Family Friend. The Third Is Not Superfluous

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

At a master class dedicated to love triangles, a frank conversation about possible options for relationships began. In particular, they started talking about friendship between a man and a woman, about a situation when a “family friend” or “friend” of one of the partners is present in the life of a couple.

And on this issue, the opinions of the participants, to put it mildly, were toughly divided.

• Some, mostly men, foaming at the mouth, argued that yes, this happened in their lives more than once, when their relationship with a woman was purely friendly, without a hint of sexual continuation.
• Others, mostly women, in a voice full of poisonous skepticism, said that such a friendship is pure lies and self-deception. Referenced the movie "Best Friend's Wedding" with Julia Roberts.

Attempts to structure the heated debate on this issue have led to several simple conclusions.

The friendship between a man and a woman can be called such a natural stage their relationship, which precedes the sexual relationship of these partners, or follows after the failure of the sexual partnership.

This view of the friendship between a man and a woman has a right to exist. After all relationships are a dynamic, fluid structure … They do not stand still, they are constantly evolving. And in this case, in the relationship there is a kind of dynamics of development, as well as the inertia of their completion. How spouses and sexual partners fled, and how friends continue to help each other in many ways. And not only in raising joint children.

In this context, if a man and a woman are already deeply and for a long time in a new relationship (in a second marriage), and do not let go of their former lovers and partners from the role of “friends”, you need to think about and analyze the reasons such a situation.

It may turn out that in spite of the presence of new long-term official relations, a person cannot in any way get in these relations the realization of all his needs, and tries to “get the less received” in other relations, in purely friendly ones.

A very characteristic episode is described in the book The Other Man. I will briefly retell the plot. A man examining the letters of his wife who died of cancer discovers her correspondence with her lover. He is seized by a thirst for revenge. He meets this "insignificant little man" in the hope of getting revenge on him as painfully as possible. But as he gets to know the situation, he realizes that in a relationship with this man, his wife received exactly what she could not get in a relationship with him. Emotional warmth, admiration, lightness, a sense of celebration, an exchange of cheerfulness.

“… The words about Liza's cheerfulness were true. The point is not that Liza was cheerful with the Other, but was not with him, or was more cheerful with the Other than with him. It's just that Liza endowed her with her cheerfulness in different ways, in different ways she received it from others, in different ways she infected them with it. The cheerfulness that he received from her was no less, namely, such that his unresponsive, gloomy heart could perceive. She kept nothing from him. She gave him everything that he was able to perceive … .

It is clear that it is possible to exchange cheerfulness without sex, in purely friendly relations.

But here another very important nuance arises. How does an official spouse or sexual partner relate to such a friendly exchange?

The laws of Newtonian physics are very simple. If it diminishes somewhere, then it will arrive somewhere. Energy is an indestructible substance. If you look over and over again, then what you need on the side (albeit without sex), then one way or another, sooner or later it will alienate the spouses, impoverish their relationship, up to a break.

If a couple has a lot of energy, then a visit to a “friend” for a cup of tea can be perceived as harmless entertainment. If there is a crisis in a couple, and there is little energy, then a friend for tea parties can be perceived as a competitor, with all the ensuing consequences. Each such meeting is very, very sensitive. And not only for pride.

I recall the dialogue between two young spouses in a student hostel:

- Lesh, and Lesh, I want to go to a restaurant …

- Helen, what restaurant ?! We are students, where does the money come from !? We cannot afford it …

- Well then, Seryozha and I will go to a restaurant, he invited me for a long time

How do you think Alexei is feeling at this moment? In what role does his wife Lena make contact with a certain Sergei? What role does Sergey play for this couple?

An important nuance, sometimes the third ("family friend") is not a real person in the present, but a ghost from the past. Let me give you a dialogue with a real married couple.

He and she are in the big room of their apartment. She leafs through the photo album in sad reverie: "Oh, Vaska, how he kissed … Not that you …"

A few minutes later: “Oh, Petya, Petya … Once he carried me in his arms across a mountain stream, took risks, I almost died of fear … But then it was so great. And you have never done anything like this for me …"

You can call this behavior of spouses infantile and call for maturity in the relationship, call on everything to seriously discuss and decide whether to stay in such a relationship or not. Or you can explore this rebus in the constellation. The systemic arrangement allows you to very clearly see the problems of the couple, the confusion of roles and find the optimal solution.

As a rule, a “family friend” fills with his presence a certain deficient function … If he provides financially, constantly makes gifts, then he has the function of the girl's symbolic father. If the relationship is in the nature of emotional involvement, tender affection, warmth and comfort, emotional support, then he has the role of a symbolic mother. If this is a wonderful playmate and pastime - most likely he has the role of a symbolic brother. It is enough to ask such a girl how her parents are alive and well, in what kind of relationship she is with them, whether her parents had abortions and miscarriages, everything becomes clear very quickly.

But it is always worth remembering that both partners contribute to any relationship.

Why did the "family friend" agree to such a role?Most likely, he has a certain sense of guilt towards an unborn sister, or mother, or ex-girlfriend, or a borrowed sense of guilt from one of his relatives towards a certain girl from the past. And any form of care and assistance for a girl from his current environment is for him the realization of a deep unconscious need to pay off some old debts, to realize his sense of guilt towards a woman (mother, sister, ex-girlfriend, daughter).

Why does a woman's husband agree to the presence of a third in their relationship with his wife. Is it only to give more pleasure to his beloved wife? Maybe he has a tendency to be a masochist? Or, in conditions of an acute energy deficit in a couple, does he cling to any straw that his wife brings him? Where is his sexual energy? Who does it belong to? It often happens that the husband gives up his sexual energy "to feed" the mother, being in the role of her symbolic husband. He can drain a lot of energy into feelings of guilt in front of unborn brothers and sisters. He can get stuck in mourning for his deceased father, and live like a "man in a case." In this case, it is very beneficial for him to have one "third" or even many "thirds".

Systemic constellationand allows not only to visually show the reasons for the confusion of roles, but also to find a source of filling the existing deficit in a more natural way

"How long the string does not twist, but the end will be." When the reasons are clear, the solutions are tested, the deficit is filled, the need is satisfied, the gestalt is closed, the crisis in the triangle "husband - wife - family friend" resolves itself. The need for a third (family friend) sometimes dissolves like morning fog at dawn. Certainty sets in. Either together, or separately, or an honest and conscious choice to keep the "status quo" for three.

The process of the dynamics of changes in relationships was very clearly demonstrated by one of my clients: “Before, I was ready to crawl around him not on my knees, if only he paid attention to me … Now he cuts circles around me, but I don't care … Doesn't touch me in any way. I look at completely different men … "

So, let's summarize

• If there is a third “family friend” in the life of a couple, then this is necessary for something! It performs a very important deficit function for a couple. If you part with him without investigating the situation, then after a while another "family friend" will appear. A holy place is never empty.
• Working with such topics requires courage, maturity, and frankness from spouses. Not all spouses are ready for this. But you can start somewhere. Openly admitting the discomfort of having a third is a good start.
• An important condition for the success of constellation work and couple therapy is the mutual desire of the spouses or partners to improve their relationship.
• Therapy sessions are conducted with the spouses either in turn, or for two (both partners are present at the session), or for three (if possible).

This work is not easy, but the result is worth the effort

I wish everyone a happy, healthy, prosperous relationship!

And the constellations will help you!