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

by Harriet Lerner

  “I Have a Problem”

  Sometime later, during a week when Mr. Kesler found himself particularly reactive and angry in response to his son’s casual attitude toward school, he took Billy on his lap and told him the following:

  “Billy, this week I’ve been getting very upset and grouchy when I see you goofing up at school. I sure have been getting on your case. I think I figured out what my problem is. You know, Billy, when I was eight years old, my dad died and I was left without a dad. I felt angry and sad and frightened. And now that you are eight years old, like I was at that time, a lot of those old feelings are coming back. And sometimes the way that I deal with those feelings is to get on your back and fight with you so that I don’t have to feel so sad about my own dad.”

  Billy looked at him wide-eyed. Then he said, “That’s not fair! It doesn’t make sense.”

  Mr. Kesler replied, “You’re right, Billy, sometimes dads do things that don’t make too much sense. I sure owe you an apology. It’s my job to work on these old feelings I have about my dad dying. It’s your job to decide what sort of student you’re going to be in school. I’m going to do my best to try to work on my job and try to stay out of your job. I won’t be successful all the time, but I’ll be working on it.”

  “Does this mean that I can play with my friends and not have to do my homework?” asked Billy, with some mixture of anxiety and glee.

  “Not a chance!” said Mr. Kesler, giving Billy a playful punch on the arm. “You know what the rules are, kid, and it’s up to you to follow them. But you’re going to have to decide what sort of student you’ll be in school and I can’t decide that for you, even though I may try sometimes.” Billy said nothing, but several weeks later he began to ask all kinds of questions about Grandfather Lewis.

  Taking the emotional focus off Billy did not mean adopting a “do-whatever-you-please-and-I-don’t-care” attitude. Mr. Kesler’s own style was to set pretty strict rules about the consequences of misbehavior. The degree of strictness or permissiveness will vary from family to family and is not, of itself, a problem. What is important is that Mr. Kesler enforced his rules without getting emotionally intense and blaming, and he made it clear to Billy that he (father) was dealing with his own issues and problems. It is also crucial that each parent support, rather than undermine, the rule-setting of the other, even if they don’t always see eye to eye.

  Most of us would not think of sharing something personal about our struggles with our children, as Mr. Kesler did—or as I did following my visit to my parents in Phoenix. Yet, there is hardly a more effective way to break a circular pattern. We maximize the opportunity for growth for all family members when we stop focusing our primary worry energy and anger energy on the underfunctioning individual and begin to share a bit about our own problem with the situation. This involves a shift from “You have a problem” to “I have a problem.” In time—after working on the task of mourning his dad and modifying his overfunctioning position with his mother and sister—Mr. Kesler was able to do more of this.

  What about Ms. Kesler? As we look at her side of the family diagram, what predictions might we make about her relationship with Billy?

  A “Black-Sheep” Brother

  Billy is in the same sibling position as Les—Ms. Kesler’s “black-sheep” brother, who has made countless “bad moves” with jobs and women. In this key family triangle, Les is in the outside, underfunctioning role. Both his parents are in a blaming position toward him, while his sister, Ms. Kesler, takes a distancing position from him and a “fix-it” role with her parents. At times of low stress, she gossips with other family members about Les and his problems, and at times of high stress, she advises her parents on how to handle him and then gets angry when they ignore her advice.

  While the emotional cutoff between Ms. Kesler and her brother keeps the anxiety down in that relationship, it is re-energized in her relationship with her son Billy, partly because he is in the same sibling position as Les and also because he happens to possess some actual physical and personality characteristics that remind mother of her big brother. Often, the underground intensity from a cutoff is not re-energized until an anniversary date comes up—for example, when Billy turns twelve, which is the age at which Les began getting into trouble, or twenty-three, Les’s age when Ms. Kesler cut off from him. In the Kesler family, the intensity between mother and Billy began to surface when Ms. Kesler got out of the middle of the relationship between her husband and son and things calmed down on that front.

  To some extent, we are all prone to confuse our children with ourselves and with other family members. We project onto our children who we are and what we unconsciously wish, fear, and need. This process of projection gains steam from our unfinished business with siblings and parents. If mother makes no changes in her own family of origin, her projections onto current family members may be especially intense. She may, for example, encourage Billy to be a star in the family—an especially good child who will show none of the black-sheep qualities that she sees in her brother or fears in herself. Or, she may anxiously worry that Billy will turn out to be an irresponsible and troubled child like Les and unwittingly encourage this behavior by the intensity of her watchful focus on it. Billy may sense that his mother needs him to be a certain way for her own sake, and proceed to accommodate to or rebel against her needs. In either case, both Ms. Kesler and Billy become less able to directly manage the challenge of their own personal growth.

  Like her husband, Ms. Kesler had “homework” to do with her family of origin.

