The Dance of Intimacy

by Harriet Lerner

  The parents—seeking help for the first time, at the initiation of the school counselor—were hardly able to talk together. “I can’t stand being around my wife anymore!” the husband explained. “It’s all doom and gloom—always going over how depressed she is about the accident, always talking about Deborah’s problems, always acting like someone’s died when nobody has died.” From the wife’s perspective: “My husband can’t deal with his feelings, he won’t talk about what’s happened, he just wants to be away as much as possible. I can’t stand being so alone with it.”

  This couple had become rigidly polarized in dealing with their daughter’s disability. Both were out of touch with an important part of their own experience that was being carried by the other in an exaggerated form. The mother was drowning in her grief. The father was distancing from his feelings and insisting that they get on with their lives. In listening to their angry criticisms of each other, one might easily lose sight of the fact that both have to grieve and both have to get on with their lives—although not in the same ways or on the same timetable.

  Reactivity: Toning It Down

  Our own reactivity to differences is what leads us to exaggerated and stuck positions in relationships—positions that become so rigid and polarized that we lose our ability to relate to both the competence and incompetence in the other party—and to both the competence and incompetence in the self. Instead we become overfocused on the incompetence of the other and underfocused on the incompetence of the self. We are unable to see more than one side of an issue, to generate new options, and to observe and change our own part in a relationship pattern that is keeping us stuck.

  We all get reactive at times, and we know it when it hits. That other person only has to step off the plane, enter the room, come home ten minutes late, or mention a particular subject, and we feel that clutching in the gut, that quick rise of anger, that sudden depressed feeling, or that heavy grip on the heart. Suzanne experienced an intense and automatic emotional response whenever she heard her husband pick up the telephone to call his family in New York. And the couple whose daughter was disabled in a car accident experienced it almost every time they were in the same room together and tried to talk about their child. Our reactivity may take the form of a migraine headache or an attack of diarrhea on the first or last day of every visit home. The more we get stuck in a reactive mode over time, the more our differences become exaggerated and polarized.

  Legally Divorced—Emotionally Married

  Consider June and Tom, who were like many divorced couples, legally but not emotionally separated. The differences between them were quickly apparent to even the casual observer. June managed anxiety by overfunctioning, which is typical for her sibling position as the oldest of four daughters. That is, when stress hit, she moved in quickly in an overresponsible fashion to take charge and fix the situation. The higher the anxiety, the more she functioned harder and harder, and the more she focused on others who did not fulfill their responsibilities or accomplish things. People who were fond of June admired her competence, maturity, and reliability. Those who didn’t like her called her bossy, strict, overly assertive, and demanding. This portrait is typical of an older sister of sisters.

  Unlike June, Tom underfunctioned under stress. He tended to become fuzzy and irresponsible, inviting others to criticize or take over for him. For example, he would tell June that he’d return the kids to her house by 6:00 P.M. Sunday evening, but he would show up at 6:40 instead. Rarely did he make it to the phone to let her know he’d be late, although he knew that lateness pushed June’s buttons more than anything else. People who liked Tom admired his warm, laid-back, charming, and relaxed style. Those who weren’t his fans thought he should grow up and become more reliable and thoughtful toward others. Tom, in many ways, was a typical youngest child.

  June and Tom’s respective life-styles also reflected their differences. June was an ambitious and successful real estate agent who was not apologetic about the fact that she enjoyed the finer things in life. Status and material comforts were important to her, and she worked hard to provide the best for herself and her children. Tom, in contrast, worked for low pay with retarded children, and he prided himself on his antimaterialistic values. His company of choice was a group of local artists, all of whom lived modestly.

  When I first saw Tom and June in consultation, they were angrily focused on each other, as they had been for much of their marriage. They could sit in the same room together only because of their shared concern about their two children, a son and a daughter, who were both showing signs of emotional difficulties. During our first few sessions together, each blamed the other for “causing” the children’s problems. June was convinced that Tom’s irresponsibility and immaturity were a terrible influence, especially on the younger child, their son. Tom felt similarly about June’s values and life-style (“Can you imagine buying a seventeen-year-old girl a new sports car? What is she trying to prove to that kid!”).

  The differences between June and Tom had once drawn them together. Tom, who had grown up in an unpredictable family, saw in June the stability and reliability he had yearned for. June, once a quiet, overresponsible child, saw Tom as someone who would teach her to loosen up and have fun. But as it happens, the differences that attracted them to each other became very quickly the focus of angry attention.

  Now, eighteen years after marrying and six years after divorcing, their reactive anger was the glue that kept June and Tom from really separating or divorcing in the emotional sense. As long as they kept this up, they were as married as ever. Their reactivity to each other kept them close (albeit in a negative way), and neither was ready to let go.

