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

by Harriet Lerner

  A Problem with Larry’s Parents

  Sandra also protected Larry from recognizing his anger at his own parents. She did this by criticizing them and fuming at them for him. Larry, then, was left with the simpler job of coming to their defense.

  This pattern began at the time of the birth of their first child. Larry’s parents, who were quite wealthy, were spending the year in Paris and did not acknowledge their new granddaughter with enthusiasm or show interest in seeing her. Sandra reacted with outrage, declaring to Larry that they were cold and selfish people who thought only of themselves. Years later she still spoke heatedly about their neglectful attitude, although always to Larry and never to his parents.

  What did Larry do? He made excuses for his parents and found logical reasons for their behavior, which only made Sandra angrier. It was another circular dance in which the behavior of each provoked the other into doing more of the same. The more Sandra criticized her in-laws to Larry, the more Larry came to their defense; the more Larry came to their defense, the more openly critical Sandra became.

  Deep down, of course, Larry was considerably more affected than Sandra by his parents’ behavior. They were, after all, his parents, and he was their son. But because of Sandra’s readiness to do the feeling work for him, Larry was in touch only with his loyalty to his parents who were under his wife’s attack.

  Sandra’s focus on Larry’s behavior with his parents, as opposed to her own relationship with her in-laws, complicated the problem and the solution. In fact, Sandra’s focus on her husband obscured her own need to change matters.

  Larry’s parents, who traveled a great deal, visited once a year. These visits were initiated by Larry’s father, who would write a letter informing the couple when they would arrive and for how long they would stay. Being told rather than asked annoyed Sandra no end. She then put pressure on Larry to confront his parents regarding this matter and he would refuse. In the face of Sandra’s anger and criticisms, Larry predictably sided with them, putting forth logical arguments as to why his parents needed to schedule visits as they did.

  Sandra felt helpless, and for good reason: First, she was trying to make Larry do something and it wasn’t working. Second, she was doing the feeling work for him. Down the road a bit, Sandra changed both of these patterns.

  At some point Sandra recognized that if the behavior of Larry’s parents upset her, it was her job to deal with this herself. So she did. In a letter that was neither attacking nor blaming, Sandra explained to her in-laws that it was important to her to be consulted in arranging a mutually agreeable time for their visits. She stated her position warmly but with clarity and directness, and she did not back down in the face of their initial defensiveness. Much to her surprise, her long-pent-up anger at her in-laws began to dissipate as she became more confident that she could speak effectively to issues that were not to her liking. Also to her surprise, Larry’s parents, in the end, responded warmly and affirmatively, thanking Sandra for her straightforwardness. This was the first step in Sandra’s taking care of her own business with her in-laws, and, in the process, opening up a more direct person-to-person relationship with each of them.

  Larry, threatened by the new assertiveness that his wife was expressing, initially protested the very idea that she would write such a letter. In his typical style, he presented her with a dozen intellectual arguments to back his disapproval. Sandra, however, was clear in her resolve to change things and resisted fighting back, since her experience had taught her that such arguments led nowhere. Instead, she explained to Larry that although she appreciated his point of view, she needed to make her own decisions about how, when, and if she would deal with issues that were important to her.

  When Larry observed that Sandra was continuing to address issues directly with his parents without criticizing or attacking them, a predictable next step occurred: His own unresolved issues with his mother and father surfaced full force. Sandra was no longer complaining to Larry about his parents but managing her own business with them. In response to this, Larry began to feel an internal pressure to take care of his own.

  When a woman vents her anger ineffectively (like Sandra complaining to Larry about his parents, which surely wasn’t going to change anything), or expresses it in an overemotional style, she does not threaten her man. If anything, she helps him to maintain his masculine cool, while she herself is perceived as infantile or irrational. When a woman clarifies the issues and uses her anger to move toward something new and different, then change occurs. If she stops over-functioning for others and starts acting for herself, her underfunctioning man is likely to acknowledge and deal with his own anxieties.

  THE BLAMING GAME

  Sandra and Larry had expended enormous amounts of energy blaming each other for their endless fights. Like many of us, their method of attributing blame was to look for the one who started it. The search for a beginning of a sequence is a common blaming game in couples.

  Consider, for example, the interaction between a nagging wife and a distant, withdrawing husband. The more he withdraws, the more she nags, and the more she nags, the more he withdraws, and so on. . . . So, who is to blame?

  “I know!” says one observer of this sequence. “She is to blame. First she nags him and gets on his case for all kinds of things, and then the poor guy withdraws.”

  “No,” says a second observer, “you have it all wrong. He is! First he buries himself in his work and ignores his family, and then his wife goes after him.”

  This is the who-started-it game—the search for a beginning of a sequence, where the aim is to proclaim which person is to blame for the behavior of both. But we know that this interaction is really a circular dance in which the behavior of one partner maintains and provokes the behavior of the other. The circular dance has no beginning and no end. In the final analysis, it matters little who started it. The question of greater significance is: “How do we break out of it?”

