Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships (12 page)

There are any number of self-help books and assertiveness-training courses that teach men and women how to change “You are . . .” communications into “I feel . . .” communications. Certainly we maximize the opportunity for constructive dialogue if we say “I feel like I’m not being heard” rather than “You don’t know how to listen.” The story of how Maggie changed her relationship with her mother is a vivid illustration of this point. Shaping up our communication, however, is only a small part of the picture.

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.

This evaluation meant much to Karen, since only employees rated “Superior” received a special salary bonus along with the opportunity to attend out-of-state seminars. Karen was raising two children with little financial support from her ex-husband. She needed the money and wanted the educational opportunities that would allow her to advance.

When Karen brought her story to group psychotherapy, she had tears in her eyes. “I’m hurt,” said Karen. “It’s just not fair!” When asked what she planned to do, Karen said flatly, “Nothing.” As she put it, “It’s just not worth the hassle.”

“Aren’t you angry?” a group member inquired. “Why should I be angry?” responded Karen. “Where will it get me? It only makes things worse.” These were the things that Karen would predictably say to avoid taking her anger seriously.

With help from the other group members, Karen was finally able to acknowledge her anger and mobilize the courage to meet with her boss to discuss the evaluation. She got off to a good start with him by lucidly stating why she believed she deserved the higher rating. At first, her boss seemed to listen attentively, but it soon became evident that he was feeling defensive and wasn’t really considering her view of the matter. When she finished talking, he brushed aside the valid points that she had made and began instead to focus on certain problems that he had noticed in
her
work. These problems, although real, were trivial and unrelated to the question of whether or not Karen deserved a “Superior” rating. Then he added that “other people” in the office thought she was “a little rough around the edges.”

“What do you mean?” asked Karen.

“Perhaps it’s a personality issue,” he continued, “but you give the impression to some people that you are less committed to your work than you might be.”

At this point, Karen’s eyes filled with tears and she felt totally inarticulate. “I don’t understand that,” she said softly, doing her best not to burst out crying. She then proceeded to tell her boss how unappreciated she felt because she was struggling so hard to raise two children and to succeed in a full-time job as well. Now that tears and “hurt” had replaced Karen’s calm assertiveness, her boss shifted from defensiveness to paternalistic concern. He reassured Karen that she showed a great deal of potential in her work, and he empathized with the difficult task of being a single parent. The meeting ended with Karen’s sharing some of the emotional struggles she was having since her divorce, while her boss lent a sympathetic ear. She did not mention anything further about the evaluation, nor did he. Karen left the office feeling relieved that she had not alienated her boss and that their meeting had ended on a warm note.

When Karen told us her story at the next group-therapy session, she concluded with the following words: “You see—it doesn’t do any good to confront him. He doesn’t listen. Anyway, the evaluation is really no big deal. To tell the truth, it really doesn’t matter that much to me.”

But the other group members did not drop the subject so easily. They had a number of questions for Karen that forced her to confront her own uncertainty.

Who were these “other people” in the office who questioned Karen’s commitment and who told the boss that she was “a little rough around the edges?”

Karen had no idea who her critics were.

What did “a little rough around the edges” mean?

Karen wasn’t sure: “Something to do with my personality or character . . .”

What, specifically, would she have to do differently to get a “Superior” rating?

Karen didn’t know.

It was not only that Karen failed to restate her position following her boss’s initial defensiveness; she did not even allow herself to clarify the issues with him. She did not ask, “Who in the office is criticizing me?” Or, “Could you be more specific about my personality problems?” Or, “What, specifically, must I change in order to get a ‘Superior’ rating?” Karen’s emotional reaction to her boss’s criticism obscured her thinking about what she wanted to ask and what she wanted to say.

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.

“But my boss
intimidates
me!” said Karen.

That’s a cover story. Karen was really afraid of rocking the boat in an important relationship by persisting in her efforts to take up her own cause in a mature and articulate manner. Her tears and her willingness to let her boss play the role of advisor and confidant were, in part, her unconscious way of reinstating the status quo and apologizing for the “separateness” inherent in her initial position of disagreement. Karen’s tears may also have been an unconscious attempt to make her boss feel guilty (“See how you’ve hurt me?”)—a frequent practice for women who are blocked from making a direct statement of where we stand.

“But I’m not angry about it anymore,” protested Karen. “It just doesn’t matter.”

