The Dance of Intimacy

by Harriet Lerner

  There was another reason why Adrienne could not achieve her goal of “closeness” by staying narrowly fixed on her marriage. Paradoxically, couples become less able to achieve intimacy as they stay focused on it and give it their primary attention. Real closeness occurs most reliably not when it is pursued or demanded in a relationship, but when both individuals work consistently on their own selves. By “working on the self,” I do not mean that we should maintain a single-minded focus on self-actualization, self-enhancement, or career advancement. These are male-defined notions of selfhood that we would do well to challenge. Working on the self includes clarifying beliefs, values, and life goals, staying responsibly connected to persons on one’s own family tree, defining the “I” in key relationships, and addressing important emotional issues as they arise.

  Surely, it was important for Adrienne to take the distance in her marriage seriously. For some time before discovering her husband’s affair, she had not taken it seriously enough. And yet, it was equally important for her to let go of her overriding preoccupation with intimacy as a primary goal, in order to be better able to achieve it.

  As Adrienne paid attention to her important family relationships she became more self-focused and less reactive to Frank’s every move. Lowering our reactivity is always a challenge and a prerequisite for working on relationship issues in a productive way. Not surprisingly, the challenge is particularly difficult when that other person is pushing our buttons by not thinking, feeling, and reacting as we do—or as we think they should.

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  Dealing with Differences

  “My brother’s views on divorce drive me crazy!”

  “I simply can’t accept the fact that my sister doesn’t visit Dad at the hospital.”

  “It infuriates me that my best friend refuses to join AA when she needs it so desperately!”

  “Why doesn’t he talk about things when he’s upset!”

  It’s hard to feel intimate with someone we disagree with. Surely relationships would be calmer and simpler if everyone thought, felt, and reacted exactly as we do. Believing that one view of reality (usually our own) is the correct one, that different ways of thinking or being in the world mean that one person is “right” and the other is “wrong,” is just human nature. We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate “I’s” into one worldview.

  Some differences are bound to make us feel angry, isolated, and anxious at times—and for this reason it may be hard to keep in mind that differences are the only way we learn. If our world—or even our intimate relationships—were comprised only of people identical to ourselves, our personal growth would come to an abrupt halt.

  But perhaps more to the point is the fact that people are different. All of us see the world through a different filter, creating as many views of reality as there are people in it. We view the world through the unique filter of our age, race, gender, ethnic background, religion, sibling position, and social class, for starters. And our particular view of a “correct” reality will be further refined by our family history, a history which has evolved particular myths, party lines, and traditions over many generations, along with particular requirements for sameness and for change. This is an easy point to “get” intellectually but not emotionally. Until we can truly appreciate and respect this concept of a different filter, we are bound to lose perspective. It will require just a little bit of stress to get us overfocused on what the other party is doing wrong—or not doing right—and underfocused on the self.

  This is not to deny our strong human need to connect with people like ourselves. Certainly we feel a special closeness to others who share our deeply held beliefs and values, who enjoy similar interests and activities, and who do things our way. But in any close relationship differences will inevitably emerge—differences in values, beliefs, priorities, and habits, as well as differences in how we manage anxiety and navigate relationships under stress.

  When anxiety lasts long enough, these differences may calcify into exaggerated positions in a relationship, as they did in my own family during my mother’s illness. And if we react strongly to differences (distancing or focusing on the other in an intense way), things may go from bad to worse.

  The examples I am about to share with you illustrate the challenge we face in accepting differences and becoming less reactive to that other person who is pushing our buttons or not doing things our way. We will see that this can be a relatively manageable challenge in some circumstances and feel virtually impossible in others.

  Dealing with Differences

  Suzanne was an anthropologist who had spent several years studying child-rearing patterns in Southeast Asia. She spoke three foreign languages fluently, and by virtue of both her training and personal bent, she was deeply interested in people of other cultures.

  Learning to be a calm, nonjudgmental, and objective observer of differences was Suzanne’s stock-in-trade. But like the rest of us, this did not generalize to her closest relationships. When Suzanne first came to my office for a consultation, she was furious at her husband, John, for being “tied to his parents’ apron strings.” John accompanied her to the session, begrudgingly, and only much later returned on his own initiative.

  I learned that John, the firstborn and best educated of three sons, was the only sibling to have moved away from the New York area where his Italian grandparents had first settled. Six months ago, his mother had suffered a serious stroke, and John was struggling with guilt feelings about living so far from the family home, leaving his dad and two younger brothers to carry the major burden of day-to-day care. Suzanne felt increasingly unsympathetic to her husband’s struggle, which included endless emotional phone calls home. “John has never really separated from his parents,” Suzanne explained during our initial meeting, with no attempt to disguise the frustration she was feeling. “My husband is much more tied to them than he is to me!”

