Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Cheating, Triangulation in Sick Relationships: Power Play, Revenge, Entitlement

1. 00:00 foreign let’s start with the most important part of the video this is a mug I have received in the cold therapy seminar in tuna Severin in Romania and it says shalom in my ugly face my ugly mug on the mug okay enough with the nonsense vacname
2. 00:31 onward Jewish soldiers I’m Jewish so my name is I’m the author of malignant self-love narcissism Revisited the groundbreaking Bible of narcissism in the book that coined the phrase narcissistic abuse I’m also a professor of psychology in several universities
3. 00:51 yes that’s me and today we are going to discuss cheating and triangulation treating as in adultery the polite term in Clinical Psychology is extra dyadic extradiadic sex or extra marital Affairs or extramarital sex but actually we’re talking about
4. 01:14 a good old-fashioned cheating and its second cousin triangulation why do people do that why do they cheat why do they triangulate we’re going to discuss two cases we’re going to discuss cheating and triangulation in an obsessive sick relationship
5. 01:34 and we are going to discuss cheating and triangulation by the narcissists these are two case studies put together they cover a big portion of these behaviors they explain they provide an etiology for these behaviors we start with an abusive couple a sick couple
6. 01:57 a couple founded on Mutual Obsession and
7. 02:03 compulsive acts this is a couple with both members of the couple hurt each other abuse each other both members of the couple seek to inflict pain on the other because this is the only surviving mode of communication I recommend that you watch
8. 02:23 watch the amazing movie who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf it’s about such a couple now in this couple power dynamics are mediated via pain so the members of the couple use hurt use betrayal to actually communicate to each other their places in the hierarchy and it’s ever shifting
9. 02:51 the partner who inflicts pain is on top and the injured party the party who is in pain is at the bottom and then it reverses via Revenge dynamic so we’re going to discuss this kind of couple right now you all know such couples couples where there’s a lot of verbal
10. 03:13 abuse physical violence actually nothing but verbal abuse and physical violence and yet the members of such couple couples are unable to walk away they confine within themselves the resources to break up to put an end to it to somehow to somehow move on there is
11. 03:36 something in this Dynamic that proves to be addictive there is an inability to regard the
12. 03:47 couple Hood regard the togetherness is toxic and pernicious or even when the members of the couple realize how bad it is in the couple they just can’t say goodbye they can’t separate something sinister in dark and nefarious is binding them together usually their
13. 04:12 past wounds inflicted on them in the past early childhood traumas and so today we are going to discuss all this in the context of cheating and triangulation because shooting and triangulation are relationship management Tools in such couples they use these tools to they use these
14. 04:35 behaviors to actually signal to each other to establish hierarchy to to win the power play at least intermittently and then the cycle starts all over again so some people stream some people have sex with other people outside the couple outside the diet
15. 04:57 actually in order to preserve the couple in order to preserve the partnership in order to persevere in the long term obsessed utterly sick and abusive relationship they don’t cheat to exit their relationship they cheat to cement the relationship to get a rise out of
16. 05:21 the partner to re-evoke and reinvoke and revive and resuscitate emotions to somehow signal distress to the partner or on the very country to tell the partner I don’t need you I have Alternatives this is all about the other member of the couple
17. 05:43 the cheating and the triangulation are not about other people they are not about the casual and external sex partners they are about the primary partner in the primary relationship extra diadic sex cheating in such couples usually happens in the wake of drinking
18. 06:05 excessive drinking or substance abuse and it serves four functions number one to exact Revenge you cheat I cheat you ignore me I cheat or I triangulate you hurt me I’m gonna hurt you where it hurts I’m gonna cheat on you I’m going to triangulate with other people and I’m
19. 06:29 gonna make it ostentatious and visible and if you miss if you miss the point I’m going to communicate to you what I’m doing and what I’ve done in order to witness your agony and so revenge is a major motivation in such couples but it is not the kind of
20. 06:46 Revenge that leads to the dissolution of the couple it’s a kind of Revenge that leads to a strengthening of the bonding and the attachment between the members of the couple the Revenge signals love the revenge is perceived as you’ve hurt me you hurt me and I’m gonna hurt you
21. 07:08 back but you have the power to hurt me because I love you so in in some sick twisted way Revenge cheating is actually proof of love same as abuse in these couples abusive behaviors and excessive romantic jealousy for example which leads to abusive behaviors they all perceived as
