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

by Harriet Lerner

Our society cultivates guilt feelings in women such that many of us still feel guilty if we are anything less than an emotional service station to others.

De-selfing means that too much of one’s self (including one’s thoughts, wants, beliefs, and ambitions) is “negotiable” under pressures from the relationship.

We learn to act weaker to help men feel stronger and to strengthen men by relinquishing our own strength.

Many of us who fight ineffectively, like those of us who don’t fight at all, have an unconscious belief that the other person would have a very hard time if we were clear and strong. Our anxiety and guilt about the potential loss of a relationship may make it difficult for us to change in the first place—and then to stay on course when our partner reacts strongly to our new and different behavior.

There are few things more anxiety-arousing than shifting to a higher level of self-assertion and separateness in an important relationship and maintaining this position despite the countermoves of the other person.

“Who is responsible for making decisions about my life?” “How are power and decision-making shared in this relationship?” “What will happen in my marriage if I become stronger and more assertive?” “If my choice is either to sacrifice myself to keep the marriage calm, or to grow and risk losing the relationship, which do I want?”

We must re-examine our own selves with a view toward discovering what we think, feel, and want and what we need to do differently in our lives. The more we carve out a clear and separate “I,” the more we can experience and enjoy both intimacy and aloneness.

Later, when things were calm, she might initiate a discussion about decision-making in the marriage and explain that while she was interested in his opinions, she was ultimately in charge of making her own decisions.

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.

It is extremely difficult to learn, with our hearts as well as our heads, that we have a right to everything we think and feel—and so does everyone else. It is our job to state our thoughts and feelings clearly and to make responsible decisions that are congruent with our values and beliefs. It is not our job to make another person think and feel the way we do or the way we want them to.

If she stops overfunctioning for others and starts acting for herself, her underfunctioning man is likely to acknowledge and deal with his own anxieties.

Sandra, for example, complained incessantly about Larry’s underinvolvement with the children. Yet, when he did make a tentative move closer to the family, she would correct some detail of his parenting, criticize some aspect of his behavior, or advise him on how to better interact with the children. It was extremely difficult for her to simply stay out and allow him to relate to the children in his own way.

Karen was afraid of transforming her anger into concise statements of her thoughts and feelings lest she evoke that disturbing sense of separateness and aloneness that we experience when we make our differences known and encourage others to do the same.

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.”

Karen had a long-standing pattern of attempting to restore the togetherness of her relationships by crying, criticizing herself, becoming confused, or prematurely making peace.

Karen shouldn’t try to change or control his reactions (which is not possible, anyway). Nor should she allow herself to be controlled by them. She can simply stay on course by listening to what he has to say and then restating her initial position. There is nothing wrong with sounding like a broken record now and then.

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.

It is an act of courage to acknowledge our own uncertainty and sit with it for a while.

It is not wise to make decisions or to attempt to change a relationship at a time when we are feeling angry and intense.

In terms of lasting change, Katy’s job is to strive to achieve a lower degree of emotional reactivity and a higher degree of self-clarity.

We are never the first in our family to wrestle with a problem, although it may feel that way. All of us inherit the unsolved problems of our past; and whatever we are struggling with has its legacy in the struggles of prior generations. If we do not know about our own family history, we are more likely to repeat past patterns or mindlessly rebel against them, without much clarity about who we really are, how we are similar to and different from other family members, and how we might best proceed in our own life.

thinking clearly about the questions “What am I responsible for?” and “What am I not responsible for?” is a difficult challenge for all of us.

We begin to use our anger as a vehicle for change when we are able to share our reactions without holding the other person responsible for causing our feelings, and without blaming ourselves for the reactions that other people have in response to our choices and actions. We are responsible for our own behavior. But we are not responsible for other people’s reactions; nor are they responsible for ours. Women often learn to reverse this order of things: We put our energy into taking responsibility for other people’s feelings, thoughts, and behavior and hand over to others responsibility for our own. When this happens, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for the old rules of a relationship to change.

Learning to observe and change our behavior is a self-loving process that can’t take place in an atmosphere of self-criticism or self-blame. Such attitudes frequently undermine, rather than enhance, our ability to observe relationship patterns. They may even be part of the game we learn to play in which the unconscious goal is to safeguard relationships by being one down in order to help the other person feel one up.

To ask a person to do more housework (or parenting) and then say “Do it the way I would do it” or “Do it the way I want you to” is a move that blocks change. If Lisa is truly ready to have Rich more involved with the housework (which means that she is willing to give up some control in this area), she must also be ready to let Rich do it his own way. If she wants him to stop underfunctioning in this area, she must be willing to stop overfunctioning.

