The Dance of Intimacy

by Harriet Lerner

  Processing an issue at the source is important with deceased family members as well. My friend Dorothy lost her father when she was eight, and he was remembered in the family as a superhero. She pictured him on the big screen, full color, with all the imperfections air-brushed out. The actual men in her life were inevitably disappointing because they couldn’t fill her father’s proverbial big shoes. Two years ago, Dorothy began connecting with her aunt and uncles on her father’s side, and she has worked to get a more balanced, objective view of her dad’s strengths and weaknesses. The many stories she has gathered, as well as the facts she has learned about his history, have challenged her to think about her father as a real person rather than a cardboard figure defined by family myths and Dorothy’s own unconscious wishes and projections. Her contact with her dad’s family has been difficult to sustain because it evokes her father’s memory for everyone. But being in touch allows Dorothy to stay emotionally connected to her dad and to continue the grieving process in an ultimately productive way.

  To the extent that it is possible for us to move slowly toward, rather than away from, the emotional issues in our family, we move toward a more solid self and a more objective perspective on others. When painful things have happened and intensity has been managed by distance and cutoff, the “slowly” is especially important because we need first to establish some viable connectedness with family members before trying to bring up a difficult subject.

  What Rayna did is not possible for everyone. Even with professional help this may never become a realistic or desirable project for some of us. Ultimately, we each must judge this for our self and trust that we are the best judge of what we can handle. And as always, it’s best not to do anything until after we have worked to get our own reactivity down.

  Down with Reactivity—Up with Thinking

  Making disclosures about the self (as Kimberly and Margie did) is not as “hot” as confronting another family member on an intense and taboo subject such as incest. From Kimberly’s perspective, however, sharing her lesbianism was loaded enough. Yet prior to her self-disclosure, she put no effort into establishing more connectedness with her folks. Kimberly had talked at length with her friends about coming out, but when the spirit moved her she acted impulsively, without considering her various options (such as timing) or planning how she would handle the strong reactions that her self-disclosure would evoke.

  Considering Questions

  Part of my job was to help Kimberly think about her dilemma rather than react to it. Therapists often use questioning not only to gather information and to generate and refine hypotheses about the meanings of behavior, but also to foster ability to examine a problem in context, to help lower reactivity, and ultimately to generate new options for behavior. Here is a brief sample of questions that were useful for Kimberly:

  When did Kimberly start calling herself a lesbian and what did the word mean to her, then and now? What meanings did she think the word “lesbian” had for each member of her family? How long did it take her to accept her own lesbian identity, and how long would it take family members—more or less? Who in the family did she anticipate would have the strongest negative reaction to the news? Who might accept her lesbian identity most quickly? Most slowly?

  Had anyone in her nuclear and extended families ever revealed “a secret,” and if so, how had it been received? Was any person on her family tree ever excluded or “denied membership” because of differences? Had Kimberly’s family ever been excluded by the community? Were there any cutoffs on her family tree, and if so, what were the circumstances in which these occurred?

  How did Kimberly decide to come out at the particular time that she did? Did she think the reaction might have been different if she had approached her parents a year earlier? A year later? Had Mary not been with her at the time, would her parents have listened more or less? How did she anticipate that coming out would alter her relationship with family members, both in the short run and in the long run? How had coming out influenced her relationship with Mary? What factors had influenced Kimberly’s willingness, or lack of willingness, to remain invisible as a couple?

  This sampling illustrates the kind of questions that ultimately elicit thinking rather than reactivity. Although it’s not easy, we can learn to generate questions for ourselves and for others. Questions enlarge our capacity for reflection and for seeing a problem in its broader context. This allows us to move back more calmly into an anxiety-filled setting and to continue to process an issue with a more centered focus on the self.

  A Matter of Timing

  As Kimberly adopted a more reflective attitude, she made a connection between her sister’s upcoming marriage and her own intensely felt need to hop on the plane with her lover and let the truth be known. Kimberly opened up an emotionally laden issue in the intense emotional field surrounding her sister’s wedding, thus ensuring increased reactivity—her own included.

  What specifically was the connection between the upcoming wedding and Kimberly’s anxious need for self-revelation? “Competition, I guess,” was Kimberly’s honest response. “Maybe I was having trouble with the fact that the wedding was all anyone was talking about.” Kimberly now appeared to be down on herself, and she spoke as if she were making a fairly heavy confession: “It was ‘the wedding this, the wedding that’—everything was the wedding, the wedding, the wedding.”

  Kimberly’s feelings were entirely normal. Feeling jealous and competitive, especially toward those we are close to, is simply a fact of emotional life. Kimberly’s feelings were not the problem. The problem was her inability to recognize her feelings (and the associated anxiety), leading to her reactive decision to hop on the plane with Mary. She approached her parents with a heightened need to receive the affirmation that was being showered on her sister, which left her overfocused on getting a particular response from her parents and underfocused on the self.