Of
course
Karen is still angry. She just doesn’t recognize it. Anger is inevitable when we submit to unfair circumstances and when we protect another person at our own expense.

Karen’s denial of her anger and her failure to stand behind her position had inevitable costs. She felt tired and less enthusiastic at work. Two weeks after her evaluation, Karen misplaced a folder of important forms and she was seriously reprimanded. This self-sabotaging act was perhaps an unconscious attempt to put herself in the role of the “bad guy” who did not really deserve the “Superior” evaluation, rather than stand firm in her opinion that her boss had failed to give her the evaluation that she believed she deserved.

Karen’s failure to defend her position in an articulate and persistent fashion with her boss was a pattern in her personal relationships as well. The explanations that she gave herself were just the tip of the iceberg: “I get intimidated.” “I just can’t think straight when I’m dealing with an authority figure.” “I guess I don’t have faith in my own convictions.” Karen
did
lose her confidence when her ideas were not given the stamp of other people’s approval, but this lack of confidence masked a more serious problem: Karen was
afraid
to be clear about the correctness of her position, because she would then experience pressure to
continue
to take up her own cause. And to do this might make her the
target
of her boss’s anger and disapproval. As Karen put it, a “real fight” might ensue.

This idea frightened Karen, partly for realistic reasons, such as the possibility that her work situation would become difficult and uncomfortable or that she might even be fired. Surely, fighting would escalate the tensions between Karen and her boss, making it even less likely that she would be heard. Reality aside, however, Karen had a deep unconscious fear that fighting might unleash her fantasied destructive potential, although it had never seen the light of day. If she lost control of her anger, would she destroy everything? It was as if Karen feared that the full venting of her outrage might cause the entire office building to go up in flames. Also, like most women, Karen had little practice expressing her anger in a controlled, direct, and effective fashion.

It is not surprising that Karen had deep-seated fears of her own omnipotent destructiveness and the vulnerability of men. Our very definitions of “masculinity” and “femininity” are based on the notion that women must function as nonthreatening helpmates and ego builders to men lest men feel castrated and weakened. The problem for Karen was that this irrational fear had a high cost. Not only did she avoid fighting; she also avoided asserting her viewpoint, requesting explanations from others, and stating her wants. All of the above fell into the category of potentially destructive acts that might hurt or diminish others.

As much as Karen feared a volcanic eruption, she had an even greater fear, also safely tucked away in her subconscious. 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. Maggie, for example, felt this “separation anxiety” when she talked with her mother about her baby in a new, more adult way. Sandra felt it when she apologized to Larry for being so critical and assumed more responsibility to provide for her own happiness. Barbara
would
have felt it had she stopped fighting and calmly told her husband that she planned to go to the “anger” workshop.

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 was not aware of her separation anxiety, but it led her to transform her initially clear and strong position into tears and hurt. Expressing hurt allowed her boss to be helpful and restored her sense of connectedness to him—which made her feel safe despite the self-betrayal involved in this transformation. 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. At the heart of the problem was the fact that Karen (like Maggie, in Chapter 4) needed to work harder at the task of clarifying her separateness and independence within her first family. If Karen can stay in contact with family members and make progress in this arena, she will find that she will proceed more effectively when she is angry at work and with less fear of standing separate and alone, on her own two feet.

If Karen were to do it all over again, how might she transform her anger into productive action? First, she can better prepare herself to deal with her boss’s countermoves, which in this case consisted of his indirectly criticizing her work and deflecting her from the issue. 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.

What if Karen starts to feel tearful or emotionally intense during the interaction? If this happens, she can take time out to regain her composure: She can say, “I need a little time to sort my thoughts out. Let’s set up another time to talk more about it.”

What if her supervisor refuses to consider changing the evaluation? Karen can then begin to give some thought to her next move. She may request a third party to review her evaluation. She may simply say to her boss, “I don’t like it, but I can live with it.” She may ask for specific instructions on how she might secure a “Superior” evaluation the next time around. No matter how skilled Karen becomes in handling her anger, she cannot
make
her boss change his mind or ensure that justice will prevail. She
can
state her position, recognize her choices, and make responsible decisions on her own behalf. The calmer and clearer that Karen can be with her boss, the clearer
he
will become about his own perspective on the evaluation and what
he
will and will not do. Could it be that Karen unconsciously preferred to avoid this kind of clarity so as to maintain the image of her boss as a “good guy?”