Love Triangles

Have you ever been involved in a love triangle? Simply stated, this is when one person in a couple meets a person outside the primary relationship to whom they are strongly physically attracted.

And when they have an emotional reaction to this third party, which they may or may not act on, it changes everything. No matter who or what, if you are the one left behind, it hurts!

In real life, unfortunately, people almost always actually DO act on these impulses. This is when they start having affairs on the side and try to conceal their newfound paramours from their current partners.

When they start being ruled by their passion, by their hearts instead of their heads. When they begin the cycle of cheating, lies, and deception that are all an integral part of the love triangle.

The dynamics of this phenomenon are the same not only for married people but also hold true for people just living together in typical boyfriend/girlfriend arrangements, shacking up, or common-law marriages. It includes gay, lesbian, and transgender couples, married or not, equally.

Nobody is exempt from the temptation. The elements of the love triangle are always the same, no matter who the parties involved may be. The excitement, the danger, the thrills are all well documented.

Nobody is really immune from acting on these temptations, but the attractiveness of the option of the love triangle, of seeking passion and romance outside the primary relationship seems especially prevalent in the case of married people.

Married people have a vested interest in staying married because there are usually children involved. They may be joint economic partners in business. And certainly, in their homes, there are joint mortgage payments to make or other real estate ventures they may have invested in and share equally. So when one or the other feels like “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” (Righteous Brothers) the tendency to stray from the marital bed can be overwhelming.

But as Bluesmen Buddy Guy and BB King once sang “It’s Cheaper to Keep Her.” Or how about that old Mills Brothers song, “You Always Hurt the One You Love, the One You Shouldn’t Hurt At All.” Or “Lying Eyes” by the Eagles. But logic is always the loser to passion in a love triangle. Cheaters want to have their cake and eat it too.

Unfortunately, somebody always gets hurt, somebody always pays a steep emotional price for a love triangle, especially the person being cheated on. But sometimes the backlash also involves the ones doing the cheating. Some couples break up, some marriages crumble, and reputations are ruined. When the innocent party first finds out about the cheating and the love triangle, it is like a sucker punch to the gut.

The sudden impact of finding out about your love mate cheating on you, the discovery of the existence of the love triangle is like having the rug pulled out from under you, like getting doused with a bucket of icy cold water by complete surprise. When the scales are ripped from your eyes and the truth is revealed, it’s like running into a brick wall.

The emotional shock is extremely painful. The feelings of hurt, loss, and betrayal come cascading down on you. It feels like your guts are being ripped out, and the sad part is, you can never undo it, never go back to the way it was before. There may be forgiveness, but you can never forget what happened.

Love is always the greatest, most personal of emotions, and when one person strays from the relationship and cheats with another it can and does literally change your life forever. Nobody is ever really immune. It hurts enough in private life, but if you are a celebrity, it can be even worse.

The pain seems magnified a thousandfold when it leaks out to the media, as it always inevitably does when the couples involved are famous already. Suddenly, EVERYBODY knows your business, your business is right out on the street for all to see, compounding the emotional angst.

Some famous historical examples of love triangles date back to the 15th century. England’s King Henry the VIII, the one who divorced his wife Catherine after a mad passionate affair with his mistress Ann Boleyn, (the mother of Queen Elizabeth the 1st,) has been well documented for his many dalliances. How humiliating (and all too often fatal!) for the wives he left behind.

But medieval and current English are not the only randy ones, of course. Although the British tabloids seem to especially relish famous marital scandals. Just think of Prince Charles, his wife Princess Diana, and his girlfriend Camellia Parker-Bowles. Although nobody is immune, it is a worldwide phenomenon.

America, especially Hollywood, with its insistently compulsive tabloid and paparazzi coverage of everybody who is anybody has discovered and divulged maximum doses of publicity, revealed many more such steamy love triangles.

Almost from the beginning, Hollywood has been a fertile ground for a multitude of illicit affairs and love triangles, so much so that it almost seems like the norm for Hollywood couples.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had a grand, sweeping, majestically well-covered tabloid affair when they were filming the epic movie “Cleopatra” in the 1960s. Although they were both married at the time to others, they were flagrant and rebellious in their mad, passionate love affair, and scandalized much of the world back then.

Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, and Angelina Jolie, all brilliant Hollywood stars in their own right, had a very well-publicized love triangle affair in the early 2000s that some people still love to gossip about.

The music world has also always been susceptible, and some of the more scandalous love triangles involved George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, and Eric Clapton. Or Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Mick Fleetwood. Or David Crosby, Joni Mitchell, and Graham Nash.

The aptly named musician Courtney Love allegedly had numerous affairs while she was still married to the enigmatic, moody but incandescently brilliant singer/composer Kurt Cobain from the legendary band Nirvana. Swirling rumors and vicious gossip are a staple in the music world.

Love triangle affairs in the murky, drug-addled confusion and exhilaration of the musician lifestyle, especially while on tour, always were and still are rampant. Played out behind the scenes in the backstage arenas and huge concert venues of life on the road love triangles are commonplace in the mainstream of the music world.

But you don’t have to be a famous actor or rock star to be involved in a love triangle. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, any place, in any era. It is all part of the human condition, the ebb and flow of emotional attraction, the lure of the forbidden fruit, the grass is always greener mindset.

I guess in the end, you have to personally experience a love triangle affair to really get it. Either from the perspective of the one doing the cheating or the one being cheated upon. When it happens to you, only then can you truly appreciate the raw intensity of the emotional impact of a love triangle with all its many ramifications and consequences for everybody involved.

As I wrote in one of my own songs, The” Geometry of Innocence,” about love triangles: “The geometry of innocence is shattered when the circle of friends splits off, and form triangles of pain and frames of reference that really are squares that box you in, and lock you in, and make you feel all alone again.”’

Such Is Life….