Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships (15 page)

“You know, Dad, I have a problem. I haven’t figured out how to balance the responsibility I feel toward you and the responsibility I feel toward myself. Last week when I took you shopping two times and also drove you to your doctor’s appointment, I found myself feeling tense and uncomfortable, because I really wanted some of that time just for me. But when I say no and go about my own personal business, I end up feeling guilty—like I’m looking over my shoulder to see how you’re doing.”

“Well, if I’m that much of a burden, I can just stay away,” father said coldly. He looked as if he had been physically struck.

Katy had prepared herself for her father’s countermoves so that she could stand her ground when they came, without getting sucked into that intense field of emotional reactivity that characterized their relationship. “No, Dad,” she replied, “I wouldn’t want that. I’m not saying that
you
are burdening me. In fact, I would like to get a little better myself at asking people for help. What I’m talking about is
my
problem getting clear about what feels comfortable for me. I need to figure out how much I can do for you and when I need to say no and put myself first.”

“Katy, you surprise me,” said her father. “Your mother took care of both her parents when they were old and she never complained about it. Your mother would certainly not be very proud of you.”

“I know what you mean, Dad.” Katy refused to bite the bait and she continued to calmly address her own issue. “I was always impressed by Mom’s willingness to take care of both her parents. It seemed to me that she had an amazing capacity to be giving, without feeling short-changed or resentful. But I’m not Mom. I’m different, and I really don’t think I could do that. I guess I
am
more selfish than Mother was.”

There was an awkward silence, which her father broke: “Well, Katy, is there something I’m supposed to do about this problem of yours?” The mixture of sarcasm and hurt in his voice couldn’t be missed.

For a moment, Katy felt that old pressure to give her father advice and suggest ways that he could meet people and make use of the resources available to him. She knew from experience, however, that it didn’t work. Instead, she stayed on course and continued to discuss her own problem:

“I wish someone else could solve my problem and make my decisions for me, but I know that’s really my job.” Katy became thoughtful. “Actually, Dad, it would be helpful to me, in my attempts to get clear about all this, if you could share some of your own experience with me. Have you ever struggled with anything like this? What was it like for you when your mother became ill and couldn’t take care of herself anymore? Who in the family made the decision to put her in the nursing home, and what was your perspective on that?”

By directly addressing a family issue (in this case, “Who takes care of an elderly parent?”) rather than angrily
reacting
to it, Katy detoxified the subject by getting it out on the table. As a result, the underground anxiety that surrounds unaddressed emotional issues will diminish and Katy will find that she is able to think more objectively about her situation. In addition, Katy is beginning to question her dad about his own experience with elderly parents. Learning how other family members have handled problems similar to our own, down through the generations, is one of the most effective routes to lowering reactivity and heightening self-clarity. In fact,
before
Katy could initiate this talk with her dad in so solid a fashion, she had to learn more about the legacy of caretaking in her family background.

How did it happen that Katy’s mother took on the sole responsibility of caring for her aging parents? What is the perspective of her mother’s sister and brothers about how well this arrangement worked out?

How did decisions get made, down through the generations, about who took care of family members who were not able to care for themselves?

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.

Using our anger effectively requires first and foremost a clear “I,” and women have been blocked from selfhood at every turn. We cannot hope to realize the self, however, in isolation from individuals on our family tree. No book—or psychotherapist, for that matter—can help us with this task if we stay cut off from our roots. Most of us react strongly to family members—especially our mothers—but we do not talk to them in depth and gather data about their experience. We may know virtually nothing about the forces that shaped our parents’ lives as they shaped ours, or how our mothers and grandmothers dealt with problems similar to ours. When we do not know these things, we do not know the self. And without a clear self, rooted in our history, we will be prone to intense angry reactions in all sorts of situations, in response to which we will blame others, distance ourselves, passively comply, or otherwise spin our wheels.

And so, Katy had some “family work” to do. She contacted a wide representation of family members—especially the women—and learned firsthand about their experience and perspective as they grappled with issues not unlike her own. From living family members, she learned more about those who had died, including her mother. In so doing, Katy was able to see her problem with her father in its broader context.

Katy discovered that women in her family tended to fall into two opposite camps: those who, like her mother, made large personal sacrifices to care for aging parents and grandparents; and those who, like her mother’s sister, Aunt Peggy, stuck their heads in the sand as aging family members became unable to care for themselves. Within these camps were several warring factions. Katy’s mother, for example, did not speak to her sister for several years following their mother’s death, because she felt that Peggy had not pitched in her share of the caretaking. From Peggy’s perspective Katy’s mother had made unilateral and unwise decisions about their mother’s care. Caring for elderly parents had been such a loaded issue in the previous generations that it was predictable that Katy would have a hard time finding a middle ground, and striking a comfortable balance between her responsibility for herself and her responsibility to her father.

