eternal triangle

noun

1. an emotional relationship in which there are conflicts involving a man and two women or a woman and two men

Idioms and Phrases

A relationship involving three lovers, such as two women involved with one man or two men with one woman. For example, The plot of the murder mystery revolved around the eternal triangle of a husband, wife, and another woman . [c. 1900]

Example Sentences

Now, with a situation developing before his eyes which has always been notoriously difficult of solution—so difficult that it has been given a label and called the Eternal Triangle, as if it were a geometrical problem like the Pons Asinorum in Euclid—Arthur was only able to retreat It is generally the trustful and optimistic people who can afford to retreat.

From Literature

The IB-Made Knight was not involved in an Eternal Triangle.

From Literature

Written by the British dramatist Kieron Barry and smoothly mounted by the small but intrepid theater company Stageworks/Hudson, it is called “Tomorrow in the Battle,” and it concerns what was once quaintly referred to as the eternal triangle.

From New York Times

Even if Strindberg hazily sketches in the three other characters, the piece rings intriguing variations on the eternal triangle and seems wholly modern in its distilled, blackly comic power.

From The Guardian

Ratmansky stages a tremendous dance between Vronsky, Karenin and Anna, and we watch the eternal triangle become temporary.

From The Guardian