Although no one has died from sulking yet, women, the emotional rescuers of the world, can have a terribly difficult time allowing others just to sit with their feelings and learn to handle them.

What a difficult time we may have maintaining the degree of separateness that allows others the space to manage their own pain and solve their own problems! Men also have this difficulty balancing the forces of separateness and togetherness; however, they tend to handle anxiety by emotional distancing and disengaging (thus, sacrificing the “we” for the “I”), whereas women more frequently handle anxiety by fusion and emotional overfunctioning (thus, sacrificing the “I” for the “we”).

When we do not put our primary emotional energy into solving our own problems, we take on other people’s problems as our own.

If Lois feels angry when Brian does not follow her advice, that’s a good indication that she should not be giving it.

This togetherness force between mother and child may be so strong that many of us have difficulty achieving the degree of separateness that would allow us to listen to our children in an empathic, low-keyed way, inviting them to talk more and elaborate as they wish. When we learn to stay in our own skin and avoid assuming an overfunctioning or “fix-it” position, children—whether they are four or forty—demonstrate a remarkable capacity to manage their own feelings, find solutions to their problems, and ask for help when they want it.

Claudia, like all children, was ultimately reassured to know that she could express the full range of her thoughts and feelings but that her mother was separate and mature enough to take responsibility for making her own independent, thought-through decisions, for herself and for Claudia as well.

With children, as with adults, change comes about when we stop trying to shape up the other person and begin to observe patterns and find new options for our own behavior.

The most difficult job that Ms. Kesler had before her was to let her husband and son fend for themselves and manage their own relationship without her.

First, she went to her husband and apologized to him for interfering in his relationship with Billy. She admitted that she might have made things worse by thinking that she had any answers or advice for either of them about their relationship. She empathized with her husband’s worry about Billy and praised his involvement as a father and his efforts to help his son grow up to be a responsible person. She expressed confidence that he and Billy could work out whatever problems they had.

“Daddy and I may set different rules sometimes. This is Daddy’s rule, and whether you go to the game or don’t go to the game is up to Dad. This is between you and Dad.”

Maintaining her new position was anything but easy. “I get terribly tense when John and Billy go at it,” Ms. Kesler explained to me. “When I hear John go on and on, I start feeling upset and ready to blow. Sometimes I go to the bathroom just to get away or leave the house to take a walk.” Ms. Kesler was able to take this distance when she needed it, without criticizing her husband. In a calm, nonblaming manner she explained to him, “When you and Billy start getting riled up, I sometimes react by getting uncomfortable and upset. I’m not sure what my reaction is about, but when I start to feel this way, I may leave the room or take a walk because that helps.” She made it clear to her husband that she took responsibility for her own feelings and reactions and she was not blaming him for “causing” her discomfort. Throughout the process, Ms. Kesler conveyed confidence that her husband and son could take care of their own relationship without her help.

For example, she might say to her husband (ideally, at a relatively calm moment): “I need to tell you that I have a real fear that things between you and Billy will heat up to the point where he gets injured. I know that I can’t solve anything between the two of you, but I can’t live with violence. If that happens, I will do whatever is necessary to separate the two of you.”

The three essential ingredients of extricating oneself from a triangle are: staying calm, staying out, and hanging in.

Do take time out to think about the problem and to clarify your position. Before you speak out, ask yourself the following questions: “What is it about the situation that makes me angry?” “What is the real issue here?” “Where do I stand?” “What do I want to accomplish?” “Who is responsible for what?” “What, specifically, do I want to change?” “What are the things I will and will not do?”

Do speak in “I” language. Learn to say, “I think . . .” “I feel . . .” “I fear . . .” “I want . . .” A true “I” statement says something about the self without criticizing or blaming the other person and without holding the other person responsible for our feelings or reactions. Watch out for disguised “you” statements or pseudo-“I” statements. (“I think you are controlling and self-centered.”)

Don’t participate in intellectual arguments that go nowhere. Don’t spin your wheels trying to convince others of the “rightness” of your position. If the other person is not hearing you, simply say, “Well, it may sound crazy to you, but this is how I feel.” Or, “I understand that you disagree, but I guess we see it differently.”

The more other people get involved in a conflict between you and another person, the less likely you’ll be to resolve it with minimal anxiety and maximum clarity.

If you plan to swear someone to secrecy—“Esther, please don’t mention anything to Tom or he’ll know I said something to you”—better to say nothing at all.

Don’t become the third party in someone else’s triangle. If someone complains to you, you can listen sympathetically, but without blaming or taking sides. Often this doesn’t occur to us, but with practice it’s not hard to do. Remember that the best reason to avoid quickly becoming someone’s emotional ally is that others have the best chance of working out their own anger and negotiating their differences if you stay calm, stay out, and stay emotionally connected.