pathways of communication. Though it’s perfectly normal to create triangles, learning how to directly address problems establishes a stable basis on which to found a relationship.