  When we define a new position in a relationship, we need to focus on what we want to say about the self and for the self. We need to be much less focused on the other person’s reaction or countermove or on gaining a positive response. This is a goal we achieve only more or less, but Kimberly had not laid the groundwork necessary to achieve it more.

  Using Feelings as a Guide

  Kimberly found it painful to get in touch with her “sibling rivalry” and, perhaps more to the point, her anger toward a world that affirms, honors, and celebrates heterosexual marriage yet fails to recognize or legitimize lesbian bonding. It was only natural that her sister’s wedding, which was done up in grand style, would elicit such feelings. But Kimberly’s decision to not attend the wedding (which she rationalized on financial grounds) only consolidated her outside position in the family and solved nothing in the long run. Later on, Kimberly was able to write both her parents and her sister to apologize for not being with the family on this important occasion. To her sister, she explained that her own pain about having a closeted and uncelebrated partnership might have clouded her thinking. Her apology was much appreciated. At the risk of stating the obvious, I might add that learning to say “I’m sorry” goes a long way toward lowering intensity and shifting a pattern in any relationship.

  The “negative feelings” that Kimberly at first wished to disavow, later became her guide and incentive for establishing an important marker in her life. She and Mary created their own formal ritual to affirm and celebrate their bond to each other in the presence of their community and before loving witnesses. Her parents and sister, although invited, chose not to attend.

  No family member is yet at the level of acceptance where Kimberly would wish them to be. Both her mother and father tell her that they will never accept her sexuality and life-style as “normal.” But there are no cutoffs and the lines of communication are reasonably open. Kimberly and Mary are invited as a couple to family gatherings, and Kimberly’s relatives know that Mary is her lifelong partner and not her best friend. Some families might take a decade to reach e
ven this point. In others, this moderate degree of acceptance might not be achievable in a lifetime.

  Coming Out or Staying In?

  How do you react to Kimberly’s story? Some of us will see her choice to come out as an act of great dignity and courage. Others may view it as an immature and selfish act that unnecessarily burdened her family. What do you think?

  You don’t have to be lesbian to appreciate that the costs of coming out can be very high. On the other hand, the cost of “staying in” may be no less dear, simply less obvious. No sudden and dramatic act of rejection or persecution occurs. One is not suddenly fired from a job, betrayed by a trusted friend, disowned by one’s family, or taken to court over custody of one’s child. And yet the costs, although harder to identify and easier to deny, may be no less insidious. Failing to come out—although it may be a necessary choice—may feed back a sense of dishonesty, deceit, and self-doubt that erodes one’s self-esteem and encourages self-hate. Failing to come out affects the very fabric of relationships and the quality of our day-to-day life. Neither intimacy nor self can flourish in an, atmosphere of secrecy and silence.

  The question of coming out is not specific only to lesbianism, although those of us who are gay are uniquely vulnerable to discrimination and isolation. Rather, the theme of coming out runs continually through all our lives. Each of us must struggle, both consciously and unconsciously, with our wish to be true to our selves, both privately and publicly, and our wish to receive love, approval, validation, belongingness—or an inheritance, for that matter. It is a struggle we never entirely resolve but one we can work on—in our own way and at our own pace—in a variety of contexts and throughout our lives.

  Moving on to Triangles

  When we think about intimacy (or the lack of it), we tend to think in terms of dyads; that is, two-party interactions. There are no key relationships, however, where two people relate to each other uninfluenced and unencumbered by other relationship issues involving a third party. A “pure” person-to-person relationship is only an ideal.

  It’s an important ideal, at that. If, for example, Kimberly’s mother is trying to talk openly with her daughter about lesbianism, one might hope that unresolved issues from her marriage, or from her relationship with her own mother, won’t exert a powerful unconscious influence on the process. One might also hope that Kimberly and her mother can work to resolve their own issues relatively free from the influence of others who jump on the bandwagon (Kimberly’s sister starts lecturing their mother on how she could handle Kimberly; Mary angrily tells Kimberly that if she’s not totally accepted by Kimberly’s parents, she won’t step foot in their house again). Finally, one might hope that relationship issues would remain in the relationship where they belong rather than being detoured via a third party (if Kimberly’s mother fears her mother or husband blame her for Kimberly’s lesbianism, she will discuss the issue directly with these parties rather than getting more reactive to Kimberly).

  One might hope for all of the above, but it’s not how we operate. As we will see, the triangle, not the dyad, is the basic unit of human emotional functioning, especially under stress.

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  Tackling Triangles

  What do you think of when you hear the word “triangle”? For most of us, the “eternal triangle,” or extramarital affair, comes right to mind. Affairs are certainly one common form that triangles take in both heterosexual and lesbian couples. Adrienne and Frank’s marriage (Chapter 5), for example, was a typical example of how triangles—in this case, his affair, and her affair of the mind—detour marital issues via third parties. An affair may calm the person who is experiencing the most anxiety or discontent and stabilize the marriage until the secret comes out.

