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

by Harriet Lerner

If we are “nice ladies,” how do we behave? In situations that might realistically evoke anger or protest, we stay silent—or become tearful, self-critical, or “hurt.”

When we behave in this way, our primary energy is directed toward protecting another person and preserving the harmony of our relationships at the expense of defining a clear self.

when we behave as if having a relationship is more important than having a self.

we may be great at feeling guilty.

we may cultivate guilt in order to blot out the awareness of our own anger.

Nothing, but nothing, will block the awareness of anger so effectively as guilt and self-doubt.

The amount of creative, intellectual, and sexual energy that is trapped by this need to repress anger and remain unaware of its sources is simply incalculable.

Words like “nagging,” “complaining,” and “bitching” are words of helplessness and powerlessness, which do not imply even the

possibility of change.

“What about the situation makes me angry?” “What is the real issue here?” “What do I think and feel?” “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?” These

We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern.

This “Change back!” reaction will come both from inside our own selves and from significant others around us.

Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self. This book is about having both.

She turns anger into tears.

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

“What is wrong with me?” rather than asking, “What is wrong with this relationship?”

Like a seesaw, it is the underfunctioning of one individual that allows for the overfunctioning of the other.

wife, for example, may become increasingly entrenched in the role of the weak, vulnerable, dependent, or otherwise dysfunctional partner. Her husband, to the same degree, may disown and deny these qualities in himself. He may begin to direct the bulk of his emotional energy toward reacting to his spouse’s problems, rather than identifying and sharing his own. Underfunctioners and overfunctioners provoke and reinforce each other’s behavior, so that the seesaw becomes increasingly hard to balance over time. The more the man avoids sharing his own weaknesses, neediness, and vulnerability, the more his woman may experience and express more than her share. The more the woman avoids showing her competence and strength, the more her man will have an inflated sense of his own. And if the underfunctioning partner starts looking better, the overfunctioning partner will start looking worse.

What is important is that being at the bottom of the seesaw relationship is culturally prescribed for women.

The weaker sex must protect the stronger sex from recognizing the strength of the weaker sex lest the stronger sex feel weakened by the strength of the weaker sex.

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.

Whenever one person makes a move to rebalance the seesaw, there is a countermove by the other party.

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.

She would not allow herself to become seriously interested in anything that would threaten another person or disrupt the status quo in an important relationship. If she did allow herself some initial interest in the workshop, she might

test out her partner’s reaction before she signed up. She might approach him and say, “Listen, I’m thinking about attending this workshop. . . .” And then she would sensitively evaluate his spoken and unspoken response. If she picked up any signals that he felt threatened or was disapproving, she would move in quickly to protect him. She might say to herself, “Well, the workshop probably wouldn’t be that good,” or, “We don’t have the money now,” or, “I’m not really in the mood to go, anyway.”

In this way, a woman avoids conflict by defining her own wishes and preferences as being the same as what her part...

“It’s not worth the fight” is a familiar phrase that protects many of us from confronting the challenge of changing our behavior.

Instead of taking responsibility for our own selves, we tend to feel responsible for the emotional well-being of the other person and hold the other person responsible for ours.

If two people become one, a separation can feel like a psychological or a physical death. We may have nothing—not even a self to fall back on—when an important relationship ends.

Our intimacy need not be “sameness” or “oneness” or loss of self; our aloneness and separateness need not be distance and isolation.

The dilemma is that we may unconsciously be convinced that our important relationships can survive only if we continue to remain one down.

Sometimes, to develop a stronger “I” is to come to terms with our deep-seated wish to leave an unsatisfactory marriage,

and this possibility may be no less frightening than the fear of being left.

Fighting and blaming is sometimes a way both to protest and to protect the status quo when we are not quite ready to make a move in one direction or another.

Countermoves are the other person’s unconscious attempt to restore a relationship to its prior balance or equilibrium, when anxiety about separateness and change gets too high.

Countermoves are an expression of anxiety, as well as of closeness and attachment.

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.

We want to control not only our own decisions and choices but also the other per...

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.

may feel guilty if she strives to have for herself what her own mother could not.

may view her attempt at self-assertion as an act of disloyalty—a

a betrayal not only of her husband but also of generations of ...

If Barbara is having difficulty staying in emotional contact with living members of her first family and defining a clear and separate “I” within this context, she may have difficulty doing so in her marriage.

First, she fought about a false issue. Second, she put her energy into trying to change the other person.

of the hallmarks of emotional maturity is to recognize the validity of multiple realities and to understand that people think, feel, and react differently.

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...

First, “letting it all hang out” may not be helpful, because venting anger may protect rather than challenge the old rules and patterns in a relationship. Second, the only person we can change and control is our own self. Third, changing our own self can feel so threatening and difficult that it is often easier to continue an old pattern of silent withdrawal or ineffective fighting and blaming. And, finally, de-selfing is at the heart of our most serious anger problems.