1) Arguments are not what kill a marriage, distancing is. Arguments stem from our fight instinct, but distancing stems from our flight instinct, and most of us are not even aware of how much we distance from our spouse every day.

2) Spouses seldom distance from each other without moving towards someone else. One spouse may have an affair, or “marry” his or her job. The other spouse may become preoccuppied with one of his or her children. His or her extra attention may spoil the child, and puts tremendous pressure on the child to fulfill the parent’s emotional needs. If the child begins acting out, this of course draws more parental focus, and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that cripples the child’s development. As both spouses focus on what they believe to be a child-in-need, this may stabilize their distant marriage, but the child pays a price for her parents’ distancing.

3) Therefore, if a couple focuses on their marriage and reduces their distancing, this frees their children from any emotional neediness on the part of the parents: parents can be a couple, setting a good example of marriage, and using calm-but-firm disicpline because they’re not trying to be “friends” with their child. And kids can be kids, free of emotional neediness and clear on the boundaries for their behavior.

Thus, triangles are what messes up a family. If a couple puts their marriage first, they meet each other’s needs as a twosome. But if spouses distance, often one parent will unwittingly draw a child into this unhealthy triangle, where she and the child become the primary twosome, with the other spouse on the outside point of the triangle. This is unhealthy for all three people.

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