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

by Harriet Lerner

Anger is neither legitimate nor illegitimate, meaningful nor pointless. Anger simply is. To ask, “Is my anger legitimate?” is similar to asking, “Do I have a right to be thirsty? After all, I just had a glass of water fifteen minutes ago. Surely my thirst is not legitimate. And besides, what’s the point of getting thirsty when I can’t get anything to drink now, anyway?”

Our job is to keep clear about our own position in the face of a countermove—not to prevent it from happening or to tell the other person that he or she should not be reacting that way. Most of us want the impossible. We want to control not only our own decisions and choices but also the other person’s reactions to them. We not only want to make a change; we want the other person to like the change that we make. We want to move ahead to a higher level of assertiveness and clarity and then receive praise and reinforcement from those very people who have chosen us for our old familiar ways.

Even rats in a maze learn to vary their behavior if they keep hitting a dead end. Why in the world, then, do we behave less intelligently than laboratory animals? The answer, by now, may be obvious. Repeating the same old fights protects us from the anxieties we are bound to experience when we make a change. Ineffective fighting allows us to stop the clock when our efforts to achieve greater clarity become too threatening. Sometimes staying stuck is what we need to do until the time comes when we are confident that it is safe to get unstuck.

This is the who-started-it game—the search for a beginning of a sequence, where the aim is to proclaim which person is to blame for the behavior of both. But we know that this interaction is really a circular dance in which the behavior of one partner maintains and provokes the behavior of the other. The circular dance has no beginning and no end. In the final analysis, it matters little who started it. The question of greater significance is: “How do we break out of it?” A good way to make this break is to recognize the part we play in maintaining and provoking the other person’s behavior. Even if we are convinced that the other person is ninety-seven percent to blame, we are still in control of changing our own three percent. So the central question becomes: “How can I change my steps in the circular dance?” This is not to say that we don’t have good reason to be furious with the other person. Nor is it to say that our current sex roles and gender arrangements, which breed these sorts of dances, are not at fault—they are. Rather, it is simply to say that we don’t have the power to change another person who does not want to change, and our attempts to do so may actually protect him or her from change. This is the paradox of the circular dances in which we all participate.

How can Maggie best maintain emotional closeness with her mother at this time? She might ask her mother questions about her interests and activities. She can express interest in learning more about her mother’s own past and personal history. This is one of the best ways to stay emotionally connected to members of our family and, at the same time, learn more about our selves (see Chapter 6). When things cool off a bit and the relationship is calm, Maggie might initiate a dialogue with her mother on the subject of raising children—an area in which mother has valuable expertise. For example, Maggie might say, “You know, Mother, sometimes I try to comfort Amy and she keeps crying and crying. Did you go through that when we were little? How did you handle it?” Or, “What was it like for you to raise four children, especially when two of us were only a year apart?” If her mother were to reply in a huff, “Well, I thought you had enough of my advice!” Maggie might respond, “Actually, I don’t find advice helpful—even good advice—because I need to struggle with the problem myself and find my own solution. But I do find it very useful to learn more about your own experience and how you handled things.” Blocking advice-giving—if that is one of the problems—is not the same as cutting off the lines of communication. As we become more independent we learn more about our family members, not less, and we are able to share more about our selves.

The point cannot be emphasized enough: No successful move toward greater independence occurs in one “hit-and-run” confrontation.

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 ...

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Using our anger as a starting point to become more knowledgeable about the self does not require that we analyze ourselves and provide lengthy psychological explanations of our reactions, as I did with Susan. If I had not identified some long-standing relationship issues, I might simply have told my sister that I didn’t want advice and really wasn’t clear about why. The essential ingredient of this story is that I used my anger to clarify a request based on my own personal wants, and not because I sought to become an uninvited authority on how Susan should best conduct herself. Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.

Learning to use our anger effectively requires some letting go—letting go of blaming that other person whom we see as causing our problems and failing to provide for our happiness; letting go of the notion that it is our job to change other people or tell them how they should think, feel, behave. Yet, this does not mean that we passively accept or go along with any behavior. In fact, a “live-and-let-live” attitude can signal a de-selfed position, if we fail to clarify what is and is not acceptable or desirable to us in a relationship. The main issue is how we clarify our position.

In using our anger as a guide to determining our innermost needs, values, and priorities, we should not be distressed if we discover just how unclear we are. If we feel chronically angry or bitter in an important relationship, this is a signal that too much of the self has been compromised and we are uncertain about what new position to take or what options we have available to us. To recognize our lack of clarity is not a weakness but an opportunity, a challenge, and a strength.

Slow down! Our anger can be a powerful vehicle for personal growth and change if it does nothing more than help us recognize that we are not yet clear about something and that it is our job to keep struggling with it.

Katy is doing what most of us do when we are angry. She is judging, blaming, criticizing, moralizing, preaching, instructing, interpreting, and psychoanalyzing. There is not one statement from Katy that is truly about her own self.

Katy has the problem. She has yet to find a way to identify and clarify her own limits with her father so that she is not left feeling bitter and resentful. It is Katy who is struggling and in pain. This is her problem. To say that Katy has a problem, however, is not to imply that she is wrong or to blame or at fault. “Who has the problem?” is a question that has nothing to do with guilt or culpability. The one who has the problem is simply the party who is dissatisfied with or troubled by a particular situation.

If, however, we do not use our anger to define ourselves clearly in every important relationship we are in—and manage our feelings as they arise—no one else will assume this responsibility for us.

