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

by Harriet Lerner

  Toward the end of marital therapy, Sandra was able to do different steps in this dance, too. As she became increasingly invested in fostering her own growth and development, she became less tightly enmeshed with her children and no longer looked to them to fill up the emptiness she had been experiencing. Sandra’s earlier focus on her husband and children had protected her from confronting some difficult questions: “What are my priorities right now?” “Are there interests and skills that I would like to develop?” “What are my personal goals over the next several years?” As Sandra began to put her energy into struggling with these difficult issues, she was better able to allow Larry to relate to the children in his own way without correcting him or getting in the middle. As Sandra backed off, Larry moved in. The children, too, sensed that their mother was putting her energy into her own life and no longer needed them to be “loyal” to her as the “number-one” parent. Thus, they became freer to be close with their dad without anxiety and guilt. This was a difficult shift for Larry, because he was faced head on with his own worries about being a father and his concerns about his competence in this area.

  TRYING TO CHANGE HIM

  Sandra had spent many years trying to change Larry. “If only he would change!” “If only he would be different!” She truly believed that a change in Larry would secure her happiness. But the more Sandra put her energies into trying to change and control Larry, the more things stayed the same. For trying to change or control another person is a solution that never, never works. And while Sandra poured all that effort into trying to change someone she could not change, she failed to exercise the power that was hers—the power to change her own self.

  Sandra’s realization that she could not change Larry did not mean that she silently swallowed her anger and dissatisfaction. If anything, she learned to articulate her reactions to Larry with clarity and assurance. She was aware, however, that in response to these statements of her own wishes and preferences, Larry would change or not change. And if he did not change, it was Sandra’s job to decide what she would or would not do from there. This is something more difficult than participating in further fighting that only maintains the status quo.

  For example, Larry’s pattern of leaving household jobs half finished was a real irritant to Sandra. The typical old pattern was that Sandra would push Larry to finish a task, in response to which he would procrastinate further, which provoked Sandra into pushing harder. The circular dance was procrastinate-push-procrastinate-push . . . Sandra would continue to try to make Larry finish the job despite the likelihood that it would not get done.

  As is often the case, Sandra’s pushing actually helped Larry to be more comfortable with his irresponsible behavior. He would become angry and defensive in the face of her criticisms, which protected him from feeling guilty and concerned about his difficulty completing tasks. Sandra’s attempts to change Larry only made it easier for him to avoid confronting his own problem.

  Now, Sandra is clear in telling Larry that she becomes upset when the bathroom ceiling remains half painted and buckets of paint are lying around the house. If Larry shows no positive response to her complaint, Sandra then puts her energy into determining what she will do or will not do in order to take care of her own needs. She is able to do this when she begins to feel resentful, so that her anger does not build up. Thus, she can talk to Larry without hostility and let him know that she is needing to do something for herself and not to him.

  After considering the options open to her, she may choose to say any number of things to Larry. It may be: “Okay, I don’t like it, but I can live with it.” Or: “Larry, I would rather you finish what you began, but if you are unable to do so this week, it is bothersome enough to me that I will do it myself. I can paint it without becoming angry, so that’s okay with me.” Or: “I can only tolerate looking at this unfinished job for one week, and I can’t complete it myself without becoming angry about it. So, what might we do that you don’t feel pushed and I don’t become furious? One idea I have is to call the painter if it’s not done by Saturday.” Obviously, there is something Sandra can do about the ceiling, for if Larry were to disappear from the earth, it is highly unlikely that she would live out the rest of her life with a half-painted ceiling. In the old pattern, however, Sandra put so much effort into trying to change Larry that she obscured from herself her own power to act and make choices. And this, in the end, is the only real power we have.

  ANGER AT OUR IMPOSSIBLE MOTHERS

  The Story of Maggie

  Turning theory and good intentions into practice is especially challenging with members of our first family. Our relationships with our parents and siblings are the most influential in our lives and they are never simple. Families tend to establish rigid rules and roles that govern how each member is to think, feel, and behave, and these are not easily challenged or changed. When one individual in a family begins to behave in a new way that does not conform to the old family scripts, anxiety skyrockets and before long everyone is trying to reinstate the old familiar patterns.

  Rather than face the strong feelings of anxiety and discomfort that are inevitably evoked when we clarify a new position in an old relationship, we may instead do the very two things with our anger that only serve to block the possibility that change will occur.

  First, we may “confront” members of our family by telling them what’s wrong with them and how they should think, feel, or behave differently. That is, we try to change the other person. This other person typically (and understandably) becomes upset and defensive. We then become frustrated or guilty and allow things to return to the usual pattern. “My mother (father, sister, brother) can’t change!” is our subsequent conclusion.