  After the secret is revealed, relationship issues may still be obscured because so much emotional focus is on the breach of trust that it is difficult for each partner to examine her or his part in the marital distance that predated the affair. The one having the affair—in this case, the man—may have difficulty taking appropriate responsibility (“She was so overinvolved with the kids and so sexually rejecting that I found someone who made me feel attractive”). The “done-in” partner may stay so riveted on the betrayal that she never reaches the point where she can get self-focused and work on her own issues. Or she may detour a large percentage of her rage toward the “other woman,” which is not where the more serious betrayal occurred.

  Because triangles are a natural response to anxiety, affairs often begin at stressful times or important anniversary dates. He begins an affair shortly after his dad’s stroke or right as his wife approaches her thirty-second birthday, the age when his mother left the family. She begins an affair when her firstborn son reaches eleven, which was the age that her older brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. When we don’t find a way to work on anniversaries with our conscious mind, the unconscious will do it for us. Of course, affairs are only one kind of triangle. As we will see, human systems have endless possibilities for triangles and we are always in them.

  A Look at an In–Law Triangle

  “When I married Rob,” Julie explained to me, “we should have moved at least halfway around the world from his mother, Shirley.” Julie went on to describe Shirley as the world’s most impossible mother-in-law, an intrusive and demanding woman who went from bad to worse after “losing” her only son to marriage. Shirley insisted that Rob and Julie spend every Christmas and Thanksgiving at her home. On weekends, she invariably needed Rob’s help with gardening and household chores. Both Julie and Rob described his mother as a woman who simply would not take “No” for an answer.

  Within a year after Julie and Rob’s wedding, all the negative intensity came to rest between Julie and her mother-in-law. The two women could hardly stand each other, although each got along fine with Rob, who made exhaustive and ineffective efforts to help the two women in his life see each other’s point of view. Julie criticized Shirley constantly to Rob (“Your mother is the most demanding, manipulative person I’ve ever met!”)—and to anyone else who would listen. Shirley refrained from openly criticizing her daughter-in-law to Rob, but her negative feelings were obvious.

  This is a typical “in-law triangle.” The relationship between Rob and his mother—where the real issues are—can stay calm, because the intensity has been detoured via Julie and his mother. In fact, Rob doesn’t even recognize his anger at his mother, because he is so busy coming to her defense in response to his wife’s criticism. The triangle allows Rob and his mother to avoid having to navigate a comfortable balance of separateness and connectedness in their own relationship.

  In addition, marital issues are obscured, as Julie fails to address her own concern about Rob’s loyalty to her and his problem with setting limits and boundaries around their marriage. She blames his mother (“That woman acts like she’s going to have a coronary if she’s excluded from anything!”) rather than confronting Rob firmly and consistently (“Rob, the repairs have gone unfinished for two weeks and I’d really like you to work on that job before you do your mother’s garden”). This way Julie avoids the challenge of taking a clear position with her husband about her own wishes and expectations. Thus, she avoids testing out how Rob would ultimately navigate his loyalty struggle between his mother and wife—and what she would do then.

  Also fueling the triangle is Julie’s distance from her own family of origin, whom she had hoped to “escape” through marriage and with whom she maintains only dutiful and superficial contact. Because Julie is not attending to issues in her own family of origin (we all have them with family members—living or dead), she more easily becomes overfocused and overreactive to Rob’s mother.

  The triangle composed of Julie, Rob, and her mother-in-law looks like this. Two sides of the triangle remain relatively free of conflict while the negative intensity resides between Julie and Shirley (Diagram A).

  Enter, a Child!

  Once little Emma came along, other triangles were set in m
otion. In response to the anxieties of new fatherhood, Rob withdrew further into work. To compensate for the lack of marital intimacy and for her outside position with her husband and mother-in-law, Julie moved toward forming an “especially close” relationship with her daughter. The triangle between mother, father, and daughter looked like diagram B:

  Emma was also an active participant in this triangle. She grew up sensing that her mother needed to be the “number-one parent” and that her dad was made uncomfortable by her emotional presence. Like many daughters, she had a radarlike sensitivity to the distance in her parents’ marriage and to her mother’s unhappiness. In time, she volunteered to be her mother’s ally and “best friend,” perhaps as an attempt to fill up her mother’s empty bucket and to deflect attention from marital complaints. Even as a toddler, Emma began to put more energy into being “for mother” than into being for her self.

  Sex-role pressures also played a major role in the drama of this all-too-familiar triangle. True to stereotype, Julie lacked personal goals and a life plan of her own, which led her to turn to Emma as a “career” rather than a relationship. Rob became increasingly distant and work-oriented, reinforcing his odd-man-out position in the family.

  Over time, each side of the triangle reinforced and maintained the other two sides. The more distant and emotionally isolated Rob became in the family, the more the emotional intensity and intimacy resided between mother and child. And the more Julie and Emma tightened their emotional bond, the more entrenched became Rob’s distant position.