The Karpman Relationship Drama Triangle is a very common, yet very destructive way of relating. Many of us hop on this triangle without realizing we are doing it.
The following story makes the dynamics of the Relationship (Karpman) Drama Triangle easily understood.
The woman makes dinner. The alcoholic husband, usually home by six o’clock, does not arrive. By six thirty, the wife is becoming irritated. The children are hungry and she feeds them. By seven o’clock, she is beginning to become angry. By nine o’clock, she is furious, feeling she has been victimized now for three hours by his behavior. Certainly this was not the first time. Up to this point, she is operating as the Victim on the triangle. By eleven, he has still not arrived, and she becomes worried. She calls her best friend to come stay with the sleeping children. The children safely with the friend, she leaves in her car to go find him and bring him home. She has now moved into the Rescuer role, seeing him as a Victim who is unable to take care of himself. By midnight, she has located him, quite drunk at a bar. She drags him to the car and to the safety of their home. She gets him in bed. Once she takes off his shoes, she moves into the Persecutor role and starts in on him, “How could you do this to me? How could you do this to your children?” And on and on she goes. All throughout the evening, the alcoholic has been in the Victim role, where he is most comfortable. He has had enough of her persecuting, and starts in on her. “If you weren’t so fat, I might want to come home. Who would want to come home and listen to your mouth?” Now he has become the Persecutor. Her feelings are hurt, and she wonders if there is some validity to what he is saying. She feels helpless to establish the kind of relationship that she wants to have with her husband. She is now in the Victim role.
The rule is that the Rescuer always becomes the Victim. I have never seen an exception to this rule.
The next morning, seeing that he has victimized his wife, he is full of remorse and becomes the Rescuer. He makes promises and tries to make her feel better. She has hope for an improved relationship, trusting that her efforts to rescue him will someday transform him. She will continue to rescue him, and then become his Victim, over and over again. The pattern will repeat, over and over again until they both become aware of what they are doing. I met a woman at an Al-Anon meeting who had rescued her alcoholic husband for thirteen years. They owned a parts store. He got drunk during lunch, and she would cover for him all afternoon while he lay in the back room drunk. Once again, the Rescuer becomes the Victim.
Take a moment and ask yourself, “Is there someone that I am rescuing in my life? Am I a person looking for a rescue?” If so, I encourage you to get some help to find your self-actualization, take care of yourself, and live a happier life with much more rewarding relationships!
