One of the most hideous techniques a narcissist uses among many others to drive you crazy is triangulation. Triangulation occurs when they use a third person to make you think you’re crazy, too sensitive, making things up, or that your perception of reality is completely wrong.
In today’s article, we will understand a narcissist’s love triangle and how they triangulate you in a romantic relationship through a third person they are involved with simultaneously while being involved with you.
Let’s now understand how a narcissist creates a love triangle. There are two possibilities, two dynamics that we will discuss.
The first dynamic is the “Old and New Supply.” You are the old supply, and they have acquired a new supply. You are their primary supply—they depend on you for all their needs, whether physical, emotional, or financial. Narcissists don’t have true emotional needs, except they need you to regulate their emotions and other needs. They need a servant to do everything for them because, after all, being a victim or a supply to a narcissist is all about slavery. As harsh as that may sound, it’s all about serving the narcissist’s false self.
So, you are their primary supply, but nothing is ever enough for them. Therefore, they find a second supply, a new person. This new person may be a love interest that you might be aware of because they’ve already told you, “I don’t want this relationship with you. I just want to leave you. I want separation.” However, they’ve still kept you around to use you. Or it could be disguised as a friendship—someone they claim is just a friend but are romantically interested in when, in reality, it’s not just friendship.
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The second dynamic is that you are the new supply. They do not talk about being in touch with their old supply, but they still have this old supply in their life. You are acquired as a new form of fuel, a source that can provide the narcissistic supply they require to survive. This old supply might be an ex-partner who hasn’t been fully cut off. What does that mean? It could be a wife or husband they haven’t fully divorced yet—they’re still in touch, still living together, as if they are together, even though they’re not. It’s very complicated to understand.
As the new supply, if you ask them about this, wondering why they haven’t divorced yet, they might say, “Well, I respect them. We still share a deep connection. They’re my friend. We’re doing it for the sake of the children,” or other such excuses. Narcissists never run out of excuses, and trusting them, you may think they have positive intentions and believe them. But as time passes, you’ll eventually find out that their relationship is nauseating, that something terrible is happening, but you can’t quite pinpoint it. You can’t call them out because the moment you do, they give you the silent treatment, create comparisons, and say things like, “See, this is why I’m still in touch with them. This is why I haven’t fully divorced them—they’re not like you. They’re not sensitive like you. They’re not needy like you. They’re not crazy like you. You’re overthinking, projecting your own traumas and issues onto this relationship, which is why I never wanted to get serious with you.”
They scare you because you feel instantly replaced. They make you feel as if you’re about to be abandoned, or they might literally abandon you, giving you the silent treatment, cutting you off, and ignoring you. To add fuel to the fire, they start posting pictures of themselves with the old supply all over the internet, having a great time with their children. It never seems like the family is broken; it feels like everything is together. And as crazy as this might sound, the old supply may still be enabling the narcissist’s behavior, as if they don’t care if it’s right or wrong—they just stay. Often, money is involved in these cases, and the financial benefits the old supply receives may be much larger than what they could gain from a separation, so they stay selfishly and let the narcissist do whatever they want.
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Meanwhile, the narcissist will triangulate you so much with this old supply that eventually, you will start feeling jealous. You will crave their validation and depend on them to see you the same way they see their old supply. This is precisely what the narcissist wants—they want this chase, to feel important. They create a sense of competition, like a trophy that must be won, urging you to run after them, to fight for them because they love controlling multiple people at once. Essentially, it’s like a narcissist creating a harem of different sources of supply, stirring up the chase and creating hype for nothing.
Now, let’s return to the old supply/new supply dynamic where you are the old supply, and they get a new supply. The new supply is heavily used for comparison: “See how much better she or he is than you? These are the mistakes they don’t make. They’re not crazy like you. They’re not sensitive like you. They’re not always questioning me like you do.” How could they, when they haven’t yet seen the narcissist’s true self? They have only been shown one side of the narcissist, while the old supply knows the real person.
As their old primary supply, you feel shattered, broken, confused, and jealous. You start feeling emotions you’ve never felt before because there’s always this ongoing competition. You find yourself doing more, putting in more effort to prove to them that you are the one they should be with, that they don’t need anyone else. But of course, that never happens. No matter how much you do for them, it’s never enough. They keep going back and forth between you and the new supply, and you feel like you must remove this person from their life. You start developing feelings of hatred, resentment, and rage towards the new supply, wanting to erase them from existence, not realizing that this emotional state was deliberately elicited by the narcissist. They love seeing people fight over them, dying to win their attention.
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Eventually, a point comes in the relationship where you would rather be hated and ignored than see the narcissist loving the other supply. You want the narcissist to separate themselves from the new supply, even if it means being hated, being heavily targeted by the narcissist. This is how they destroy your mental state. They never let you be at peace, regardless of the dynamic or setting. There’s always a chase, always a push-and-pull, hot-and-cold dynamic. You have to beg for the scraps, the bare minimum—if that. Even the bare minimum is often missing, and you’re left to settle for breadcrumbs. You have to make a whole meal out of the occasional crumb they throw at you.
That’s what happens to your needs through this comparison and triangulation they create. In a nutshell, I would say that the love triangle in a narcissistic relationship is not just any love triangle—it is, in my opinion, a Bermuda Triangle. Worse than that, even. Anything that passes through it sinks, disappears, and never comes back. That’s what happens to your love, your self-worth, your self-esteem, and your confidence because of the constant comparisons, back-and-forth, and competition.
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