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

by Harriet Lerner

  As a result of the changes that Maggie made with her mother and father, she became free of the symptoms that first brought her to see me. Her headaches did not return and she became more sexually responsive with her husband, Bob. She also felt clearer and more assertive in all of her other relationships.

  The work that Maggie did will have reverberations in the next generation. When her children are older, she will be better able to allow them the appropriate degree of independence and separateness, for the degree of independence that we achieve from our own family of origin is always played out in the following generation. Had Maggie not done this work, she would in time have found herself overinvolved and intensely reactive to one or more of her children. Or, alternatively, she might have been overly distant and emotionally cut off when her children were grown, which is simply the other side of the same coin. Although Maggie is not yet aware of it, the work that she did is the best “parent-effectiveness training” that money can buy.

  BECOMING OUR OWN PERSON

  Autonomy, separateness, independence, selfhood—these are all concepts that psychotherapists embrace as primary values and goals. And so do the women who seek help: “I want to find myself.” “I want to discover who I really am and what I want.” “I don’t want to be so concerned with other people’s approval.” “I want to have a close relationship and still be my own person.”

  The task of defining (and maintaining) a separate self within our closest relationships is one that begins in our first family but does not end there. Like Maggie, we can proceed to work on achieving greater independence (and with it, an increased capacity for intimacy and togetherness) at any stage of our lives. Renegotiating relationships with persons on our own family tree yields especially rich rewards, because the degree of self that we carve out in this arena will greatly influence the nature of our current relationships.

  In this lifelong task of forging a clear self, our anger is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it helps to preserve our integrity and self-regard. Maggie’s anger at her mother was the signal that let her know she was not comfortable in the old pattern of relating to her mother and that she needed to make a change. However, as we have seen, venting anger does not solve the problem that anger signals. To the contrary, Maggie’s success at becoming her own separate person rested on her ability to share something about herself with her mother and father in a straightforward, nonblaming way while maintaining emotional contact with them throughout the process. It required, also, that Maggie uphold her position with persistence and calm, without getting emotionally buffeted about by the inevitable countermoves and “Change back!” reactions we meet whenever we assume a more autonomous position in an important relationship. This is what achieving selfhood and independence is all about. And it requires, among other things, a particular way of talking and a degree of clarity that are especially difficult to achieve when we are angry.

  USING ANGER AS A GUIDE

  The Road to a Clearer Self

  I was first introduced to the notion of turning anger into “I messages” some years back when I read Thomas Gordon’s best-selling book, Parent Effectiveness Training. I still recall the first time I put his theory into practice. I was standing in the kitchen washing dishes when I noticed my son, Matthew, who was then three, sitting at the kitchen table about to cut an apple with a sharp knife. The conversation that followed went something like this:

  ME: “Matthew, put that knife down. You’re going to cut yourself.”

  MATTHEW: “No, I’m not.”

  ME (getting angry): “Yes, you are!”

  MATTHEW (getting angrier): “No, I’m not!”

  ME (even louder): “Yes, you are! Put it down!”

  MATTHEW: “No!”

  At this point in the escalating power struggle, I remembered what I had read about “I” messages. Every “you” message (for example, “You’re going to cut yourself”) could be turned into an “I” message—that is, a nonblaming statement about one’s own self. So, in a split second’s time, I made the conversion:

  “Matthew,” I said again (this time without anger), “when I see you with that sharp knife, I feel scared. I am worried that you will cut yourself.” At this point Matthew paused, looked me straight in the eye, and said calmly, “That’s your problem.” To which I replied, “You’re absolutely right. It is my problem that I’m scared and I’m going to take care of my problem right now by taking that knife away from you.” And so I did.

  What was interesting to me was that Matthew relinquished the knife easily, without the usual anger and struggle and with no loss of pride. I was taking the knife away from him because I was worried, and exercised my parental authority in that light. I owned the problem (“I feel scared”) and I took responsibility for my feelings. Later, I was to learn that Matthew had been cutting apples with a sharp knife for over a month in his Montessori preschool, but that is beside the point. What is important is that I was able to shift from “You’re going to cut yourself” (did I have a crystal ball?) to “It is my problem. . . .”

  Of course, no one talks in calm “I messages” all the time. When my husband broke my favorite ceramic mug that had been with me since college, I did not turn to him with perfect serenity and say, “You know, dear, when you knock my cup off the table, my reaction is to feel angry and upset. It would mean a great deal to me if you would be more careful next time.” Instead, I cursed him and created a small scene. He apologized, and a few minutes later we were the best of friends again.

  There is nothing inherently virtuous in using “I messages” in all circumstances. If our goal is simply to let someone know we’re angry, we can do it in our own personal style, and our style may do the job, or at least makes us feel better.