  Who was the villain and who the victim? June’s friends sided with her, and Tom’s friends sided with him. In fact, both Tom and June were competent enough parents and neither of their life-styles was inherently bad for themselves or for their kids. They were just different. Likewise, overfunctioning and underfunctioning are normal, patterned ways of managing anxiety. When we get locked into extreme or polarized positions, however, we begin to operate at a cost to both self and other.

  So with two kids headed for serious trouble, what was the problem and whose problem was it? The problem was not the individual traits, qualities, or values of either parent. Both Tom and June had their strengths and weaknesses. Rather the problem was their reactivity to each other, which was unrelenting and intense.

  For example, when Tom brought the kids home an hour late, June might say nothing, but the tension in the room was so thick that her daughter said she could feel it. Five minutes later she would be on the phone with her best friend, talking about how irresponsible and immature Tom was, and how worried she was about his influence on the children. June had all but lost her ability to focus on and relate to Tom’s competence as a father.

  Tom, of course, did his full share to keep the intensity going. Not only did he know exactly how to push his ex-wife’s buttons and keep her involved (like not phoning when he’d be late), but he was also highly reactive to June. For example, when his kids went camping with him and his buddies, wearing the sixty-dollar hiking boots that June had bought for them, Tom all but had a fit. Several times during the camping trip, he took potshots at the “rich kids’ boots,” which of course was really criticism of the children’s mother.

  What about the kids? They in turn were reactive to their parents’ reactivity. The younger one in particular was becoming increasingly anxious and angry as he struggled with the question of “whose camp” he was in. Unable to navigate a separate relationship with each parent, free from the intensity between them, he was acting up in school and getting into every sort of trouble.

  Tom and June quit their work with me after several sessions. Months later, June called to let me know that she had placed her two children in individual psychotherapy and that she hoped this would give them a chance to work on their problems, which she believed her husband had caused. Tom was vehemently ag
ainst this therapy and refused to drive the kids to their sessions or support it in any way. According to June, the new therapist joined her in viewing the children as the appropriate focus for treatment and Tom as the irresponsible parent who was not acting in their interests. The negative intensity between Tom and June had escalated to the highest point in their relationship. I do not know whether things are better or worse at the present time.

  This is a story about a child-focused triangle and later we will be taking a careful look at how such triangles operate. The story also illustrates how different people (including different experts) will name the problem in different ways. At this point, however, I am sharing Tom and June’s situation to illustrate a few key points.

  First, differences per se are rarely “the problem” in relationships; the problem is instead our reactivity to differences. In divorce, for example, kids can do just fine even when the parents have dramatically different values, life-styles, and ways of managing anxiety. Children do poorly, however, when reactivity or expressed emotional intensity is high between the parents, and even more so if they are the focus of it. And of course, the parents stay stuck as well.

  Second, reactivity exaggerates and calcifies differences. For example, June’s overfocus on her husband’s incompetence (and her underfocus on her own issues) only provoked his irresponsible behavior further, and helped polarize their relationship. Similarly, Tom’s angry focus on his ex-wife’s materialism (and his need to prove himself the “opposite”) made it far less likely that the two of them could be in touch with whatever values, beliefs, and desires they did hold in common. Naturally, the kids felt pressured to choose whether they would be “like Dad” or “like Mom” (an impossible loyalty struggle), rather than being able to identify with whatever aspects of both parents felt comfortable to them.

  Toning down our reactivity is perhaps the most crucial and difficult step toward removing barriers to intimacy or toward solving any human problem. This is why I sent Suzanne to the library to learn more about ethnicity—so that she could start thinking about differences in her marriage rather than just reacting to them. It is also why I challenged her to get better connected with her own family of origin— so that distance and cutoff in this area would not leave her more vulnerable to intense reactions in her marriage or in any other primary relationship. As we have seen with Susan, and Adrienne as well, change occurs only as we begin thinking about and working on the self—rather than staying focused on and reactive to the other.

  What exactly does it mean to become less reactive and less focused on your ex-husband’s irresponsibility, your husband’s depression, your boss’s criticalness, your brother’s distance, your father’s drinking, your mother’s complaining? By accepting and appreciating differences, are we simply accommodating to a relationship? Does it mean that “anything goes”? Does it mean that we stew inside and say nothing? Of course not!

  Toning down our reactivity and getting unfocused from the other does not mean distance, cutoff, silence, or accommodation. It does not mean ignoring things that trouble us, because we are scared of making the situation worse. In fact, toning down our reactivity means putting more energy into reconnecting and defining where we stand on important relationship issues, but in a new way that is focused on the self, not on the other. Let’s see how this works.

  7

  Defining a Bottom Line

  “I used to get really reactive to my father’s drinking,” Kristen explained in group therapy, “but I’ve finally gotten out of that position.” Kristen was sharing her story with Alice, another group member who was still trying to “cure” her husband’s alcoholism.