  Suzanne had initially requested my help for “marital problems,” but it quickly became evident that she viewed John—along with his “sticky, demanding family”—as the problem. Predictably, John was convinced that Suzanne was the problem. She was, by his report, cold and critical, without empathy or appreciation for his dilemma.

  A Matter of Ethnicity

  Ethnicity is just one of many filters through which we see the world, but since Suzanne was an anthropologist, it seemed like a logical place to help her adopt a more reflective attitude about the differences that concerned her. Suzanne came from an Anglo-Saxon, Protestant background, John from an Italian one. Could Suzanne begin to appreciate these two different “cultures” with the same objectivity, neutrality, and calm with which she contrasted child-rearing practices in America and China? Of course not. But perhaps she could move a bit in this direction. This was the challenge, and a difficult one at that, particularly because Suzanne was operating under the sway of such strong feelings.

  What Is a “Family”?

  Suzanne knew something about the differing traditions from which she and John came, but she hadn’t really given it much thought. When she became curious enough to do some reading on the subject, she explored what was known about how these two ethnic groups think about family and how they define their responsibility to the older generations. The research made her feel right at home.

  Italian families place the strongest emphasis on togetherness. One does not really think of the individual (the “I”) apart from the family, nor of the nuclear family apart from the extended family. The marriage of a child, for example, does not signify the “launching” of that child into the outside world, but rather the bringing of a new person into the family. With such high value placed on taking care of one’s own, no one should have to go outside the family resources to solve problems or ask for help.

  For white Protestants of British origin, the definition of “family” contrasts sharply. For Suzanne’s ethnic group, family is a collection of individuals, with a few distinguis
hed ancestors that one is not supposed to boast about. A high premium is placed on children leaving home at the appropriate age—launched into the world as separate, self-reliant, and competent individuals.

  No wonder Suzanne and John had differing beliefs on such key issues as family loyalty and closeness, and the caretaking of aging parents! As did their families. John’s family wanted him home. They were proud of his successes but felt betrayed and puzzled by his move halfway across the country, away from his roots. Suzanne’s parents, in contrast, valued the separateness of individual family members. Grown children were expected to be competent and responsible during family crises—but “responsible” did not mean “togetherness,” which only made Suzanne’s family uncomfortable, particularly at times of stress.

  A Warning About Generalizations

  Thinking about her marriage in terms of ethnic differences allowed Suzanne to gain a more respectful appreciation of the different filters through which we see the world. Generalizations are of course potentially problematic because they can be used to stereotype people rather than to help us recognize the unique screen through which we filter our experience. When we generalize about any group (“The Irish are this way,” “Firstborns are that way,” “Women are this way”) we exaggerate similarities within the group and minimize similarities between groups. Obviously there is great diversity in any group and countless exceptions to every rule.

  When generalizations are made about subordinate group members, we need to be especially wary. Throughout the recorded history of “Mankind,” generalizations about women (made in the name of God, nature, and science) have served the interests of the dominant group, defining “separate but equal” spheres which keep women in place and obscure the necessity for social change. As women, over generations, have fit themselves to these prescriptions of what is right and appropriate for our sex, the costs have been incalculable.

  Generalizations do not tell us anything about “right” or “wrong,” “better” or “worse,” “natural” or “God-given.” They are useful only when they foster a greater respect and appreciation for our different constructions of reality that evolve out of different contexts. In Suzanne’s case, for example, her willingness to turn a scholarly eye on the subject of ethnicity helped her to stop diagnosing her husband’s guilty struggle with conflicting loyalties and begin to see it as a difference that was a natural evolution of family patterns and traditions. As she became less reactive to his behaviors and less focused on them, she took the first steps toward changing a stuck marital battle and moved the relationship toward a calmer and more respectful togetherness.

  Opposites Attract—and Then What?

  Suzanne and John illustrate that old adage “Opposites attract.” Differences may draw us like a magnet to the other person; however, these same differences may repel us later on. What initially attracts us and what later becomes “the problem” are usually one and the same—like the qualities that were most and least valued in my women’s group.

  John came from a tightly knit family which operated in a “one for all and all for one” fashion. As he increasingly struggled to establish an identity of his own, he became allergic to the high degree of closeness, togetherness, and emotionality in his family. In reaction to this, John was drawn to women who modeled a position of emotional detachment and distance. He fell in love with Suzanne, whose family prized emotional separateness and placed a high premium on the calm self-reliance of individual family members.