  Over time, Ms. Kesler gathered more data about her mother’s and father’s families, which provided her with a more sympathetic and objective understanding of why Les (rather than she) was more likely to underfunction and live out the black-sheep role. She learned to observe the patterns and triangles in her family of origin, as she had in her current nuclear family, and she took steps to get out of the middle of the relationship between Les and her parents. She did this by maintaining one-to-one emotional contact with all parties, without advising, taking sides, or talking with her parents about Les’s problems. To do this required her to initiate closer contact with her brother, and she began to gradually share with him more about her life, including her own underfunctioning side. Eventually, she became much less focused on and reactive to the behavior of her husband and son, and she no longer felt dominated by anger and worry in these important relationships.

  What Mr. and Ms. Kesler both learned is that children have a remarkable capacity to handle their problems when we begin to take care of our own. The work they each did with their own families was like money in the bank for Billy and his two siblings, because children are the carriers of whatever has been left unresolved from the generations that went before. Talking about the fact that Mr. Kesler lost his father and Ms. Kesler was cut off from her older brother may seem a bit removed from the subject of women and anger. Yet all of us are vulnerable to intense, nonproductive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family—in particular, losses and cutoffs. If we do not observe and understand how our triangles operate, our anger can keep us stuck in the past, rather than serving as an incentive and guide to form more productive relationship patterns for the future.

  Let’s take a look at a simpler family triangle in order to review the major points we have learned about observing and changing three-person relationship patterns.

  WHY CAN’T HE MARRY A NICE JEWISH GIRL?

  Sarah’s son, Jerry, turned thirty-four the very day that Sarah showed up at my office. “My son, Jerry, is dating a non-Jewish woman for over three years,” Sarah explained. “This girl—Julie is her name—is not even good for him and she has terrible problems herself. My husband and I know that he will be unhappy if he marries her, but my son won’t listen to reason.” Sarah told me that she was very worried about Jerry, but even a casual observer could see that she was also very angry.
In fact, an atmosphere of chronic anger and tension permeated their relationship.

  Jerry, I learned, was the younger of two brothers and still living at home. Although he graduated with honors from college, he had since been shifting from job to job, and his lack of direction was a source of family concern. Jerry, then, was in an underfunctioning position in the family.

  Sarah’s story is more than familiar to us by now. She is engaging in increasingly intense efforts to change her son despite the fact that such efforts only help keep the old pattern going.

  What is the pattern? According to Sarah’s description of her interactions, she blames and then distances under stress. Sometimes she blames Julie (“She just doesn’t consider other people very much, does she?”) and sometimes she blames Jerry (“I think you are rebelling against your family rather than making a mature choice”). When Jerry comes to Julie’s defense or to his own, Sarah fights and then distances. While this is going on, Jerry’s father distances from both his wife and his son, and then later unites with his wife in their shared concern over Jerry.

  Sarah describes herself as occupying the outside position in the key triangle between herself, Jerry, and Julie.

  When Sarah criticizes Julie to her son, she implicitly invites him to side with her against his girlfriend. Should Jerry go along with this, he and his mother would have a closer relationship at Julie’s expense and Julie would temporarily occupy the outside position in the triangle.

  What more typically happens, however, is that Jerry comes to Julie’s defense, which Sarah experiences as siding against her. At this point, conflict is likely to break out between mother and son.

  Why Shouldn’t Sarah Let Her Son Know That She Does Not Approve of His Dating a Non-Jewish Woman? She should. Sarah ought to feel free to share her thoughts and feelings about important issues like this one with Jerry. She might, for example, let her son know what her problem is with the situation. Instead, she criticizes, advises, and blames. Now, nothing would be wrong with this if Sarah were satisfied with the situation. But she’s not. As Sarah describes it, her interactions with Jerry frequently end in conflict and/or distance. The pattern has been going on for a long time, and Sarah is feeling angry and dissatisfied.

  What Might the Payoffs Be for This Family in Maintaining the Status Quo? The old pattern will keep Sarah and her son stuck together in a close way (albeit negative closeness)—just like Maggie and her mother (Chapter 4), who fought about the baby in order to avoid negotiating their ultimate separateness and independence. The triangle between mother, son, and girlfriend here serves to reduce anxiety in the family by keeping other important issues between family members underground. It also protects Jerry and Julie from squarely identifying issues and conflicts in their own relationship.

  What Can Sarah Do to Get Out of the Triangle? The three essential ingredients of extricating oneself from a triangle are: staying calm, staying out, and hanging in.

  Staying calm means that Sarah can underreact and take a low-keyed approach when stress hits. Anxiety and intensity are the driving force behind triangles.

  Staying out means that Sarah leaves Jerry and Julie on their own to manage their relationship. Therefore, no advising, no helping, no criticizing, no blaming, no fixing, no lecturing, no analyzing, and no taking sides in their problems.

  Hanging in means that Sarah maintains emotional closeness with her son and makes some emotional contact with Julie, as well. Sarah may temporarily seek distance when things get hot; but when “staying out” means cutting off, patterns tend not to change.