22. 07:31 affirmations of deep profound everlasting love in other couples such behaviors would lead to the instant disintegration of the togetherness to both members walking away from each other but not in these couples in these couples the worse it gets the better it gets these couples
23. 07:54 feel good only when they feel bad they feel alive only when they’re in pain and so in this sense cheating and triangulations in this obsessive compulsive sick pain-oriented couples cheating and triangulation in these couples is a form of self-harming
24. 08:13 self-harming that reminds them that they are alive that drowns the pain inside them self-harming that is intended to somehow revive dynamics that have been more rebound or stale for too long to forestone actually abandonment and rejection I have cheated on you you have
25. 08:35 to reclaim me sexually and otherwise reclaim sex and so revenge is the first motivation the second motivation is such sick couples is to restore a power symmetry within the couple acts of cheating and triangulation act to acts of betrayal are perceived as one upmanship
26. 08:59 a party who betrays is on top because he has the power to inflict pain so the other party the injured party the damaged party the broken party the suffering and writing party the agonizing party that party has to restore the balance somehow somehow it has to re-establish this
27. 09:23 party is to re-establish some symmetry within the relationship a power distribution a power Matrix that is Equitable and so the only way to do this is to cheat and to triangulate that’s the second motivation the third motivation is of course to cater to unmet emotional and sexual
28. 09:43 needs in such couples usually there is a deep deprivation of needs there is a deficiency in fulfilling needs and so the cheating and the triangulation are short-term fixes it’s like self-medication with the bodies of other people and once self-esteem had been boosted
29. 10:04 attention had been given compassion and affection have been afforded there’s no need for the external Partners anymore they are used and discarded Now The Party The Party The cheating party is ready to revert to return to the primary Sikh relationship
30. 10:25 and finally and perhaps most importantly the fourth reason people in such relationships cheat such dysfunctional relationships white people cheat a white people triangulate is to affirm to confirm to buttress and internalized bed object the bad object actually
31. 10:46 is the disparaging partner’s point of view in such relationships where Mutual sickness is self-reinforcing and other reinforcing were archaic wounds resonate to use the physiology of Sigmund Freud and John lachkar the v-sport the vulnerability spot in
32. 11:08 these couples where the main activity is to wound each other where it must hurts the main activity is to re-traumatize the other partner to remind the other partner of early childhood traumas the main activity in this couples is to destroy each other to gratify each
33. 11:30 other’s self-destructiveness and self-defeat so in these couples the partners give each other drugs or they cheat on each other ostentatiously and visibly they do things to destroy the other partner and so the message from the message given to each other in such
34. 11:54 part in such couples is you’re a bad object you’re unlovable you’re deserving only of pain and it reaffirms early childhood traumas where pain was connected to love pain inflicted by parents who were supposed to love children who grew up with such families
35. 12:14 learned to identify love with pain and with when pain is absent they believe that they are not being loved so such children when they grow up and become adults they would try to provoke the partner to hurt them so that they feel loved they misidentified pain with love and
36. 12:38 with pain where pain is missing they go seeking for it they go hunting for it they go provoking it and so this Dynamics are seriously seriously sick and one of the reasons for cheating and triangulation is to confirm to the other partner yes I am a bad object I am corrupt I am a
37. 13:00 [ __ ] I am unreliable I am untrustworthy I am a liar I am deceitful and hurtful and hateful and bad for you exactly as you said you were right I’m confirming your point of view dear partner the so cheating and triangulation is a form of sex sexual self-trashing
38. 13:27 it’s a form of self-destruction it’s a form of self-punishment for being a dead object such promiscuous unbounded and sexually self-structing behaviors typically follow a period of loyal faithfulness all relationships all of these six relationships start actually with a
39. 13:53 period of Love bombing then extreme faithfulness all other men and all other women cease to exist the focus is intense laser-like there’s only one person in the world he is my life she is my world so there’s an exclusion of all others in every meaningful way and so
40. 14:16 initially these relationships which are essentially destructive shared fantasy or shared fantasies of Destruction in these relationships they start with extreme loyalty sexual loyalty romantic loyalty and emotional loyalty to the partner total faithfulness no strain no