  A good way to make this break is to recognize the part we play in maintaining and provoking the other person’s behavior. Even if we are convinced that the other person is ninety-seven percent to blame, we are still in control of changing our own three percent. So the central question becomes: “How can I change my steps in the circular dance?” This is not to say that we don’t have good reason to be furious with the other person. Nor is it to say that our current sex roles and gender arrangements, which breed these sorts of dances, are not at fault—they are. Rather, it is simply to say that we don’t have the power to change another person who does not want to change, and our attempts to do so may actually protect him or her from change. This is the paradox of the circular dances in which we all participate.

  EMOTIONAL PURSUER—EMOTIONAL DISTANCER A VERY OLD DANCE

  Emotional pursuers are persons who reduce their anxiety by sharing feelings and seeking close emotional contact. Emotional distancers are persons who reduce their anxiety by intellectualizing and withdrawing. As with Sandra and Larry, it is most often the woman who is the emotional pursuer and the man who is the emotional distancer.

  When the waters are calm, the pursuer and the distancer may seem like the perfect complementary couple. She is spontaneous, lively, and emotionally responsive. He is reserved, calm, and logical. When the waters are rough, however, each exaggerates his or her own style, and that’s where the trouble begins.

  What happens when the inevitable stresses of life hit this couple? It may be an illness, a child in difficulty, a financial worry, or a possible career move. No matter what the content of the problem, these two styles of responding suddenly seem at odds. She reacts quickly, seeking direct contact and refuge in togetherness. She shares her feelings and wants him to do the same. He reacts very logically and rationally in a manner that is not acceptable to her. So, she pursues harder, wanting to know more of what he is thinking and feeling, and he distances further. The more he distances, the more she pursues, and the more she pursues, the more he distances. She accuses
him of being cold, unresponsive, and inhuman. He accuses her of being pushy, hysterical, and controlling.

  What is the common outcome of this classic scenario? After this escalating dance of pursuit and withdrawal proceeds for some time, the woman goes into what therapists call “reactive distance.” Feeling rejected and fed up, she at last proceeds to go about her own business. The man now has even more space than he is comfortable with, and in time he moves closer to her in the hope of making contact. But it’s too late. “Where were you when I needed you!” she says angrily. At this point, distancer and pursuer might even reverse their roles for a while.

  Emotional pursuers protect emotional distancers. By doing the work of expressing the neediness, clingingness, and wish for closeness for both partners, pursuers make it possible for distancers to avoid confronting their own dependency wishes and insecurities. As long as one person is pursuing, the other has the luxury of experiencing a cool independence and a need for space. It is hardly surprising, considering her upbringing, that the woman is usually, though by no means always, the pursuer. It is another example of doing the feeling work for men. When a pursuer learns to back off and put her energies into her own life—especially if she can do this with dignity and without hostility—the distancer is more likely to recognize his own needs for contact and closeness . . . and begin to pursue. But beware, this is no easy task. Most women who are emotional pursuers go off into a cold or angry “reactive distance,” which only temporarily reverses the pursuit cycle or has little effect at all.

  BREAKING THE PURSUIT CYCLE

  Sandra and Larry were caught in an escalating cycle of pursuit and distance for many years prior to their seeking help. Since the birth of their first child, Larry was decreasing his emotional involvement with Sandra as he increased the energy he put into work and hobbies. Sandra alternated between active pursuit, angry criticism, and a cold, bitter withdrawal. Sadly, but predictably, their relationship had gone from bad to worse.

  On one particular Friday night, almost a year following our first meeting, Sandra broke the pursuit cycle. It was her increased sense of personal responsibility to provide for her own needs, as well as her growing awareness that she could not change her husband, that allowed her to do something new and different. And something new and different is exactly what Sandra did.

  This Friday evening began like all others. The children were in bed, and Larry was shuffling through his briefcase about to pull out a couple hours’ work. Sandra came and sat down next to him on the couch. Larry bristled, expecting the usual attack, but it did not come. Instead, Sandra began to speak warmly and with assurance:

  “Larry, I feel like I owe you an apology. I’ve been on your back for a long time. I realize that I have been wanting you to provide me with something that really I need to provide for myself. Perhaps part of the problem is that you have family and work and I have only you and the kids. It’s my problem and I recognize that I need to do something about it.”

  “Oh,” muttered Larry, with a somewhat unsettled look on his face. He seemed at an uncharacteristic loss for words. “Well, that’s nice. . . .”

  The very next night, Sandra asked Larry if he would mind putting the children to bed himself on Tuesday and Friday because she was planning to go out. Larry protested that he had too much work. Instead of arguing, Sandra called the sitter to come in and help on those evenings. On Tuesday night Sandra joined a yoga class that met weekly. On Friday night she went to the movies with a friend and then out for a glass of wine. She did not pursue Larry in any way, nor did she distance from him or withdraw coldly. If anything, she was warmer to him than usual, although clearly directing much of her energy toward her own interests and scheduling.

