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Narcissistic Triangulation: When Two Becomes Three
Every narcissist triangulates, and it can feel rather uncomfortable when they do.
23/05/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Triangulation.
Everyone who has lived with a malignant narcissist is familiar with what this is. You may not know what the term means, but since every narcissist triangulates, you’ll certainly have experienced it.
What Is Triangulation? Simply put: Triangulation means involving three people in a situation that should only involve two.
It happens when:
- A narcissist refuses to communicate or resolve issues directly.
- Instead of dealing with you, they go through (or bring in) someone else.
- This third person may misrepresent, escalate, or interfere—intentionally or not.
Narcissists triangulate with all kinds of people, but many do so either with their parents or with an ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, ex-spouse, or even someone they’re currently having an affair with. They may also triangulate you with people in your own life and use your children to triangulate you.
Triangulation, simply explained, means three instead of two. Any narcissist triangulates. This can happen when they talk about others and tell you how those people behave, what they think, or what they supposedly said about you (which may not even be true, or: isn’t true most of the time). It can also happen when they involve someone else so they don’t have to deal with you directly. Instead, you’re left dealing with that third person—often someone who ends up making your life a living hell.
A man who triangulates is disgusting, in my opinion. To me, it feels like he’s acting like a woman, not a man, when he does that. And when confronted, they’ll outright deny the triangulation, even when it’s extremely obvious.
One person constantly triangulated me with his absent Black ex-girlfriend (or at least I think she’s an ex-girlfriend—who knows if he ever ended the relationship with her; he’s too needy to end any relationship). He tried to date me using lies and manipulations, not being upfront about not having ended things with her.
When I told him our “faux relationship” was now dissolved—never to be called a relationship ever again—it was because he had lied about all kinds of things when he initially got to know me, hadn’t included me in his life whatsoever, was living a double life behind my back, and then claimed I had to look up to him, praise him, and become all immature and childish (which is what he acts like all the time). This uses up a lot of energy—you’ll constantly be forced to pretend he’s funny when he’s actually immature, childish, and… kind of retarded.
I told him he had to leave my life because of all the other betrayals I had experienced at his hands (such as triangulating my children against me without actually knowing them). But instead of respecting a single boundary and leaving me alone, he just increased his stalking, harassment, coercion, intimidation, and threats.
He constantly told me he loved me, believing I was too dumb to distinguish love from hatred, or love from using others—just saying it to manipulate people for his own gain. He portrayed me as being too needy for his help to be allowed to leave, to claim it wasn’t love, while insisting he was constantly having superior love relationships with other women. He believed he could love others more than anyone else.
It’s not like he has the skills to ever have a grown-up relationship with anyone. He simply believes he has superior relationship skills by constantly talking about relationships—or about your supposed relationship—without actually doing any of the work a real relationship requires. He thinks he’ll be given a relationship just by sitting somewhere claiming he has one, while actually doing nothing in real life and nothing for the other person.
He demands constant praise for so-called good deeds, which aren’t good deeds at all—just a narcissist pretending to help but actually trying to give to get. When he’s pretending to help, he usually just takes from you and steals from you without your consent. He steals your time, your rights, and many other things just to take revenge on you and show you what an evil, bad, flawed human being you supposedly are. No, narcissists certainly are evil, bad, flawed human beings—but normal people aren’t, and they don’t deserve to be treated cruelly, inhumanely, or as though they were narcissists with bad intentions. He doesn’t even stop when you ask him to stop lying to your face about who you are, not understanding that you know yourself and won’t let a disrespectful man call you names and shame you just because some person in some incel forum said something negative about women that he now treats as the truth about you.
With regard to the narcissist and his ex-girlfriend: He tried to make me put her on a pedestal (though I’m not praying to any false gods like he does). I also don’t put such people on a pedestal. He called me racist for not wanting to think about her, research her, or see her as better than me—as well as for not talking about her as though she were superior to me. And this wasn’t just once, but all the time. He demanded that I devalue myself, put myself down in front of him, to prove that she was superior and I was inferior. In his mind, he is the same as her—superior—and I am different and inferior.
In my opinion, he has a fetish for Black women. I don’t think she’s particularly attractive, but he constantly insists that she is—and that I should agree with him. According to him, everyone must praise her looks, see her as sexy, and regard her as more beautiful than any other woman. There’s no room for individual opinion—only blind admiration is allowed. I find this exhausting. I’m not a fan of competition, especially when it comes to appearances. Still, if someone asks my honest opinion about someone’s looks, I’ll give it. He asked what I thought, and I told him. It also seems like he believes dating a Black woman—especially one who’s famous—gives him higher status. Sure, she may have a lot of fans, but I’d never heard of her before, and I don’t admire people who act entitled.
I don’t care about fame, status, how many fans a person has, or whatever else others think makes someone better or gives them higher standing. A king has just as much value as a common person, in my opinion, and I never grew up learning to value some people over others.
Honestly, constantly talking about her is already insane behavior and extremely rude. I’ve told him to stop, but he just throws tantrums and accuses me of being racist for not chasing after her like she’s some kind of queen I need to run after and kowtow to, and for not telling him that she is better than I am (?!). He also gets upset when I have a critical opinion of her. Usually, I wouldn’t have any interest in her at all, so why would I constantly have to praise her, put her on a pedestal, and tell him how great and beautiful she is—while simultaneously putting myself down and degrading myself, which is exactly what he’s trying to force me to do?
