Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

by Harriet Lerner

  What happens if there is not enough “I” in our relationship? Here, we sacrifice our clear and separate identity and our sense of responsibility for, and control over, our own life. When the “togetherness force” is overriding, a lot of energy goes into trying to “be for” the other person, and trying to make the other person think or behave differently. Instead of taking responsibility for our own selves, we tend to feel responsible for the emotional well-being of the other person and hold the other person responsible for ours. When this reversal of individual responsibility is set in motion, each partner may become very emotionally reactive to what the other says and does, and there may be a lot of fighting and blaming, as in Barbara’s case.

  Another outcome of excessive togetherness is a pseudo-harmonious “we,” where there is little overt conflict because a submissive spouse accepts the “reality” of the dominant spouse, or both may behave as if they share a common brain and bloodline. The “urge to merge” may be universal, but when acted out in extreme forms, these “fusion relationships” place us in a terribly vulnerable position. If two people become one, a separation can feel like a psychological or a physical death. We may have nothing—not even a self to fall back on—when an important relationship ends.

  We all need to have both an “I” and a “we” that nourish and give meaning to each other. There is no formula for the “right” amount of separateness and togetherness for all couples or even for the same couple over time. Each member of a couple is constantly monitoring the balance of these two forces, automatically and unconsciously making moves to restore more separateness (when anxiety about fusion sets in) or more togetherness (when anxiety about unrelatedness sets in). The balance of these two forces is constantly in motion in every couple. One common “solution” or “division of labor” that couples unconsciously arrange is that the woman will express the wish for “togetherness”; the man, the wish for “separateness.” We will be taking a closer look at this dance between the “pursuing female” and the “distancing male” in Chapter 3.

  If we are chronically angry or bitter in a particular relationship, that may be a message to clarify and strengthen the “I” a bit more. We must re-examine our own selves with a view toward discovering what we think, feel, and want and what we need to do differently in our lives. The more we carve out a clear and separate “I,” the more we can experience and enjoy both intimacy and aloneness. Our intimacy need not be “sameness” or “oneness” or loss of self; our aloneness and separateness need not be distance and isolation.

  Why is strengthening the “I” such a difficult task? There are many factors, but if we keep a narrow focus on the here and now, Barbara’s situation illustrates how scary it can be to move to a higher level of clarity and assertiveness. Barbara could not give up her old ways and try out some new ones without experiencing an anxiety-arousing feeling of separateness and without making waves in her marriage. Since this is true in all relationships, let’s take a closer look.

  Clarity and the Fear of Loss

  If Barbara had a clearer “I” to begin with, she would not define her problem as: “My husband won’t let me go to the workshop.” Instead, she might say something like the following to herself: “My problem is this: If I cancel the workshop, I will feel bitter and resentful. If I go to the workshop, my husband will feel bitter and resentful. Which do I choose?” After some thought, she might decide that the workshop was not that important or that the timing just wasn’t right for her to make waves in the marriage. Or, she might conclude that the workshop was a non-negotiable issue on which she would not compromise. In this case, she might think about how to present her decision to her husband in a way that would minimize the power struggle. Or, she might simply inform him that she was going. Later, when things were calm, she might initiate a discussion about decision-making in the marriage and explain that while she was interested in his opinions, she was ultimately in charge of making her own decisions.

  What stopped Barbara from achieving this kind of clarity? Why would any of us end up as chronic fighters and complainers, rather than identify our problems and choices and clarify our position? No, women do not gain a secret masochistic gratification from being in the victimized, one-down position. Quite to the contrary, the woman who sits at the bottom of a seesaw marriage accumulates a great amount of rage, which is in direct proportion to the degree of her submission and sacrifice.

  The dilemma is that we may unconsciously be convinced that our important relationships can survive only if we continue to remain one down. To do better—to become clearer, to act stronger, to be more separate, to take action on our own behalf—may be unconsciously equated with a destructive act that will diminish and threaten our partner, who might then retaliate or leave. Sometimes, to develop a stronger “I” is to come to terms with our deep-seated wish to leave an unsatisfactory marriage, and this possibility may be no less frightening than the fear of being left.

  Perhaps Barbara is not ready to face the risk of putting her husband and herself to the test of whether change is possible. She may already be convinced that the relationship cannot tolerate much change. She may be caught between a rock and a hard place: Neither is she ready to say to herself, “I am choosing to stay in this unhappy marriage with a man who is not going to change,” nor can she clarify a bottom line and say, “If these things do not change, I will leave.” Or perhaps Barbara is not yet ready to face anxiety or the “funny depression” that often hits us when we take a clearer and more separate stance in a meaningful relationship. Fighting and blaming is sometimes a way both to protest and to protect the status quo when we are not quite ready to make a move in one direction or another.