  Second, we may cut ourselves off from our parents or siblings emotionally and/or geographically. Surely, the fastest cure for chronic anger or frustration is simply to leave home, to move across the country (better yet, to a different country), or to find a sympathetic therapist who will “re-parent” us. We can keep family visits few and far between or we can keep them polite and superficial. True enough, such distancing does bring short-term relief by lowering the anxiety and emotional intensity in these relationships and freeing us of the uncomfortable feelings that may be evoked upon closer emotional contact. The problem is that there is a long-term cost. All the unresolved emotional intensity is likely to get played out in another important relationship, such as that with a spouse, a lover, or, if we ourselves are parents, a child. No less important is the fact that emotional distancing from our first family prevents us from proceeding calmly and clearly in new relationships. When we learn to move differently in our family and get “unstuck” in these important relationships, we will function with greater satisfaction in every relationship we are in. And, as Maggie’s story illustrates, we can go home again. We can learn to do something different with our anger.

  THE WAY IT WAS

  Maggie, a twenty-eight-year-old graduate student at a local university, came to see me because of her recurrent migraine headaches and her lack of sexual interest in her husband, Bob. Beginning with our first therapy session, however, she maintained an almost single-minded focus on her mother. Although Maggie lived in Kansas and her mother in California, time and space had healed no wounds.

  Maggie had no problem getting in touch with her anger at her mother, and if left to herself, she spoke of little else. From Maggie’s description, she and her mother had never gotten along well, nor had their relationship improved when Maggie left home and started a family of her own. Maggie’s mother and father were divorced five years prior to her starting therapy, shortly after she married Bob and moved away from the west coast. Since that time, Maggie and her father had become increasingly distant, while her relationship with her mother had become more intense, even though they were physically apart.

  Maggie dutifully invited her mother for annual visits, but by the third day Maggie would feel frustration and rage. During her therapy sessions, she would
describe the horrors of the particular visit to which she was being subjected. With despair and anger in her voice, she would recite her mother’s crime sheet, which was endless. In vivid detail, she would document her mother’s unrelenting negativism and intrusiveness. During one visit, for example, Maggie reported the following events: Maggie and Bob had redecorated their living room; mother hadn’t noticed. Bob had just learned of his forthcoming promotion; mother didn’t comment. Maggie and Bob effortfully prepared fancy dinners; mother complained that the food was too rich. To top it all off, mother lectured Maggie about her messy kitchen and criticized her management of money. And when Maggie announced that she was three months pregnant, mother replied, “How will you deal with a child when you can hardly make time to clean your house?”

  About all this, Maggie had said nothing, except for a few sarcastic comments and one enormous blowup to mark the day of her mother’s departure. Maggie was furious and she saw therapy as a place where she could safely vent her anger. But that’s about all she did. She did not, for example, say to her mother, “Mom, this pregnancy means a great deal to Bob and me. We’re excited about it, and although I worry sometimes, I’m confident that we’ll do just fine.” Nor did she say, “Mother, I know that I manage money in a way that’s very different from your way. But what I do is working okay for me, just as your way works for you.” Instead, Maggie tended to keep quiet when she felt unappreciated or put down. She alternated between seething silently, emotionally distancing herself, and finally blowing up. None of these reactions was helpful to her.

  Obviously, it is not necessary, or even desirable, to personally address every injustice and irritation that comes our way. It can be an act of maturity to let something go. But for Maggie, not speaking up—and then blowing up—had become the painful rule in her relationship with mother. Maggie was de-selfing herself by failing to address issues that mattered to her, and as a result, she felt angry, frustrated, victimized, and depressed.

  When I asked Maggie about her silences, she provided countless justifications for her failure to speak up. Among them were: “I could never say that!” “My mother can’t hear.” “It would only make things worse.” “I’ve tried it a hundred times and it doesn’t work.” “The situation is hopeless.” “It would kill my mother if I said that.” “It’s just not important enough to me anymore.” “You just don’t know my mother!”

  Sound familiar? When emotional intensity is high in a family, most of us put the entire responsibility for poor communication on the other person. It is one’s mother/father/sister/brother who is deaf, defensive, crazy, hopeless, helpless, fragile, or set in their ways. Always, we perceive that it is the other who prevents us from speaking and keeps the relationship from changing. We disown our own part in the interactions we complain of and, with it, our power to bring about a change.

  Maggie acted as if her only options were either to keep quiet or to argue and fight, although she knew from experience that neither worked. Indeed, when she did vent her anger, the result left her feeling so frustrated that she would begin yet another cycle of silence and emotional withdrawal.