  If however, our goal is to break a pattern in an important relationship and/or to develop a stronger sense of self that we can bring to all our relationships, it is essential that we learn to translate our anger into clear, nonblaming statements about our own self.

  There are any number of self-help books and assertiveness-training courses that teach men and women how to change “You are . . .” communications into “I feel . . .” communications. Certainly we maximize the opportunity for constructive dialogue if we say “I feel like I’m not being heard” rather than “You don’t know how to listen.” The story of how Maggie changed her relationship with her mother is a vivid illustration of this point. Shaping up our communication, however, is only a small part of the picture.

  The more significant issue for women is that we may not have a clear “I” to communicate about, and we are not prepared to handle the intense negative reactions that come our way when we do begin to define and assert the self.

  As we have seen, women often fear that having a clear “I” means threatening a relationship or losing an important person. Thus, rather than using our anger as a challenge to think more clearly about the “I” in our relationships, we may, when angry, actually blur what personal clarity we do have. And we may do this not only under our own roof with intimate others but on the job as well with office mates. Karen’s difficulty maintaining a clear “I” will ring a bell for those of us who have occasion to fall into the “nice lady” category at work.

  FROM ANGER TO TEARS

  Karen was one of two young women who sold life insurance in an otherwise all-male firm. After her first year on the job, she received a written evaluation from her boss that placed her in the “Very Satisfactory” performance range. From Karen’s perspective, her work was in the “Superior” range. By objective criteria, her sales record was right at the top.

  This evaluation meant much to Karen, since only employees rated “Superior” received a special salary bonus along with the opportunity to attend out-of-state seminars. Karen was raising two children with little financial support from her ex-husband. She needed the money and wanted the educational opportunities that would allow her to advance.

  When Karen brought her story to group psychother
apy, she had tears in her eyes. “I’m hurt,” said Karen. “It’s just not fair!” When asked what she planned to do, Karen said flatly, “Nothing.” As she put it, “It’s just not worth the hassle.”

  “Aren’t you angry?” a group member inquired. “Why should I be angry?” responded Karen. “Where will it get me? It only makes things worse.” These were the things that Karen would predictably say to avoid taking her anger seriously.

  With help from the other group members, Karen was finally able to acknowledge her anger and mobilize the courage to meet with her boss to discuss the evaluation. She got off to a good start with him by lucidly stating why she believed she deserved the higher rating. At first, her boss seemed to listen attentively, but it soon became evident that he was feeling defensive and wasn’t really considering her view of the matter. When she finished talking, he brushed aside the valid points that she had made and began instead to focus on certain problems that he had noticed in her work. These problems, although real, were trivial and unrelated to the question of whether or not Karen deserved a “Superior” rating. Then he added that “other people” in the office thought she was “a little rough around the edges.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Karen.

  “Perhaps it’s a personality issue,” he continued, “but you give the impression to some people that you are less committed to your work than you might be.”

  At this point, Karen’s eyes filled with tears and she felt totally inarticulate. “I don’t understand that,” she said softly, doing her best not to burst out crying. She then proceeded to tell her boss how unappreciated she felt because she was struggling so hard to raise two children and to succeed in a full-time job as well. Now that tears and “hurt” had replaced Karen’s calm assertiveness, her boss shifted from defensiveness to paternalistic concern. He reassured Karen that she showed a great deal of potential in her work, and he empathized with the difficult task of being a single parent. The meeting ended with Karen’s sharing some of the emotional struggles she was having since her divorce, while her boss lent a sympathetic ear. She did not mention anything further about the evaluation, nor did he. Karen left the office feeling relieved that she had not alienated her boss and that their meeting had ended on a warm note.

  When Karen told us her story at the next group-therapy session, she concluded with the following words: “You see—it doesn’t do any good to confront him. He doesn’t listen. Anyway, the evaluation is really no big deal. To tell the truth, it really doesn’t matter that much to me.”

  But the other group members did not drop the subject so easily. They had a number of questions for Karen that forced her to confront her own uncertainty.

  Who were these “other people” in the office who questioned Karen’s commitment and who told the boss that she was “a little rough around the edges?”

  Karen had no idea who her critics were.

  What did “a little rough around the edges” mean?

  Karen wasn’t sure: “Something to do with my personality or character . . .”

  What, specifically, would she have to do differently to get a “Superior” rating?

  Karen didn’t know.

  It was not only that Karen failed to restate her position following her boss’s initial defensiveness; she did not even allow herself to clarify the issues with him. She did not ask, “Who in the office is criticizing me?” Or, “Could you be more specific about my personality problems?” Or, “What, specifically, must I change in order to get a ‘Superior’ rating?” Karen’s emotional reaction to her boss’s criticism obscured her thinking about what she wanted to ask and what she wanted to say.