  COUNTERMOVES AND “CHANGE BACK!” REACTIONS

  I do not wish to convey the bleak impression that we must stay put on the bottom of the seesaw lest our partner, as well as our relationship, come tumbling down. In some cases, this may happen as a consequence of our change and growth. But more frequently, and depending on how we proceed, the other person will grow along with us, and our emotional ties will ultimately be strengthened. We can learn to strengthen our own selves in a way that will maximize the chances that we will enhance rather than threaten our relationships. Making a change, however, never occurs easily and smoothly.

  We meet with a countermove or “Change back!” reaction from the other person whenever we begin to give up the old ways of silence, vagueness, or ineffective fighting and begin to make clear statements about the needs, wants, beliefs, and priorities of the self. In fact, Murray Bowen, the originator of Bowen Family Systems Theory, emphasizes the fact that in all families there is a powerful opposition to one member defining a more independent self. According to Bowen, the opposition invariably goes in successive steps:

  “You are wrong,” with volumes of reasons to support this.

  2. “Change back and we will accept you again.”

  3. “If you don’t change back, these are the consequences,” which are then listed.

  What are some common countermoves? We may be accused of coldness, disloyalty, selfishness, or disregard for others. (“How could you upset your mother by saying that to her!”) We may receive verbal or nonverbal threats that the other person will withdraw or terminate the relationship. (“We can’t be close if you feel that way.” “How can we have a relationship if you really mean that?”) Countermoves take any number of forms. For example, a person may have an asthma attack or even a stroke.

  Countermoves are the other person’s unconscious attempt to restore a relationship to its prior balance or equilibrium, when anxiety about separateness and change gets too high. Other people do not make countermoves simply because they are dominating, controlling, or chauvinistic. They may or may not be these things, but that is almost beside the point. Countermoves are an expression of anxiety, as well as of closeness and attachment.

  Our job is to keep clear about our own position in the face of a countermove—not to prevent it from happening or to
tell the other person that he or she should not be reacting that way. Most of us want the impossible. We want to control not only our own decisions and choices but also the other person’s reactions to them. We not only want to make a change; we want the other person to like the change that we make. We want to move ahead to a higher level of assertiveness and clarity and then receive praise and reinforcement from those very people who have chosen us for our old familiar ways.

  Countermoves aside, our own resistance to change is just as formidable a force. Barbara’s position in her marriage, for example, may have roots in patterns that go back for many generations. Barbara’s mother and other women relatives who came before her may have assumed a de-selfed position in marriage, or may have paired up with de-selfed husbands. There may not be a tradition in Barbara’s family for marriages in which both partners can be clear and competent in making decisions about their own lives and negotiating differences. All of us are deeply affected by the patterns and traditions of past generations even if—and especially if—we are not consciously aware of them. Like many women, Barbara may feel guilty if she strives to have for herself what her own mother could not. Deep in her unconscious mind, Barbara may view her attempt at self-assertion as an act of disloyalty—a betrayal not only of her husband but also of generations of women in her family. If this is the case, she will unconsciously resist the changes that she seeks.

  To complicate matters further, unresolved issues from our past inevitably surface in our current relationships. If Barbara is stuck in a pattern of chronic marital fighting and blaming, that may be a sign that she has not negotiated her separateness and independence within her first family and that she needs to do some work here (see Chapter 4). How well is Barbara able to take a firm position on important issues with members of her first family? Is she able to make clear and direct statements of her own thoughts and feelings? Is she able to be who she is and not what other family members want or expect her to be—and allow others to do the same? If Barbara is having difficulty staying in emotional contact with living members of her first family and defining a clear and separate “I” within this context, she may have difficulty doing so in her marriage. As a psychotherapist I often help women to clarify and to change their relationships with siblings, parents, and grandparents so that underground family conflicts and patterns will not be replayed—nor buried anger and anxieties pop up—in another close relationship, making for a painful degree of reactivity to others.

  WHERE ARE WE?

  Barbara’s telephone call provided us with an excellent example of ineffective fighting that ensures non-change, because she did two things that we all do when we are stuck and spinning our wheels: First, she fought about a false issue. Second, she put her energy into trying to change the other person.

  Pseudo Issues

  Barbara and her husband probably put a great deal of energy into fighting about the value of my workshop, which is, like most things in life, a matter of personal opinion. More to the point, it’s a pseudo issue. It has nothing to do with Barbara’s real problem, which concerns her struggle between her wish to make responsible decisions for her own life and her wish to preserve togetherness in her marriage and protect the status quo.