  ONE YEAR LATER: GOING TO BATTLE

  Amy—Maggie and Bob’s new baby—was two months old when Maggie’s mother made her next visit. Tensions between the two women were already sky high by the time mother’s suitcase was unpacked, and only seemed to escalate as the visit progressed. Having a new baby brought out the fighter in Maggie, and she and her mother were constantly locking horns, especially on the subject of Amy’s care.

  When Maggie decided to let Amy cry herself to sleep, her mother suggested that she be picked up, insisting that such neglect might have potentially damaging effects. When Maggie nursed her baby on demand, her mother advised her to nurse on a fixed schedule and warned that Maggie was spoiling Amy by overly long feedings. And so it went.

  On this particular visit, Maggie did not sit still through her mother’s lectures and criticisms. Armed with supporting evidence from physicians, psychologists, and child-care experts, Maggie set out to prove her wrong on every count. She debated her mother constantly. The more thoroughly Maggie martialed her evidence, the more tenaciously her mother clung to her own opinions. When finally this sequence reached an intolerable point, Maggie would angrily accuse her mother of being rigid, controlling, and unable to listen. Her mother would then become sullen and withdrawn, in response to which Maggie retreated into silence. Things would settle down for a while and then the fighting would begin again.

  Four days into the visit, Maggie reported that her nerves were on edge and she was at the tail end of a migraine headache. She once again diagnosed her mother as “a hopeless case” and stated bitterly that she had no option but to retreat to her earlier style of silent suffering and to see her mother as little as possible in the future.

  What Went Wrong?

  One problem with Maggie’s style of fighting with her mother may already be obvious: Maggie was trying to change her mother rather than clearly state her own beliefs and convictions and stand behind them. To attempt to change another person, particularly a parent, is a self-defeating move. Predictably, Maggie’s mother would only cling with greater determination to her own beliefs in the face of her daughter’s pressuring her to admit error. Maggie had yet to learn that she cannot control or change another person’s thoughts and feelings. Her attempts to do so in fact provoked the very rigidity in her mother that she found so disturbing.

  Perhaps the reader can identify a second problematic aspect of Maggie’s fights with her mother. Maggie had not yet identified the true source of her anger. As is often the case, mother and daughter were fighting about a pseudo issue. Arguing about such child-rearing practices as feeding Amy on schedule or demand, or rocking her to sleep rather than letting her cry it out, only masks the real issue here: Maggie’s independence from her mother.

  Maggie’s intense reactivity to her mother also prevented her from being able to think about her situation in a clear, focused way. Until she can calm down enough to become more reflective, she is unlikely to identify her main problem and decide how she wants to deal with it. Simply giving vent to stored-up anger has no particular therapeutic value. Such catharsis may indeed offer feelings of relief—especially for the person doing the venting—and the accused party usually survives the verbal onslaught. But this solution can only be temporary.

  Taking Stock of the Situation

  During one particular psychotherapy hour when Maggie was describing yet another frustrating battle with mother on some question of Amy’s care, I decided to interrupt her:

  “You know, I’m struck by your protectiveness of your mother,” I remarked.

  “Protectiveness?” exclaimed Maggie, looking at me as if I had surely gone mad. “She’s driving me crazy. I’m not protecting her! I’m fighting with her constantly.”

  “And what’s the outcome of these fights?” It was a rhetorical question.

  “Nothing! Nothing ever changes!” Maggie declared.

  “Exactly,” I said. “And that is how you protect her. By participating in fights that lead nowhere and never speaking directly to the real issue. You fight with your mother rather than let her know where you stand.”

  “Where I stand on what?” asked Maggie.

  “Where you stand on the question of who is in charge of your baby and who has the authority to make decisions about her care.”

  Maggie was silent for a long moment. The anger on her face changed slowly to a look of mild depression and concern. “Maybe I’m not sure where I stand.”

  “Perhaps, then,” I responded, “we had better take a look at that issue first.”

  After this exchange, Maggie began to move in a new direction. She began to think carefully about her situation, as opposed to expressing feelings about it, and to clarify where she stood, rather than continuing to criticize her mother. In this process, Maggie gained a new perspective on her pattern of relating to her mother. To her surprise, she discovered t
hat she felt guilty about excluding her mother from her new family; part of her wanted to “share” her children so that her mother would not feel left out or depressed. Maggie thought about her parents’ divorce, which followed on the heels of her own marriage to Bob, and she wondered out loud whether her leaving home and getting married were somehow linked to the ending of her parents’ marriage. She then revealed a critical piece of information that she had failed to mention in all of our time working together: her mother had received electroshock therapy for a post-partum depression following Maggie’s birth. Although Maggie was not at first aware of it, she was worried that following the event of Amy’s birth, her mother would again become depressed.