41. 14:39 cheating no triangulation not even contemplating another person but then this is met with traumatizing rejection with abandonment with a sentence cheating and infidelity by the partner and all hell breaks loose
42. 14:59 once the initial phase of faithfulness and loyalty is disrupted by one of the partners both of them descend into dysfunctional sick hurtful behaviors behaviors which are intended to damage both the other partner and oneself and whenever whenever such people are offered intimacy
43. 15:26 by their partners in crime so they cheat with other people and when these other people offer them intimacy this is it shocks them for example if they cheat with someone and that someone would say stay longer sleep over let’s meet again this is an offer of connection this is
44. 15:52 an offer of intimacy this is potential for a new relationship so when these external partners actually try to capitalize on the cheating or the triangulation to start a relationship or somehow to render the whole interaction more human and intimate the cheater
45. 16:15 reacts aggressively she she or he they recoil they hurry back to the primary partner to reaffirm the dysfunctional Bond so the dynamic is this
46. 16:32 in destructive insured fantasies which revolve around destruction self-destruction and other destruction in these shared fantasies both Partners cheat and triangulate they cheat and triangulate of course with external partners with others extra diadic partners
47. 16:53 when these external Partners when these other people outside the couple who want to push the relationship further they want to move from a one-night stand to a potential relationship they want the cheetah to sleep over they want to meet again etc etc the cheetah panics
48. 17:15 she recoils she becomes aggressive she runs away she blocks the external Partners she hurries back to the primary to her primary partner because her primary partner is her only partner the external problems the men and women the men and women who who she uses or he
49. 17:42 uses to cheat with these are mere instruments these are objects in sick relationships when either of the two partners cheat they cheat with others by instrumentalizing them by objectifying them they use the bodies of other people it’s like they cheat with someone in
50. 18:11 order in order to regain the primary path in order to regain the love and affection that they have had in the beginning of the relationship they don’t care about the people they cheat with the people which they cheat with are instruments they’re objects
51. 18:28 they’re nobodies they’re nothing they’re meaningless and even if these people are actually good they try to start a relationship or go further this will never happen because the cheating and triangulation are not are about the primary Barber the
52. 18:45 children and regulation are for the sake of the primary problem the cheating and tribulation are a message to the primary partner very often a cry for help signal of distress look look at me you you cause me so much pain that I now have to trash myself sexually with someone I
53. 19:05 don’t even like and I’m doing it and it it makes me feel guilty and ashamed and it I regret it and I hate it but I have to do it I have to do it because I have to take revenge or because I have to rebalance the power Matrix the power the Grid in our relationship or because
54. 19:27 you caused me so much pain and I want to cause you pain in return because I just need you I just need you to love me again so this is all about the primary part and so the people that the people who serve as instruments or objects in the cheating process
55. 19:50 and in the triangulation process not always but often feel used and abused they feel bad about what’s happening they feel that they somehow were co-opted into a theater play which is not their own they feel that there were Tools in every possible sense of the world
56. 20:12 they feel that they were kind of unwilling participant participants in someone else’s script they realized that they’ve been somehow used to re-establish and resuscitate another person’s relationship and they feel really really bad about it such a relationship dynamic in in these
57. 20:38 sick couples is also conducive to an inversion of traditional stereotypical gender roles women in such relationships become sexually predatory as they keep hunting for men to cheat with and they cheat with these men not because they’re looking for a relationship
58. 21:00 they cheat with these men usually one time to Signal something to the partner so they become heartless they become hard and cold and predatory and hateful of men they become very men like in their psychosexuality they become goal oriented they are focused on the sex and
59. 21:22 eliminate any hint of motion or connection they become very masculine in the traditional stereotypical sense of the world men in such sick relationships similarly become more feminine they become more disregulated emotionally dysregulated for example by
60. 21:44 the cheating and the triangulation of the other partner so the partners in this sick dysfunctional relationships induce in each other gender role reversion or inversion the the female side becomes more masculine the male side becomes more feminine but not in the good sense of
