caught in the middle

to experience the influence of opposing groups in a disagreement caught in the crossfire My mother and sister are always yelling at each other, and I find myself caught in the middle.

Related vocabulary: in the cross hairs

caught in the middle

Also, caught in the cross-fire. Between two opposing sides, as in The writers are often caught in the middle between editor and publisher, who are political opponents , or When parents don't get along, the children are often caught in the cross-fire. Long used in military situations, these terms began to be used figuratively in the second half of the 1800s.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Flannery	FLAN-ə-ree	English (Rare)
Balduino	-	Spanish
Sylvi	SUYL-vee (Finnish)	Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish
Kiera	KEER-a, KEE-ar-a	Irish
Ignac	-	Slovene
Calvagh	-	Irish