So, who is to blame for this merry-go-round? Hopefully, by now you are no longer thinking in these terms. Relationships are circular (A and B are mutually reinforcing) rather than linear (A causes B or B causes A). Once a pattern is established in a relationship, it is perpetuated by both parties.

Learning how not to be helpful requires a certain attitude toward relationships and an ability to strike the right balance between the forces of separateness and togetherness. If Lois’s tone is, “Don’t try to involve me, it’s not my problem,” the old pattern won’t change. This is a reactive and distancing position. Similarly, if Lois says, “Well, I’m not going to give you any advice or money from now on because it’s not good for you, Brian,” she is simply doing another variation of her therapeutic “I-really-know-what’s-best-for-you” attitude. Learning how not to be helpful requires that we begin to acknowledge that we do not have the answers or solutions to other people’s problems. In fact, we don’t even have the answers to all of our own.

There is nothing wrong with giving another person advice (“This is what I think . . .” or, “In my experience, this has worked for me”) as long as we recognize that we are stating an opinion that may or may not fit for the other person. We start to overfunction, however, when we assume that we know what’s best for the other person and we want them to do it our way. If Lois feels angry when Brian does not follow her advice, that’s a good indication that she should not be giving it.

Lois can call Brian while he’s having a hard time simply to touch base with him. She might say, “I know I’m not much help to you at this time, but I just wanted to hear how you’re doing and let you know that I care about you.” She might increase her contact with Brian and invite him to have dinner with her family. Stepping back and allowing the other person to struggle with his or her own problems is not the same as emotional withdrawal. Lois can stop trying to bail Brian out, yet still express her support and interest as he goes through a difficult time.

Like all good overfunctioners, Lois was convinced that sharing her struggles and vulnerability with Brian was absolutely out of the question. (“I would never tell Brian that I was depressed; I have absolutely no desire to do so and he has more than enough problems of his own.” “Brian can’t deal with my feelings.” “Why burden him; there is no way he can be helpful to me.”) The relationship between Lois and Brian was extremely polarized, with Brian expressing only his weakness and Lois only her competence. If Lois wants to shift the old pattern, she can present a more balanced picture of herself and begin to share a bit about her own travails with Brian.

What light does Lois’s story shed on the question we started out with: “Who is responsible for what?” It provides us with a good example of how we may be too responsible for another person and, at the same time, not responsible enough for our own behavior.

Less obvious but no less important is the price that Lois pays personally for the position she holds in this relationship, as evidenced by her chronic anger and high level of stress. When we overfunction, we may have a difficult time allowing others to take over and care for us, so that we can just relax or have the luxury of falling apart for a little while. Lois, the caretaker and helper for others, has lost sight of her own needs and challenges of continued growth, which she can sweep under the rug because she “needs to care for her brother.” By continuing to feel responsible for the other party, Lois ends up underfunctioning for her own self.

It is not simply that we displace a feeling from one person to another; rather, we reduce anxiety in one relationship by focusing on a third party, who we unconsciously pull into the situation to lower the emotional intensity in the original pair. For example, if I had continued to direct my anger toward my misbehaving boys (who, in response, would have misbehaved more), I would have felt less directly anxious about the life-cycle issue with my aging parents. In all likelihood, I would not have identified and spoken to the real emotional issue at all. This pattern is called a “triangle,” and triangles can take many forms. On a transient basis triangles operate automatically and unconsciously in all human contexts including our family, our work setting, and our friendship networks. But triangles can also become rigidly entrenched, blocking the growth of the individuals in them and keeping us from identifying the actual sources of conflict in our relationships. The example below illustrates first a transient, benign triangle and then a problematic, entrenched one.

Understanding triangles requires that we keep an eye on two things: First, what unresolved and unaddressed issues with an important other (not infrequently someone from an earlier generation) are getting played out in our current relationships? Intense anger at someone close to us can signal that we are carrying around strong, unacknowledged emotions from another important relationship. Second, what is our part in maintaining triangular patterns that keep us stuck?

It is expectable, predictable, and quite normal for family members to define a problem in this way. When we feel angry, we tend to see people rather than patterns as the problem.

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.

If you are directing your primary emotional energy toward an underfunctioning family member, have you ever wondered where all that worry energy or anger energy would go if that individual was off the map? When Sarah stopped busying herself with her son’s life, she began to worry about her own. Jerry, in turn, began to worry about his.

Many of us think we know our family background. Certainly we all have stories we tell about our family to other people. Such stories may elicit their admiration (“Your mother sounds like an incredible person!”) or their anger (“How horrible that your father treated you that way!”) or their pity (“What a terrible childhood you’ve had!”). We may tell these stories over and over during our lifetime, constructing explanations for things that we seek to understand. (“My mother always put me down; that is why I have such a bad self-concept.”) However, these stories, including the psychological interpretations that we learn to apply to ourselves and others, are not substitutes for knowing our family in the sense of asking questions of our parents, grandparents, and other relatives and inviting them to share their experience. Most of us react to other family members, but we do not know them.

I believe that women today are nothing short of pioneers in the process of personal and social change. And pioneers we must be. For as we use our anger to create new, more functional relationship patterns, we may find that we have no models to follow. Whether the problem we face is a marital battle, or the escalating nuclear arms race, women and men both have a long legacy of blaming people rather than understanding patterns. Our challenge is to listen carefully to our own anger and use it in the service of change—while we hold tight to all that is valuable in our female heritage and tradition. If we can do this, we will surely make the best of pioneers.