61. 22:06 the word they become more psychopathically masculine and more dysregulated feminine the sicknesses of the pathologies of both genders permeate pervade and invade such relationships via the acts of cheating hurting each other causing pain triangulation and so on and this is
62. 22:31 especially with the case when both parties have mummy or daddy issues unconsciously they’re actually trying to emulate and imitate the abuser a woman who had been abused by her father a woman who had witnessed her father abusing women she would want to become her father
63. 22:56 she would want to to um have sex with men the same way her father had sex with women she would vow to herself I would never be abused I would become the abuser if someone hurts me I’m Gonna Hurt Beck if someone causes me pain I’m gonna cause 10 times the pain I’m going to do it
64. 23:18 ostentatiously visibly and cruelly she becomes an abusive men similarly a man who is a man who has been exposed to a dead mother an absent selfish instrumentalizing parentifying depressive mother for example absent mother such a man would have money issues
65. 23:41 and he would tend to react with extreme dysregulation to the pain inflicted on him by a female a mother figure so mommy and daddy issues are provoked in such couples by the cheating and the dysregulation okay let’s talk now about the narcissist why do narcissists cheat on their
66. 24:03 spouses why do they commit adultery why do they have extra marital Affairs and Liaisons the answer is not as simple as it sounds as opposed to let’s say typical people normal people healthy people um who are presented with opportunities to cheat and succumb to Temptation it’s
67. 24:25 a normal process with narcissists as usual the picture is much more complex some narcissist is cheap or triangulate because they’re simply looking for narcissistic Supply the somatic narcissist for example a resorts to serial sexual conquests
68. 24:45 because this is his narcissistic Supply second reason is that exactly like Psychopaths exactly like Psychopaths narcissists are easily bored they have a low boredom threshold they’re novelty Seekers they need new things all the time and they have a low tolerance for border
69. 25:05 sexual dalliances kind of alleviate this nagging and frustrating and we the Quest for novelty for diversions and thrills a kind of having a vacation for one’s own life is combined with a journey of self-exploration and discovery that involves filling in the gaps
70. 25:28 self-actualization self-realization and fulfillment in the narcissist biography The Narcissist has a kind of missed childhood and delayed or arrested adolescents so they tend to recycle old flames and so on and so forth in order to discover new
71. 25:48 aspects of their personality to cut the long story short cheating in the narcissist case is often an attempt at separation individuation from the primary Pub number three narcissists maintain an island of stability and the focus of stability in their lives
72. 26:07 but all the other dimensions of their existence are chaotic and stable and unpredictable so this is what I call the Twister formation and it serves many emotional needs and I discuss all this in other videos and so a narcissist for example may be a model employee
73. 26:28 he may climb through the corporate ladder and after 40 years become the Chief Executive Officer of a company stable in the same company Desi’s island of stability the pursuit of a career path over decades but at the same time it will cheat on his wife like a hundred times
74. 26:46 and he would Fritter the savings away and he would have dalliances and Liaisons and Affairs in just one night stands and so on almost almost like a sex addict so the Nazis is an island of stability surrounded by a roiling ocean of instability
75. 27:05 it could be the reverse of course there are many narcissists who are actually faithful faithful to a fault faithful even in the face of abuse extreme abuse faithful even in the face of sex denial and sex withholding by a pop okay so this is the island of stability
76. 27:26 the fourth reason narcissists cheat and triangulate is that they feel they feel Superior important unique and therefore they are entitled they’re entitled to special treatment but they’re also entitled to be above the law above social conventions they
77. 27:45 have a right to engage in behaviors that are frowned upon by society and considered socially unacceptable to others others a lower level lower level humans the analysis is superhuman and he has the right to behave in any way he wishes narcissists reject environmentally
78. 28:04 resent all limitations and conditions placed upon them but their partners he will not tell me what to do I’m a free man or woman I will do whatever I want narcissists act on their impulses and on their desires unencumbered by social conventions and strictures in Freudian
79. 28:22 terms we would say that narcissists and psychopaths are 100 Eid zero percent ego not superego the fourth the fifth reason for for cheating by narcissist and tribulation by narcissist the fifth reason is a bit more complex and a bit deeper has to do with social trends
80. 28:45 social dynamics and social structures marriage monogamy and childbearing and rearing are common activities they characterize the average person everyone and his dog gets married and have children sometimes so this is like a common Act The Narcissist feels robbed of his