  Feeling fuzzy-headed, inarticulate, and not so smart are common reactions experienced by women as we struggle to take a stand on our own behalf. It is not just anger and fighting that we learn to fear; we avoid asking precise questions and making clear statements when we unconsciously suspect that doing so would expose our differences, make the other person feel uncomfortable, and leave us standing alone.

  “But my boss intimidates me!” said Karen.

  That’s a cover story. Karen was really afraid of rocking the boat in an important relationship by persisting in her efforts to take up her own cause in a mature and articulate manner. Her tears and her willingness to let her boss play the role of advisor and confidant were, in part, her unconscious way of reinstating the status quo and apologizing for the “separateness” inherent in her initial position of disagreement. Karen’s tears may also have been an unconscious attempt to make her boss feel guilty (“See how you’ve hurt me?”)—a frequent practice for women who are blocked from making a direct statement of where we stand.

  “But I’m not angry about it anymore,” protested Karen. “It just doesn’t matter.”

  Of course Karen is still angry. She just doesn’t recognize it. Anger is inevitable when we submit to unfair circumstances and when we protect another person at our own expense.

  Karen’s denial of her anger and her failure to stand behind her position had inevitable costs. She felt tired and less enthusiastic at work. Two weeks after her evaluation, Karen misplaced a folder of important forms and she was seriously reprimanded. This self-sabotaging act was perhaps an unconscious attempt to put herself in the role of the “bad guy” who did not really deserve the “Superior” evaluation, rather than stand firm in her opinion that her boss had failed to give her the evaluation that she believed she deserved.

  DENYING ANGER: THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ACTION

  Have you ever initiated a confrontation at work, only to transform your anger into tears, apologies, guilt, confusion, or self-criticism? Karen’s behavior may well strike a familiar, if not universal, chord among women. How can we better understand some of the deeper, unconscious reasons why any of us would attempt to deny our anger and sacrifice one of our most precious possessions—our personal clarity?

  The Fear of Destructiveness

  Karen’s failure to defend her position in an articulate and persistent fashion with her boss was a pattern in her personal relationships as well. The explanations that she gave herself were just the tip of the iceberg: “I get intimidated.” “I just can’t think straight when I’m dealing with an authority figure.” “I guess I don’t have faith in my own convictions.” Karen did lose her confidence when her ideas were not given the stamp of other people’s approval, but this lack of confidence masked a more serious problem: Karen was afraid to be clear about the correctness of her position, because she would then experience pressure to continue to take up her own cause. And to do this might make her the target of her boss’s anger and disapproval. As Karen put it, a “real fight” might ensue.

  This idea frightened Karen, partly for realistic reasons, such as the possibility that her work situation would become difficult and uncomfortable or that she might even be fired. Surely, fighting would escalate the tensions between Karen and her boss, making it even less likely that she would be heard. Reality aside, however, Karen had a deep unconscious fear that fighting might unleash her fantasied destructive potential, although it had never seen the light of day. If she lost control of her anger, would she destroy everything? It was as if Karen feared that the full venting of her outrage might cause the entire office building to go up in flames. Also, like most women, Karen had little practice expressing her anger in a controlled, direct, and effective fashion.

  It is not surprising that Karen had deep-seated fears of her own omnipotent destructiveness and the vulnerability of men. Our very definitions of “masculinity” and “femininity” are based on the notion that women must function as nonthreatening helpmates and ego builders to men lest men feel castrated and weakened. The problem for Karen was that this irrational fear had a high cost. Not only did she avoid fighting; she also avoided asserting her viewpoint, requesting explanations from others, and stating her wants. All of the above fell into the category of potentially destructive acts that might hurt or diminish others.

  The Fear of S
eparateness

  As much as Karen feared a volcanic eruption, she had an even greater fear, also safely tucked away in her subconscious. Karen was afraid of transforming her anger into concise statements of her thoughts and feelings lest she evoke that disturbing sense of separateness and aloneness that we experience when we make our differences known and encourage others to do the same. Maggie, for example, felt this “separation anxiety” when she talked with her mother about her baby in a new, more adult way. Sandra felt it when she apologized to Larry for being so critical and assumed more responsibility to provide for her own happiness. Barbara would have felt it had she stopped fighting and calmly told her husband that she planned to go to the “anger” workshop.

  Separation anxiety may creep up on us whenever we shift to a more autonomous, nonblaming position in a relationship, or even when we simply consider the possibility. Sometimes such anxiety is based on a realistic fear that if we assume a bottom-line stance (“I am sorry, but I will not do what you are asking of me”), we risk losing a relationship or a job. More often, and more crucially, separation anxiety is based on an underlying discomfort with separateness and individuality that has its roots in our early family experience, where the unspoken expectation may have been that we keep a lid on our expressions of self. Daughters are especially sensitive to such demands and may become far more skilled at protecting the relational “we” than asserting the autonomous “I.”