Impersonal Triangulation
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 11/12/2022

Triangulation revolves around managing and controlling a relationship dynamic by introducing a third party into the mix, emotionally or sexually.

Triangulating partners choose any third party who is perceived - in reality or fantasy - as available.

When no specific third party is available to triangulate with, they makes general triangulation statements such as:

“I always cheat; I can never be loyal; I can’t resist my sex drive; cheating is meaningless; I don’t give a damn about my partner; I don’t even remember him when I have sex with others; I always do as I please at the moment” and so on.

Triangulation is used to get a rise out of the partner and thus restore the relationship; punish for some transgression, real, anticipated, or imagined; sustain a fantasy; or dissolve the relationship. Pushing your partner to cheat is also a form of triangulation. 

The word gaslighting was invented in the 1960s, but I was the first scholar to use it in terms of narcissistic abuse (a phrase that I coined to describe the narcissist’s annihilating abuse). 

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