81. 29:09 uniqueness by these Pursuits he feels that he’s coerced into a relationship he feels that by having uh by by being loyal or by being faithful is actually succumbing is giving up his rights he feels that he is being reduced to the lowest common denominator is becoming
82. 29:33 just an average Joe when actually he’s got like so husband father loyal partner that’s for other people that’s for the whole poloi that’s for the greater wash that’s for the common sheep or sheeple the narcissist is above all that he should never be subjected to
83. 29:54 these demands they reduce him they minimize him these these requirements these social conventions it’s not okay this is narcissistic injury to tell the nonsense that you shouldn’t cheat it’s not okay no one does this it’s narcissistic injury because no one does this
84. 30:14 no one because they’re average they’re stupid they’re common the narcissist is almost perfect so it leads him to rebel and reassert his superiority and specialness by maintaining extramarital Affairs or extra diabetic by having extra diadic sex
85. 30:34 the sixth reason is that narcissists are control freaks having a relationship implies a give and take it invokes negotiation it involves compromising honest communication a train of compromises which The Narcissist acutely interprets to mean a
86. 30:53 loss of control over his life when you compromise with someone when you negotiate with someone when you’re forced to listen to someone you’re giving up control to some extent you are you’re kind of at the mercy of your interlocutor or partner narcissists would have none of this
87. 31:09 to reassert control the narcissist initiates other relationships other encounters sexual and emotional in which he dictates the terms of Engagement love affairs one night stands whichever the case may be it’s a sense of Liberation it’s a sense of self-control I’m doing
88. 31:29 exactly what I want no one will ever tell me what to do and finally narcissist is of course are terrified of intimacy they have an insecure attachment style their behavior is best characterized by what Freud called approach avoidance repetition compulsion
89. 31:47 diaphysics in adlerian terms adultery is an excellent tool in the attempt to [ __ ] intimacy to inhibit intimacy to destroy intimacy when you cheat when you triangulate it’s very difficult to rebuild and reconstruct the ruined intimacy and so
90. 32:07 um as far as the narcissist is concerned cheating adultery triangulation are less threatening modes of interaction they are fuzzy they’re open-ended there’s always an exit or an exit strategy he can always run away and narcissism is about running away running
91. 32:27 away from our internal reality and running away from any external reality that reminds you of your internal reality narcissist is typically claimed that they have cheated in order to put this spark back into the relationship with the spousal the primary intimate
92. 32:44 partner say I did this to put some spice into the relation to put to reignite it somehow of course they leave it unclear they live they they don’t clarify how an act of betrayal and faithlessness can rekindle The Embers of a relationship founded initially on trust in sexual and
93. 33:05 emotional exclusivity this is left conveniently unsaid in the wake of an affair The Narcissist possesses the perfect alibi if he does try to revive this sex life with his spouse and he fails he can proudly claim I left no stone unturned I even went as far as cheating on my
94. 33:27 partner all in order to resurrect our bond and if he doesn’t try to reanimate his sex life with his spouse it turns around it he turns it around and he says this is proof that the relationship was doomed and dead to start with and what I did was therefore not cheating I was
95. 33:49 actually forced to seek sexual and emotional Alternatives by the dead weight of this relationship there are two types of triangulation using a festival to Define tribulation triangulation is when you use a third party to manage the emotional intimacy
96. 34:07 and transactional aspects of a primary relationship you can use a third party in any way you can flirt with third party you can even have sex with the third party this or these are all forms of triangulation if the third party is merely an instrument in an object if
97. 34:25 there are no emotions or attachment or bonding or connection involved so this is triangulation there are two types of triangulation breakup triangulation and restorative triangulation breakup triangulation involves overt and ostentatious cheating one way or another
98. 34:43 with a third party in conjunction with other egregious misbehavior for example humiliating your primary partner in public the aim of breakup tribulation is to irrevocably break up with your current partner it’s like escalating misbehavior to the point that your primary path will
99. 35:03 initiate a breakup and you will feel blameless so why triangulate rather than outright terminate there are many reasons Myriad Revenge rage community property inability to let go codependency restoring the cheetah’s self-esteem feeling desirable and alive again