  New Steps to an Old Dance

  When Sarah was ready to get out of the old triangle, the following dialogue ensued:

  “You know, Jerry, I owe you an apology for giving you such a hard time about Julie. What a terrible time I’ve had thinking about my son marrying a woman who’s not Jewish—and it still is not easy for me. Sometimes I react with a lot of anger and hurt, and I guess you’ve been the target for that. But I’m beginning to realize that my feelings are my own responsibility and that it’s not your job to ensure your mother’s happiness. Your job is to find the very best relationship that you can for yourself—and only you can decide if that’s going to be with Julie. Certainly, I’m in no position to make that decision for you or even to know what’s best. I haven’t even given Julie half a chance!”

  Jerry stared at his mother as if she had just come down from another planet.

  “Even though I’ve been on your back,” Sarah continued, “I know that you’re perfectly capable of making the best choice for yourself without my help. You know, I was just remembering something the other day. Before I met your dad, I was dating someone my parents didn’t approve of. I never really stood up to them even though I was grown up and earning my own money. Do you know what I did? I would sneak out of the house and see him in secret! Later, when my parents disapproved so strongly of your father, we ran off and eloped!”

  Sarah let out a big laugh and Jerry closed his mouth, which had been hanging open. He looked at his mother with curiosity. This was the first time that his mother had shared something about her own experience as it related to their angry struggle.

  “Did you ever date a man who wasn’t Jewish?” he asked, not knowing what to expect next.

  “You know, I simply never considered it. I really don’t think that it would have been possible for me. It just wasn’t an option.” Sarah became thoughtful and then continued: “But that was me, at another time. You and I are two different people.”

  Sarah felt wonderful after this talk, but that night as she got into bed, she was mildly depressed. She felt irritated with her husband, Paul, and provoked a fight with him, which eased her tension a bit about the change she was making with her son. What Sarah felt is simply the discomfort that occurs as we begin to move differently in an old pattern and navigate a more separate and mature relationship with another family member. As we have seen, pressures to reinstate the old pattern come from both within and without.

  Two weeks later, Sarah encountered some tough tests of her resolve to move differently. Jerry dropped hints that he and Julie were talking about getting married. Sarah was able to stay calm and underreact. She did not hide the fact that she had always hoped for a Jewish daughter-in-law; however, her attitude conveyed respect for Jerry’s judgment and recognition that choosing a wife was his job and not hers.

  Jerry then began a new series of countermoves, as he started to criticize Julie to his mother. “Do you know, Mother, Julie’s father had a birthday today and I couldn’t even get Julie to call him or stop by.” With increasing frequency and ingenuity, Jerry invited his mother to join him in criticizing Julie. Sarah bit her tongue so as not to bite the bait. Instead she said, “Well, you know Julie much better than I do. If that bothers you, perhaps you can talk with her about it and let her know your feelings.” Or, “Whatever the problem is, I’m sure the two of you can work it out.” Sarah herself was initiating more contact with Julie and was discovering things about her she genuinely liked and respected.

  Had Sarah joined with her son in criticizing Julie, she would have reinstated the old triangle. The only difference would be that Julie, not Sarah, would occupy the outside position. People would change their positions in the triangle, but the triangle itself would remain unchanged. Anxiety would be reduced, but at the expense of each participant’s ability to identify and negotiate issues with other parties.

  If triangles keep underlying issues in each two-person relationship from surfacing, what happens when a triangle breaks up? Here is a brief look at some of the changes that had occurred in this family eight months later as a result of Sarah’s extricating herself from a key triangle:

  Jerry and Julie

  Jerry and Julie were aware of some significant difficulties in their relationship and Jerry was expressing genuine uncertainty about whether Julie was the woman he wanted to marry. His critical feelings about Julie and his own ambivalence about marrying outside his relig
ion had previously been held in check by the old pattern in which mother criticized Julie and he was free to come to her defense.

  It was predictable that when Sarah got out of the middle of this relationship and gave Jerry her blessings to do the very best for himself, the real issues between Jerry and Julie would surface. If their relationship had been on firmer ground, it might well have been strengthened at this point. Apparently this was not the case.

  Sarah and Jerry

  The relationship between Sarah and her son became calmer and more open as Sarah became genuinely less reactive to her son’s relationship with Julie. With the intense focus off this third party, the important issue of negotiating separateness and independence surfaced between her and Jerry. During one of our sessions together, Sarah said to me for the first time, “Julie or no Julie, I’m beginning to think that Jerry is having a hard time leaving home. What is a grown man doing still living with his parents? I find myself wondering if there’s some connection between his problem leaving home and my problem letting him go. You know, I was never really very independent from my own mother. When she protested my marriage to Paul, we ran off and eloped and I didn’t write to her for several months. I didn’t have the courage to say to her, ‘I love you, Mom, but I love Paul, too, and it’s my life.’ I just cut off from her and didn’t face the issue.”