  All couples fight over pseudo issues some of the time, and often with great intensity. I will never forget the very first couple I saw in marital therapy. There in my office they sat, quarreling bitterly over whether they would eat their dinner that evening at McDonald’s or Long John Silver’s. Each of these intelligent people put forth the most compelling arguments regarding the relative merits of hamburger or fish, and neither would give an inch. Being new at marital therapy, I was not quite certain how to be helpful to this couple, but I did know one thing for sure: The impassioned argument I was witnessing between two people who were obviously in a great deal of pain had nothing to do with the respective value of burgers and fish.

  Identifying the real issues is no easy matter. It is particularly difficult among family members, because when two adults have a conflict, they often bring in a third party (perhaps a child or an in-law) to form a triangle, which then makes it even harder for the two people involved to identify and work out their problems. For example:

  A wife says to her husband, “I am terribly angry about the way you ignore our son. I feel like he’s growing up without a father.” The real issue not addressed is: “I feel ignored and I am angry that you do not spend more time with me.”

  A husband says to his wife, who is considering a new job, “The children need you at home. I support your working, but I do not like to see the kids and the household neglected.” The real issue not addressed is: “I am scared and worried about your making this change. I am not sure how your career will affect our relationship, and your enthusiasm about this new work is putting me in touch with my dissatisfaction with my own job.”

  A wife says to her husband, “Your mother is driving me crazy. She’s intrusive and controlling and she treats you like you’re her husband and little boy all wrapped up in one.” The real issue not addressed is: “I wish you could be more assertive with your mother and set some limits. Sometimes I wonder whether your primary commitment is to me or to her.”

  When we learn about triangles (Chapter 8), we will see that it is difficult to sort out not only what we are angry about but also whom we are angry at.

  Trying to Change Him

  Barbara, like most of us, was putting her “anger energy” into trying to change the other person. She was trying to change her husband’s thoughts and feelings about the workshop and his reactions to her going. She wanted him to approve of the workshop and she wanted him to want her to go. In short, she wanted him to think and feel about the workshop as she did. Of course, most of us secretly believe that we have the corner on the “truth” and that this would be a much better world if everyone else believed and reacted exactly as we do. But one of the hallmarks of emotional maturity is to recognize the validity of multiple realities and to understand that people think, feel, and react differently. Often we behave as if “closeness” means “sameness.” Married couples and family members are especially prone to behave as if there is one “reality” that should be agreed upon by all.

  It is extremely difficult to learn, with our hearts as well as our heads, that we have a right to everything we think and feel—and so does everyone else. It is our job to state our thoughts and feelings clearly and to make responsible decisions that are congruent with our values and beliefs. It is not our job to make another person think and feel the way we do or the way we want them to. If we try, we can end up in a relationship in which a lot of personal pain and emotional intensity are being expended and nothing is changing.

  There is nothing wrong with wanting to change someone else. The problem is that it usually doesn’t work. No matter how skilled we become in dealing with our anger, we cannot ensure that another person will do what we want him or her to or see things our way, nor are we guaranteed that justice will prevail. We are able to move away from ineffective fighting only when we give up the fantasy that we can change or control another person. It is only then that we can reclaim the power that is truly ours—the power to change our own selves and take a new and different action on our own behalf.

  In the chapters that follow, we will learn how to put the lessons from Barbara’s phone call into practice. What are these seemingly simple lessons?

  First, “letting it all hang out” may not be helpful, because venting anger may protect rather than challenge the old rules and patterns in a relationship. Second, the only person we can change and control is our own self. Third, changing our own self can feel so threatening and difficult that it is often easier to continue an old pattern of silent withdrawal or ineffective fighting and blaming. And, finally, de-selfing is at the heart of our most serious anger problems.

  CIRCULAR DANCES IN COUPLES

  Six months after the birth of my first son, I was vacationing with my family in Berkeley, Californi
a. Browsing through a secondhand bookstore, I came upon a volume by a foremost expert in child development. My heart sank slightly as I noted that my baby was not doing the things that the book said were appropriate for his age. “My God,” I thought to myself, “my child is slow!” I flashed back on the complications that had characterized my pregnancy, and I froze. Was something wrong with my baby?

  When I saw my husband, Steve, later in the day, I anxiously told him my fears. He responded with uncharacteristic insensitivity. “Forget it,” he said matter-of-factly. “Babies develop at different rates. He’s fine.” His response (which I heard as an attempt to silence me) only upset me further. I reacted by trying to prove my point. I told him in detail what the book said, and I reminded him of the problems I had experienced throughout the pregnancy. He accused me of exaggerating the problem and of worrying excessively. Nothing was wrong. I accused him of denying and minimizing the problem. Something might be wrong. He reminded me coldly that my mother was a “worrier” and that, clearly, I was following in her footsteps. I reminded him angrily that worrying was not permitted in his family, since problems were not to be noticed. And then followed more of the same.