100. 35:24 obtaining subcore and Erza’s intimacy or uncertainty about one’s true wishes all these are reasons for triangulating but usually it is simply the desire to cast one’s mate as the villain who ended the relationship because it’s very difficult to take
101. 35:46 responsibility for ending a relationship more difficult than you think about 69 of all divorces in the United States are initiated by women and yet most of these women claim to have been traumatized by the breakup itself um it’s so many people especially
102. 36:08 dysfunctional people abusive people mentally ill they want the partner to do it they want to push a partner to the point of no return the problem would say well we can’t be together anymore it’s a deal breaker what you’ve done there’s no going back I cannot forget it or forgive it
103. 36:25 they want to say my partner was insanely jealous it was a slip up and he made a mountain out of a molehill uh he is not magnanimous not empathic enough to forgive me and to understand what had happened in my motivations this is the breakup tribulation
104. 36:45 restorative triangulation has the exact opposite goal to revive the relationship by provoking an emotional response in the gifted partner in the injured partner in the partner you deceive and you betray such regulation involves the mere favorable mention of another person
105. 37:06 hence it possible misconduct or compromising circumstances or at the maximum aggressive flirting and maybe non-penetrative sex acts such as kissing petting making out hugging or oral sex triangulation is a lost Resort it’s a risky strategy it often escalates
106. 37:29 counterproductively into sexual assault by the recruited third party it sometimes results in extreme in extreme reaction by the offended partner who chooses to discard an Unfaithful disrespectful narcissistic and disempathic counterpartic so it’s a
107. 37:47 Russian Roulette it’s a game that can end badly triangulation using a third party to provoke jealousy in gather attention from or punish one’s intimate partner very often goes awry and ends badly the third party as I mentioned can sexually assault the
108. 38:09 triangulator or the or the targeted intimate partner can walk away from the whole manipulative scene etc etc these are outcomes these are adverse outcomes that few triangulators consider because most of them have problems with impulse control many of them are borderlines and
109. 38:28 they act out it’s a kind of Psychopathic State I don’t care about the consequences I’m not thinking about my partner I have my needs I want it now there’s only a tunnel vision there’s no future and no past and no attachment no bonding no memory and no
110. 38:47 credit it’s all about the here and now it’s malignant mindfulness most triangulators are impulsive most triangulators are defined actually is good reason to believe that she doesn’t try at serial shootings habitual cheaters and triangulators
111. 39:06 habitual triangulators are probably some clinical Psychopaths many of them have unrestricted social sexuality they have no problem to sleep with strangers they externalize their own dysregulated negative emotions which often overwhelm them their thinking is short term their
112. 39:24 empathy is gone and so they often they’re often shocked by the consequences of their own misbehavior I don’t know being raped by a nice guy break up with a spouse or boyfriend girlfriend pain they had inflicted which went Way Beyond what they had intended
113. 39:41 things especially Cascade and escalate out of control if all the parties involved are immature and narcissistic callous and exploitative what starts as a mere flirtation ends up being a deleterious power play to the point of no return for everyone involved
114. 39:59 I don’t think you can control this dynamic it’s out of your hands the minute you misbehave when it comes to sexual assault for example they’re not safe men on the contrary most sexual transgressions are committed by male friends or brothers or colleagues or acquaintances
115. 40:18 this is because men misinterpret all female Behavior as sexually inviting this is called the sexual over perception bias all men respond aggressively to teasing overt flirting and signaling with knuckle with no continuation all menus sects to communicate to
116. 40:37 comfort to consult to protect the commiserate to hold and all men are preoccupied with possessing the woman in competing with other men often poaching her from her boyfriend or husband these are all these are all dynamics that can go awry but
117. 40:59 coming back full circle when one or both parties are mentally ill none of this matters none of this matters they just go about hurting each other damaging and injuring each other trying to provoke the other to love dysfunctionally by causing pain because love is pain and
118. 41:23 pain is control and control is guaranteed against abandonment and so these men and women go around cheat multiply triangulate with many other people treating them as instruments and objects end up in hairy situations end up destroying each other and yet can’t let go
119. 41:48 trauma bonding Jesus can’t let go and in their wake there is a trail of people who have been equally hurt by these many Affairs and flings and one night stands people who are instruments and tools in a game of chess between the cheater in his or her primary part the opponents