Tidal locks

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Okay, I've been trying to get an answer to this question for a while now, but no one has known a solution to it. Well, here is goes:

Okay, say we have planets, which orbit this sun. These planets get close enough to each other that they get in a tidal lock, and begin orbiting each other as well as the sun. This lock is similar to the way that the moon is locked to the earht, only one side of it ever faces the earth, but is a two way relationship.

Assuming that the planets have the same mass, size, orbit speed/direction and more or less everything else, is there any possible way, by introducing another mass, bigger or smaller, to break the tidal lock yet still have the planets orbiting each other as well as the sun?

 

If the tidal lock breaks how can they orbit each other?
I think there is no possible way.

 

That's what I'm trying to work out. There should be some way. For example, if a large enough mass were to pass by it should throw off the tidal lock for a short time, yet they'd still orbit each other. But like I said, it would only be a short time, before they lock into each other again.

 

How many planets are we talking about? I'm assuming two? (Having hard time picturing more than 2 planets orbiting each other...) Furthermore... having problem picturing two planets "tidaling" each other... Would they just be facing each other with the same face all the time? How is that orbiting? More like spinning with respect to a central line between the two planets?

 

WTF?

They might still orbit, but that orbit will have a new periapsis. The nature of the orbit would change.

You can see the same thing happen when a guy is walking next to his wife, and a really hott chick walks by. Or when one guy already has a beer, and there's a really loud and obnoxious pub across the street.

 

I suppose it could be possible, but I cannot conceive a such a situation occuring. Two planets of about the same size orbiting each other? No problem - there's an example of that in our own solar system. Pluto and its moon are almost the same size. The problem I have is a large mass coming close enough to pull them away, and I don't see how that could happen. Solar systems generally don't get that close together. In fact, when two GALAXIES merge the chance of collisions between stars, solar systems, etc., is extremely low because of the vast distances between them. It's ironic - a galaxy of millions of starts merging with another galaxy of millions of stars, and no collisions - but that's what the odds say.