Situation · Family and friends
“My mum vents to me about my dad”
What could be going on
Triangulation: Fits if you're pulled into their tension as messenger or ally.
Parentification: Check whether you became her confidant as a child.
Enmeshment: Could be blurred boundaries where marital matters become the child's business.
Drama triangle (persecutor, victim, rescuer): Check whether she casts dad as persecutor and you as rescuer.
Gossips and triangulates: Fits if she does this with others too, not just you.
Questions to carry
- The last time she vented, what had just happened between them, and why tell me?
- Listening to her, what do I feel about my dad, and about being the one she tells?
Also said as
- my mother complains to me about her marriage
- I'm stuck in the middle of my parents' fights
- my parents use me as a messenger
- why does my mum make me take sides
- mother complains to me about my father
- my mum offloads her marriage problems on me