I have a thread about 3rd party relationships and trauma bonds that I wanna tweet but it’s so hard to get my thoughts across with this retrograde lol. I’ll do my best

Ok let’s talk about love triangles and how trauma is involved

This is gonna be channeled so bear with me lol

Ok so when it comes to toxic relationships, people often attract them because they have past trauma that they haven’t resolved. So their subconscious mind attracts a person that’s similar to the person they experienced the past trauma with

Example:
You have an emotionally unavailable mother who made you feel worthless and unloveable. You never healed this wound so you’ll attract emotionally unavailable partners who make you feel the same way your mom did

It’s your subconscious minds way of getting you to see this deeply buried wound and hopefully resolve it. But sometimes you can’t play out this wound with just one person. What if your past trauma involves two people??

That’s where love triangles come in. When you’re in a love triangle, often BOTH of the other ppl involved remind you of a past traumatic event. Let’s give an example. We’ll call the 3 characters in this example Ann, Ben, and Dea. Trying to keep their names short to save space lol

Ann and Ben are a couple. Dea is the third person who has feelings for Ben.

All 3 people have past trauma and they’re about to play it out with each other. They’ve all subconsciously attracted each other

Ann’s past trauma: abandonment.

Her mother abandoned her to go run off with a man. The man decided he didn’t want to be a step dad and gave the mother a choice “me or the kid.” Her mom chose him and never looked back.

So Ann never resolved this trauma and she needs 2 people to bring this trauma to the surface. 1) Her mother and 2) her stepdad who gave the mother the ultimatum.

She meets Ben. Ben is kinda closed off emotionally and very unpredictable. She falls in love with him immediately. She has no clue why. According to her “it’s just something about him.” Reality: he reminds her of her mother.

Ann and Ben start dating. She’s head over heels in love, despite the red flags that she keeps ignoring. That’s when Dea appears Dea seemingly comes out of nowhere. She professes her love to Ben and asks him to choose between her and Ann. Sound familiar?

Dea is basically playing the role of the stepdad who asked Ann’s mom to choose between them. Of course, this deeply affects Ann. She has no clue why it hurts so bad but it’s because Dea has now hit a veryyyy deep wound that Ann never resolved.

Ann is now a scared child who’s mother is about to abandon her again. So what does she do? Try her best not to be abandoned of course. She decides to stick around and fight for Ben‘s love. If she can get Ben to stay and choose her, it’ll be like her mother choosing her. See?

So you can see how the love triangle was necessary for this wound to fully come to the surface for Ann. People from the outside would say to just leave, but Ann is operating from trauma so she refuses and like I said, she wants to stay and fight and give Ben the option

Now onto Ben’s trauma. I know this thread is long yall, I’m almost done lol.

Ben’s trauma: fear of vulnerability and attachment.
Ben grew up in a household where emotions were considered a weakness and it trained him to fear getting too emotionally invested/attached

He copes with this fear but staying emotionally unavailable. He never commits himself to just one person. He always has to have another option. Plus his self esteem is rather low, so having more than one romantic interest boosts his ego.

So when he dates Ann, yes he feels “love” for her but he keeps her at arm’s length. He never gets as attached as she is. And when he meets Dea, of course he flirts and leads her on. Because like I said before, it makes him feel safe to have multiple options and it boosts his ego

When Ann finds out about Dea, he sees that she’s heartbroken but he won’t fully cut ties with Dea because it feels too good to have those two options. Plus his past trauma is rooted in fear of vulnerability so his empathy is lacking a bit. All he cares about is how HE feels

But he really does care for Ann so it’s weighing on his conscience a bit. He’s starting to feel a level of guilt that he hasn’t experienced before. It’s forcing him to have to face his emotions and how cold/reckless he can truly be

That’s his subconscious mind trying to heal his wound. He needs to face how growing up in his household has caused an emotional disconnect in him that’s blocking him from choosing one person to settle down with and creating confusing/hurtful love triangles

So again, he needed both these women to be attracted into his life to face that wound

Now last, Dea’s trauma. Very similar to Ann’s but a bit different. Hers also involves abandonment. Dea has a narcissistic mother who was jealous of her. So jealous, she drove a wedge between Dea and Dea’s father (yes this happens)

Whenever Dea wanted to spend time with her father, her mom would find a way to take his attention (faking like she was sick, etc). Dea constantly felt abandoned and like she was in some weird competition with her mom that she couldn’t win. See where this is going?

When she meets Ben, he has similar qualities as her dad and she instantly gets attached. Finding out that he’s with Ann actually makes him more appealing, because again, Dea’s subconscious mind is trying to play out her past trauma

In this love triangle, Ann reminds Dea of her mother and Ben reminds Dea of her father. Ann constantly has Ben’s attention is is obviously number 1 in his life. So her mission is to get Ben to leave Ann, because it would be the equivalent of getting her dad’s love over her mom

Of course it’s a losing battle. She’s fighting for his affection but so is Ann and because of his own trauma he’s not really choosing either one. But he’s still favoring Ann because that’s who he originally was in the relationship with (deeply triggering to Dea)

This thread has gone on long enough lol. In conclusion, love triangles are often a subconscious manifestation of a past trauma that involves multiple people.

If you find yourself in this scenario, use it as a mirror or what wound needs to be healed, walk away, and seek healing

Your desire to fight for your love interest, is often rooted in trauma. Your intense dislike for the third person involved is also often rooted in trauma. Yes this is a painful situation so give yourself time to grieve and process your emotions but

also use both these people as a mirror to look into your subconscious mind where your wounded inner child has desperately been trying to get your attention. Through this painful experience your wound is now front and center and you have the option of seeking help to heal it

How each character in the example should handle the situation?

Ann should acknowledge that Ben was never the right person for her. The red flags were there and he’s not emotionally present enough to love anybody properly

She’d also acknowledge that Dea is a wounded individual, and leave both people behind while she seeks healing. And eventually falls in love with an emotionally available person who would never put her in a love triangle

Ben would do the right thing and cut ties with both women (after apologizing to both) and seeks out help to heal his past trauma and get in touch with his emotions. Once he’s emotionally available he can then happily settle down with one woman

Dea would walk away from the love triangle, question why she would want to insert herself into a pre-existing relationship, and seek out healing for the narcissistic abuse she encountered at the hands of her mother. Through her healing work, she finds self love and self worth

And men who are already in relationships are no longer appealing to her whatsoever. She’s only attracted to emotionally available men who make her the only option

Sorry this was so long lol hope it was helpful to someone