Anyway, I’m not foolish enough to date a man who has a “Black woman fetish,” denies it, and then constantly talks about how this particular Black woman is perfect—better than anyone else, above reproach—and insists that everyone must like her and her music. I don’t. I simply don’t. The few songs I heard were such a waste of time that I wish I’d never clicked the links (which he forced me to click through all kinds of blackmail). To me, she looks quite narcissistic, and they can rot in narcissist hell together. (In my opinion, a narcissist is a narcissist, regardless of race.) I’m not interested in people who think they become better just because they date someone of another race—which, to me, is actually a form of racism against white people when he uses this Black woman to discriminate against me (reverse racism, if you know what I mean).
A white person behaving like this may cause extreme aversion in the other person, increasing the likelihood she will develop an aversion to the Black person he constantly brings into her life, preventing her from setting healthy boundaries—regardless of skin color. Honestly, I’d throw a white person like that out of my life, and any other entitled narcissist wouldn’t be allowed in either.
Other people also describe narcissistic ex-partners who constantly bring up an ex-girlfriend, claiming she was perfect—never made any demands and never caused any problems—unlike you, the scapegoat, who is supposedly always creating trouble, never good enough, never good-looking enough, never sexy enough, never famous enough, you name it. In reality, it’s often the narcissist who causes the problems, but they project that onto you and blame you for the very chaos they created—sometimes even gaslighting you into believing it.
I’ve experienced many other situations where a narcissist triangulated.
A narcissist may also try to be involved in every relationship you have. For example, they may interfere in your relationship with your child—constantly making negative, derogatory remarks about them, even when what they’re doing is monitoring or stalking your child without permission (which is illegal, since stalking is always against the law). They won’t allow you to have a direct relationship with your child, always inserting themselves into it, trying to learn your thoughts and manipulate you into developing negative beliefs and feelings about your child.
I’ve told this particular narcissist repeatedly that I am not a narcissist, that I won’t talk negatively about my children, and that he wasn’t helping—only creating more drama and alienating my children further from me. Still, he insisted on inserting himself into my relationship with them and talked negatively about my kids to my face. He would then also claim that he was helping, believing he was some kind of holy Mother Theresa—as though stealing everything and all rights from me is helping anyone but him.
He would also repeat what he had observed others thought about me (and I have experienced a lot of male narcissists who think negatively about women, therefore putting me into a box of being some kind of bad, evil, flawed human being who didn’t deserve to have her kids) and take on their beliefs, never questioning the validity of these beliefs. He constantly told me the supposed negative things others said about me. And they may very well have said negative things—I mean, we’re living in crazy times—but for sure, I don’t want to know what 10,000 other people say and think about me. I don’t care either way. I’m just living my life, trying to enjoy it, which is impossible if there are narcissistic men chasing after you without actually chasing after you—you know, Erotomania and such—making you run after them more than they run after you, but still not leaving you alone even though you’ve told them a million times that you don’t enjoy spending time with them—aka being stalked, harassed, or otherwise having them follow your every step, breathing down your neck all the time, without ever allowing you to live your own life alone.
He did whatever he could so I would never be able to parent my own children again. Once a narcissist sees your children have been taken from you, they’ll often do everything they can to make sure you never get them back, family members and strangers alike. They add to the victimization—not just by believing the worst about you, but by actively helping others keep your children away. Then they demand to be your number-one priority—the one person you have to care for, attend to, and focus on. Narcissists are deeply disturbed individuals, and I’ve experienced this same dynamic repeatedly—with men who more or less tried to play God, deciding my future without regard for my or my children’s rights and without asking me for my input.
To summarize:
Triangulation means three instead of two—with two being the natural number for a relationship. If two people are married, triangulation means one partner draws a third person into the dynamic, usually without the other’s knowledge—until it’s too late. In parent-child relationships, it means another person interferes with your bond. We’re not talking about having other people in your life, which is healthy if that particular person is healthy—we’re talking about having people in your relationships who are not supposed to be there.
Another form of triangulation happens when a narcissist talks about a third person who isn’t present and tells you what they said or think about you. You don’t know if what they’re saying is true. You may not know that person or may have chosen not to have contact with them, but the narcissist keeps forcing them into your awareness. They might say things like, “My father thinks you’re unstable,” and won’t stop, even when you ask them to—even though you know this behavior isn’t healthy.
It’s also common for narcissists to tell you that others have spoken negatively about you. Often, this isn’t true—and sometimes the narcissist even knows you’re actually getting along well with that person. But narcissists hate it when you have healthy relationships, and they try to destroy them. Some of the more severe ones may even use spyware to read your conversations and then contact every single person you know behind your back. (This happened to me repeatedly, not just with one person, but with multiple people.) To be clear, reading your spouse’s messages when you suspect cheating doesn’t make you a narcissist. Narcissists will twist your words, spread false information, and pit you against others. They may tell people lies about you—and tell you lies about them. In the end, others might believe horrible things about you, and you’ll be left alone because everyone believed the narcissist’s lies.
It’s incredibly difficult to exit such a dynamic—especially when the narcissist says they love you or promises to change, or if you’re somehow dependent on them. If you don’t recognize the signs of a narcissist playing the victim, you may initially believe them.
And if a narcissist draws 100 people into the dynamic, you’ll be so busy dealing with all of them that there won’t be any time left to live your own life in peace—or even to eat breakfast or prepare for work in the morning.
Narcissists don’t want peace or harmony—they want war and destruction for others. While they sit back, maybe on some metaphorical private island sipping cocktails, they happily watch your life fall apart. Often, they enjoy destroying it. In the end, if you’ve survived, that’s already an achievement—but you likely won’t be thriving if a narcissist is still nearby ruining everything. You may be left with no money, no job, and a life in complete chaos and disarray.
If I were a narcissist, I might enjoy the endless conflict. But I’m not. All I want is peace, quiet, and to be left alone. Try pleading for that with a narcissist—and it’ll disappear faster than you can cross the street to get away from another one.
Have you ever experienced triangulation?