ADULT CHILDREN OF HEART PATIENTS: THE COST OF TRIANGLES
Triangles between friends and co-workers can be trouble, but triangles within a family are always trouble. It is always painful for one family member to be caught in a conflict between two loved ones. Regardless of the ages of the children in a family, they are vulnerable to and negatively affected by being drawn into their parents' relationship difficulties.
Triangulation in families causes many problems. First, triangulation interferes with the couple's ability to resolve their differences; distracting themselves by turning to a child for comfort provides only temporary relief as the relationship problems increase.
Second, any family member suffers marked physical and psychological alarm when placed in a position of conflicting loyalties between two loved ones. This fact may contribute to the high incidence of stress-related disorders in families coping with illness.
Third, many adult children become so far drawn into their parents' problems that their own lives suffer. Time and energy they spend dealing with or worrying about their parents can compromise participation in their own family and marital relationships.
Finally, the triangulation process no doubt interferes with rehabilitation from illness, regardless of where on the triangle the heart patient is positioned. A heart patient who is over aligned with a grown child to the exclusion of his or her spouse will suffer the pain of lessened marital intimacy. If the heart patient is the excluded member of the triangle, rehabilitation will be complicated by the difficult emotions of loneliness and isolation that come with this position. And if the heart patient is in the role of negotiator of unresolved conflict between two other family members, then that patient's already compromised physical functioning will be further hurt by the stress of being caught in a family triangle.
Adding complexity to this picture is the fact that triangles are not always confined to the mother-father-child triad. Particularly for adult children in family systems, the invitations to triangulate can come from several generations. This situation can become quite complex as a sheer function of numbers. For example, in a family of two children, two parents, and four grandparents, the number of family triangles simultaneously available to any one person is twenty-one. And" this number does not even take into consideration the possibility that the grown children in this family may have children of their own.
The story of the Thibodeaux family demonstrates how complex family triangulation can become in the lives of adult children of heart patients.
Unless properly handled, such family processes have a negative effect on the physical, marital, and family health of all parties involved. But what is to be done in this situation? After all, no self-respecting person feels good about turning his or her back on ailing loved ones during their times of need. And no loving parents want any of their children to get caught in a stress-filled trap.
Avoiding family closeness is certainly not the solution to family triangulation. Rather, the task is to recognize and change patterns of triangulation while increasing efforts to relate more healthily to the other family members. Doing so may require behavior changes on the part of both the parents and the children.
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