Love Triangle - History and Definitions

History and Definitions

The term "love triangle" generally connotes an arrangement unsuitable to one or more of the people involved. One person usually ends up feeling betrayed at some point, e.g. 'Person A is jealous of person C who is having a relationship with person B who, in person A's eyes, is "his" person'. A similar arrangement that is agreed upon by all parties is sometimes called a triad, a type of polyamory, although polyamory usually implies sexual relations. Within the context of monogamy, love triangles are inherently unstable, with unrequited love and jealousy as common themes. Though rare, love triangles have been known to lead to murder or suicide committed by the actual or perceived rejected lover.

Psychoanalysis has explored 'the theme of erotic love triangles and their roots in the Oedipal triangle'. Experience suggests that 'a repeated pattern of forming or being caught in love triangle can be much dissolved by beginning to analyse the patterns of the childhood relationship to each parent in turn and to both parents as a couple'. In such instances, 'you find men who are attracted only by married woman but who can't sustain the relationship if it threatens to become more than an affair. They need the husband to protect them from a full relationship...as women who repeatedly get involved with married men need the wives'.