As Katy connected to her family and gathered information, she felt calmer about her situation and was able to think about new options for herself with her father, where before she had been convinced that none were possible. There were no easy answers or painless solutions. Katy once summarized her dilemma this way: “No matter how long I’m in therapy, I’m still going to feel guilty if I say no to my father. But if I keep saying yes, I’m going to feel angry. So, if I’m going to change, I guess I will just have to learn to live with some guilt for a while.” This is exactly what Katy did: She lived with some guilt, which did not prove fatal and which eventually subsided.

The specific changes that Katy made with her father may seem small and unimpressive to an outsider. She decided to have dinner with him twice rather than three times a week, and told him that she would shop for him on Saturday rather than on an “on-call” basis during the week. These were the only changes that she initiated, but she held to them and they made a big difference in her life. Soon thereafter, her father initiated a change of his own: He became good friends with an older woman in his neighborhood and they would talk for several hours each day. Katy felt reassured but also disquieted by this event. She began to realize how much her preoccupation with her father had organized her life and helped her to avoid confronting her isolation from her own peers. She also learned that she was far more skilled at giving help than asking for it.

The specifics of what Katy decided to do and not do for her father is the least important part of her story. Katy’s solution would not necessarily be the right one for you or me. What is more significant is the work that she did in her own family which gave her a greater sense of connectedness to her roots and of her separateness and clarity as an individual. Now she could better use her anger as a springboard for
thinking
about her situation rather than remaining a victim of it. And as we will see, 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.

Later, over coffee, we shared our personal reactions to this incident. Celia felt mildly depressed. She was reminded of her abusive ex-husband and this particular week was the anniversary of their divorce. Janet reacted with anger, which seemed to dissipate as she drummed up clever retorts to the driver’s outburst and hilarious revenge fantasies. My own reaction was nostalgia. I had been feeling homesick for New York and almost welcomed the contrast to the midwestern politeness to which I had become accustomed. It was a New York City “happening” that I could take back to Topeka, Kansas.

Suppose we reflect briefly on this incident. We might all agree that the bus driver behaved badly. But is he also responsible for the reactions of three women? Did he
cause
Celia’s depression and Janet’s anger? Did he
make
me feel nostalgic for my past? And if one of us had reacted to this man’s surliness by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge that night, should he be held accountable for a death? Or, viewed from another perspective, were we responsible for his outburst to begin with?

It is tempting to view human transactions in simple cause-and-effect terms. If we are angry, someone else
caused
it. Or, if we are the target of someone else’s anger, we must be to
blame
; or, alternately—if we are convinced of our innocence—we may conclude that the other person has no
right
to feel angry. The more our relationships in our first family are fused (meaning the togetherness force is so powerful that there is a loss of the separate “I’s” within the “we”), the more we learn to take responsibility for other people’s feelings and reactions and blame them for our own. (“You always make Mom feel guilty.” “You give Dad headaches.” “She caused her husband to drink.”) Likewise, family members assume responsibility for
causing
other people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Human relationships, however, don’t work that way—or at least not very well. 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.

To illustrate the point, let’s return to Katy’s problem with her widowed father, whom she initially described as excessively demanding and guilt-inducing. If Katy perceives her father as unilaterally causing her anger and/or guilt, she is at a dead end. She will feel helpless and powerless because she cannot change him. Similarly, if Katy takes responsibility for causing her father’s feelings and reactions, she is also stuck. Why? Because if Katy does make a change in the status quo, her father will become emotionally reactive to her new behavior. If Katy then feels responsible for causing his reactions, she may reinstate the old pattern in order to protect her father (and herself) from uncomfortable feelings and to safeguard the predictable sameness of the relationship. (“My father got so angry and crazy when I said no that there was just nothing I could do.”) The situation is then defined as hopeless.

Why is the question “Who is responsible for what?” such a puzzle for women? Women in particular have been discouraged from taking responsibility for solving our own problems, determining our own choices, and taking control of the quality and direction of our own lives. As we learn to relinquish responsibility for the self, we are prone to blame others for failing to fill up our emptiness or provide for our happiness—which is not their job. At the same time, however, we may feel responsible for just about everything that goes on around us. We are quick to be blamed for other people’s problems and pain and quick to accept the verdict of guilty. We also, in the process, develop the belief that we can avert problems if only we try hard enough. Indeed, guilt and self-blame are a “woman’s problem” of epidemic proportion. A colleague tells the story of pausing on a ski slope to admire the view, only to be knocked down by a careless skier who apparently did not notice her. “I’m s-o-r-r-y,” she reflexively yelled after him from her prone position as he whizzed on by.