I’ve been thinking a lot about triangles lately, mostly in terms of marriage, specifically my own. I learned in graduate school that the smallest stable unit of a relationship is a triad. That was profound then, especially because of my own thinking about relationships: that we are not just made for relationship with one another, but also with God. It would make sense that the relationship between a couple would be appropriately stabilized by the Father. Any relationship, though, is made more stable and healthy when the two reach out for a third party which can be God, or even when the two just have in mind the presence and priority of that higher relationship.

The problem is we typically induct a third member of the triangle that is not so helpful in facilitating the relationship as the Father. We reach out and induct some other regulating force such as some drug, hobby, some consoling friend or lover, or some other family member which does not allow appropriate growth and intensity to occur in the dyadic relationship. In that way, unhealthy triangling subverts the natural process that should take place between the two, and takes away the motivation to reach out for that ultimate, stabilizing Force. We continually are looking for triangles (not always aware that we are) and seldom are they healthy. We are reaching for stability and the tragedy is that we find it in ways that are less satisfying than they could be, and that do not facilitate true intimacy between the two. 

Reaching to God for stabilization seems, at times, to work against intimacy; however, it is this very thing that will offer true intimacy. Instead, we prefer all these substitute third legs which will actually prevent intimacy. We seek what will make it difficult to connect truly to our partner, and in doing so, avoid the thing we profess to desire: intimacy with him or her. 

This is all too complex to explain, and much of it happens at a level where we do not really comprehend the forces at work, nor our need or drive to be intimate. We just experience what is produced – the intimacy or lack of intimacy that occurs. 

The tradic relationship is ever-present and necessary, not just in situations where a triangle is obvious. It also seems to occur in dyadic relationships where there is unsuccessful attachment. When one of the members experiences some sort of attachment break and has some sort of protest, he seeks (again, unknowingly many times) some stabilizing force, or some other third party that will satisfy his need for intimacy, but which will also show the partner that she is not meeting his need for attachment. This is when the dyadic relationship opens itself up to the outside system, and how the web of relationships becomes multi-dimensional and infinitely complex.

How interesting. Relationships, at their base, seem on the surface to be between two, but it is truer that beneath the surface, their base unit is 3. The Trinity reflects this truth. 

More about this later.