  After three weeks of this, Larry, who had wanted nothing more than to be left alone, began to get nervous. Much to his surprise, he became quite uncomfortable when his wife’s bleep was off his radar screen. At first, he tried to provoke her into fighting by attempting to control what she could or could not do with her evenings. Without retaliating, Sandra explained to Larry that she was a social person with social needs and that she was no longer able to neglect this important part of her life. Her warm firmness on this issue communicated clearly to Larry that she was acting for herself and not against him.

  Next, Larry started to pursue her. Instead of bringing his work home, he suggested they use the sitter to go out together—something they almost never did on a week night. As Larry increasingly began to experience and express his own dependency and insecurity, a funny thing happened: Sandra, for the first time, got in touch with her own wish to be left alone. For a while, they simply reversed their roles as pursuer and distancer until, finally, they got things in balance. And when that occurred, Sandra and Larry were able to recognize that each of them harbored strong dependency wishes, as well as a wish to flee when things became “too close.”

  Why was it Sandra who finally took the initiative in breaking the circular dance? Sandra was in greater emotional pain than Larry, and her role as the pursuer in the relationship placed her in a more emotionally vulnerable position. When she became convinced that her old ways simply were not working for her, she found the motivation to move differently. Why did she have to take the responsibility to make the change? Simply because no one else was going to do it for her.

  Breaking the pursuit cycle did not in itself lead to emotional closeness for Sandra and Larry; there were important barriers to intimacy that the two of them were left to struggle with. However, Sandra and Larry could work more successfully on their relationship once they recognized that they shared a common problem: Both of them wished for closeness and also feared it. Before Sandra broke the pursuit cycle, Larry had the false but comforting fantasy that all of the neediness and wish for closeness was in Sandra. Likewise, Sandra imagined that all of the avoidance of and flight from intimacy was in Larry.

  When a pursuer stops pursuing and begins to put her energy back into her own life—without distancing or expressing anger at the other person—the circular dance has been broken. Because this may smack of the old “hard-to-get” tactics that women have been taught to play, it may sound inauthentic or manipulative. But continuing the old dance of pursuit or cold withdrawal is not more honest. In fact, it only leaves the woman feeling the neediness and dependency for two people, while her partner can disown these same qualities within himself. Our experience of a relationship becomes more “true” and balanced as the pursuer can allow herself to acknowledge and express more of her own wish for independence and space, and, in turn, the distancer can begin to acknowledge more of his dependency and wish for closeness.

  OVERINVOLVED MOTHER—UNDERINVOLVED FATHER: THE LAST DANCE

  “Sandra is a very overinvolved mother. She inherited it from her mother.” These were Larry’s words about Sandra’s mothering during our first meeting. And it was true. Sandra did worry excessively about the children, as her own mother had worried about her. She became upset when her children were upset, and she had difficulty allowing them to handle their own disappointments and deal with their own sadness and anger. She was quick to spot potential “problems” in her children in a way that actually invited them to give her something to worry about. Larry was correct that Sandra was an overinvolved mother. However, he was unaware of his part in provoking and maintaining that circular dance.

  Larry’s singular pursuit of career goals had left him estranged from his wife and children and lacking in parenting skills. As Sandra moved in even closer to fill the empty space left by Larry, Larry felt more shut out and withdrew further. Whenever his anger about being on the periphery caught up with him, he moved in with a bang! As Sandra described in our initial meeting, he then took over in a unilateral way, as if he was the only one in charge. Underlying his sporadic displays of paternal dominance was his sadness and anger about his actual position as “odd man out” in the family. And so, Sandra and Larry were caught in another dance in which the behavior of each spouse provokes and
reinforces the behavior of the other. Larry’s underinvolvement provoked Sandra’s overinvolvement, which provoked Larry’s underinvolvement . . . Thus, the vicious cycle continued, punctuated by Larry’s occasional displays of dominance, following which their life returned to its usual pattern.

  This dance was very difficult to disrupt, because the entire family was working overtime to keep it going: On the one hand, Sandra and Larry each demanded that the other change. Larry criticized Sandra’s overinvolvement with the children as harshly as she criticized his token fathering. Yet, each of them also wanted to keep the old dance going. “Please change!” and “Change back!” was the double message they gave each other. Like most couples, each partner wished for the other’s change and growth, yet feared and resisted it.

  Sandra, for example, complained incessantly about Larry’s underinvolvement with the children. Yet, when he did make a tentative move closer to the family, she would correct some detail of his parenting, criticize some aspect of his behavior, or advise him on how to better interact with the children. It was extremely difficult for her to simply stay out and allow him to relate to the children in his own way. Sandra wanted Larry to become more involved, but she also wanted to maintain her special role as the more dominant and influential parent. If she relinquished that special status, her feelings of uselessness threatened to become intolerably strong, and her discontent with her marriage would be experienced with even greater intensity. She thus gave Larry mixed messages. She encouraged him to be more available to the kids but then, without being aware of it, undermined his tentative attempts to do so. Larry, in a similar fashion, gave Sandra the same “Please change!” and “Change back!” messages.