  “I learned the hard way,” Kristen continued, “that I just can’t change him. I mean I tried for about ten years. I gave him calm and logical advice. I had screaming fits. I begged and pleaded. I told him that he had a disease that was ruining the whole family. Twice my mom and I signed him up for a treatment program and dragged him down there. Nothing worked. It took me about a decade to come to terms with the fact that I can’t stop my dad from drinking and that he’s not going to change.”

  Alice was listening with rapt attention. She knew all too well that her own practice of emptying the liquor bottles down the drain wasn’t working, and she was eager for advice. “So how do you handle your father’s drinking now?” she asked.

  “I just ignore it,” Kristen said flatly. “I was home last weekend and I knew right away that Dad had been drinking. I arrived after lunch and he was already slurring his speech and looking terrible. On Sunday he could hardly carry on a conversation and he was pretty much out of it the whole time I was there. When he was down in the basement, my mother told me that he’s drinking more and more—and he won’t even go to the doctor for a checkup. Dad still denies that he has a serious problem. But I don’t get into it with him. I’ve really come to terms with the fact that I can’t help him.”

  “You mean that you ignore your father’s drinking?” asked Alice. “You don’t pay attention to it?”

  “Yes,” explained Kristen. “It took me a long time to learn that there is nothing else I can do. He drinks, and that’s his choice. And if you’re still trying to make your husband stop drinking, you won’t get anywhere, either!”

  Kristen’s story is a common one that is by no means specific to alcoholism. It raises the broader problem of how we respond in relationships when a person close to us is a chronic underfunctioner, or behaves in ways we cannot easily accept or tolerate. What works for us and what doesn’t?

  When we are able to recognize and truly accept what does not work we are almost halfway along. Kristen shared with the group what she learned that did not work with her dad. What did not work was her being reactive to his drinking and staying anxiously focused on it. What did not work was her giving him advice about his problem or trying to solve it for him. What did not work was her trying to fix or rescue him in any way—or even thinking that this was possible. What did not work was her lying, excusing, or covering up his drinking to any other person. What did not work was criticism, accusation, or blame. As Kristen herself explained, it took her a decade to truly accept that these old behaviors did not work.

  And indeed, they do not. Whether the issue is the other person’s drinking, depression, irresponsibility, schizophrenia, or whatever—any or all of the aforementioned behaviors only reduce the likelihood that the other person will take responsibility to solve the problem. It may take some of us more than a decade—perhaps a whole lifetime—to truly own up to the fact that these behaviors just don’t work. In fact, they operate at the expense of the underfunctioning party and compromise any possibility of closeness based on mutual regard.

  Recognizing that the old ways don’t work gives us an opportunity to stop, think, gather information, orient to the facts, and generate new options for our own behavior. But to do this in an anxious emotional field is an unusual if not remarkable achievement. When Kristen tried to change the old pattern, what “solution” did she adopt? By her own report, she now ignored her father’s behavior entirely—a form of emotional distancing. As we know, distancing from an issue or a person is still a reactive position, driven by anxiety. It simply keeps the intensity underground in one place, leaving us more vulnerable and reactive elsewhere.

  Staying silent, acting as if “nothing was happening” when her father was drunk, taking no position on an important issue that bothered her and still made her clutch inside—these are reactive rather than responsible positions in an important relationship.

  Kristen now talked about her dad with her mom, but she did not talk to him, which only further entrenched the longstanding distance between them. Kristen was participating in a common family triangle in which mother and daughter consolidate their closeness through their disappointment and frustration with Dad, rather than each continuing to deal directly with him on their own relationship issues. Father, as well, participates fully in maintaining his outside, underfunctioning position in
this triangle.

  Kristen’s relationship with her father, like Adrienne’s relationship with Frank (Chapter 5), reflects two typical patterned ways of managing anxiety. Surely we can recognize these from our own experience: The first is an overtly reactive position, where much life energy (anger energy and/or worry energy) is focused on the other, in unsuccessful attempts to change or blame that person; the second is a covertly reactive one, where we avoid the experience of intensity by distancing from an individual or a particular issue. When these become ongoing rather than temporary ways of managing anxiety, we are bound to stay stalled.

  Where, then, is the middle ground between overfunctioning and overresponsibility on the one hand, and distance and disengagement on the other?

  Taking a Position

  After long, hard work on Kristen’s part, she arrived at a point where she could effectively define a bottom line in relationship to her dad and his drinking. What specifically did this entail?

  First, Kristen stopped pretending that she was blind to her father’s alcoholism, and she took a clear position that she would not stay in his home or talk to him on the phone if he was drinking. She was able to do this in a relatively calm, nonblaming way, clarifying that she was acting for herself rather than for or against her dad. Taking this position was difficult for Kristen on a number of counts, down to such details as having to arrange an alternate sleeping plan if she arrived with her kids at her parents’ home after a four-hour drive and found her father drunk. With help from group therapy and an Adult Children of Alcoholics group, Kristen was able to stay on track—or more accurately, to get back on track following derailments.