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Hello, I replied to a response in another thread and was asked to create a separate thread.
I suppose reading about triangulation led me to a spot that suggested that in order to step out of the triangle one may have to distance themselves.
My question is how do you distance yourself without throwing the partner into a feeling of being abandoned?
Our issue is multifaceted but one way I am seeing triangulation is with a friend of my fiancé, she frequently blows up his phone for attention. Needing rescued in one way or another. She often asked for inappropriate things such as crashing at our house, asking to allow her friends to crash at our house, sleepovers with my fiancé when she doesn’t want to be alone, asking to be driven places when she doesn’t have a vehicle. I struggle on a day to day basis getting him to do basic household tasks that are his to do, so my boundary is that I am not going to allow another female to come over to crash overnight or to have him at a camping sleepover because what I’m trying to accomplish is a basic daily routine of him being able to do simple things like trash removal and feeding himself. Her requests are out of bounds for me but apparently they are not for him. Since I communicate this to him, he communicates this to her but painting me as the dictator I suppose. His last comment about it was “I told her I can’t talk, her last phone call had you fighting with me for three days”. The fight he is talking about was me distancing myself because he was upset that I was upset. When we were able to communicate I pointed out that she’s pushing boundaries and it needs to be addressed in order for it to stop. Now I am realizing that he is putting me in this light and I’m at lost as to how to step out of this, in my mind that means distancing myself fully because the other option is to become his caregiver and support as well as hers.(specifically financially). This is really just a tip of the iceberg for us but it’s one specific problem I can focus on that could possibly help me with others we experience. Thanks for your input

im not sure that this is an example of triangulation in the sense of the karpman drama triangle.

what youre describing is different, competing priorities between the two of you.

the thing about boundaries is that they arent about telling someone to comply with our boundaries...certainly, its important to communicate them, but its up to the other person to heed them, or not. he isnt. "enforcing boundaries" is about living them, ourselves.

distancing yourself is really just reneging on your boundaries.

its sort of like if i said my boundary was "no cheating". and my partner continued to cheat, and i continued to tell my partner it wasnt cool, and they continued anyway. is the solution to just distance myself from their cheating?

i think what is clear is that you need to assess whether or not what you are experiencing is a deal breaker for you. are you prepared to break up with him over it? is this a fundamental incompatibility? or is it something you can live with?

what to do about it really depends on the answer to those questions.