  Suzanne, for her part, was allergic to the distance and superficiality in her own family. She felt especially drawn to John’s large and expressive extended family. But what were her complaints five years into their marriage? Suzanne felt closed in and suffocated by John’s “demanding” family (“It’s like a big sticky cocoon”) and she was mad at John for not “cutting the apron strings.” From John’s perspective, the “cool and clean” emotional attitude that had first attracted him was now his primary source of dissatisfaction.

  Getting Self-Focused

  The more Suzanne could think in terms of “cultural differences” between herself and John, the more she could lighten up. And the more Suzanne lightened up, the more effectively John struggled with his own problem. Suzanne didn’t really need to become an expert on ethnicity to improve her relationship. Ethnic differences, like birth order, are just one of countless factors that influence our definition of self, our life course, and how we negotiate relationships. For Suzanne, however, her “research” helped her become less negatively focused on John’s problem. Her newfound objectivity was a crucial first step toward change.

  As Suzanne became less reactive to her husband’s struggle, she was able to pay more attention to her own unfinished business with her first family. Suzanne bristled over John’s long phone calls home, in part because of her distance from her own family. Slowly, Suzanne began to establish more direct emotional contact with her parents and sister, and in turn she became less focused on what John was or was not doing with his parents and relatives. When we are not paying enough attention to how we are connecting with our own family, we will be overreactive to our in-laws—or to how our spouse is conducting his family business.

  Although Suzanne learned to stay out of John’s family affairs, she did speak up about issues that affected her directly. For example, she and John were planning an eight-day visit to the East Coast; John’s family was insisting that he and Suzanne stay with them the entire time. Suzanne, for her part, felt “claustrophobic” about the arrangement and wanted to stay with friends and just visit John’s family during the day. Her husband’s initial position was that his family would never understand or accept such an arrangement—and that he would not even consider it.

  In the old pattern, Suzanne would hover around John during his calls, criticizing his parents’ possessiveness and unreasonable demands, and instructing her husband as to how he should stand up to them. In the new pattern, Suzanne stayed out of her husband’s negotiations with his parents, while speaking clearly to the issues that directly concerned her. She let John know, for example, that it was important for her to have time alone with him, and she explained how stressful she found their visits when they spent all their time with family. John did end up telling his parents that he and Suzanne would be staying three of the eight evenings in a hotel together, because they wanted some time alone. Suzanne also took responsibility to ensure her own time away from John’s family when she felt she needed it. If John had insisted on staying all eight nights with his family, Suzanne would have decided she could live with it, or she would have made alternative arrangements.

  It was a real challenge for John to begin to establish some limits and boundaries with his parents when the “togetherness force” seemed overwhelming. Likewise, Suzanne was challenged to move toward her family when the “separateness force” went into full swing. It was this work, however, which ultimately allowed them to stop fighting and find their own comfortable balance between the forces of separateness and togetherness in their lives together.

  The Moral of the Story

  We may not identify with the specifics of Suzanne’s story. Gender roles being what they are, it is far more common that he distances and she seeks more togetherness—and that daughters, not sons, will struggle harder around issues of caretaking and family responsibility.

  Nevertheless, Suzanne’s struggle is universal. All of us come from a “different culture,” with family roles and rules that have evolved over many generations. Whether the issues are the big ones (How are aging parents cared for? How is money managed? How are children disciplined?), the medium ones (Is it OK to complain, boast, or shine?), or the small ones (Do the onions get chopped or sliced?), we are all deeply affected by family patterns and traditions that may seem like Truth itself, rather than one perspective among many.

  In particular, we may fail to appreciate differences in the patterned ways that individuals move in relationships under stress. If our style of managing a st
ressful event is to share feelings and seek greater togetherness, we may rail against that other person whose preferred mode of handling the same stress is to be more private and self-reliant. If we tend to shift into an overresponsible, “fix-it” mode when anxiety hits, we may get all ruffled about that other person who reacts to stress with underresponsibility or a bit of spaciness. And the more intensely we do our thing, the more they do theirs. Distancers distance more when they are pursued. Underfunctioners underfunction more around overfunctioners. And vice versa. And the more we get focused on the other person’s behavior rather than our own, the more stuck we become.

  The higher the level of anxiety in a relationship and the longer it continues, the more likely we are to become polarized around differences and to get locked into a rigid and entrenched position over time. We tend to manage anxiety by dividing into two camps, quickly losing our ability to see both sides (or better yet, more than two sides) of an issue.

  A good illustration of this is the story of one couple who came to therapy on the verge of divorce. Their only child, a six-year-old daughter, had been physically disabled in a car accident two years earlier. During the same year, the father’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Clearly, the level of anxiety in this family had been chronically high, and the child, Deborah, was now having emotional problems at school.