Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships (19 page)

“And how does your daughter react?” I asked.

“She just doesn’t listen to reason. She’ll climb under the covers or put her hands over her ears. Or she’ll get even louder and more upset. Last week it was so bad that I canceled my plans with Carlos and sent him and the babysitter home. Usually I go out, but then I feel so guilty that I don’t enjoy myself. I know that Claudia is having a hard time with the divorce, but I end up
furious
with her for being so controlling. That kid is a little dictator.”

What is going wrong here? Can you identify Alicia’s problem?

Why is Alicia having such a difficult time simply accepting her daughter’s feelings of anger and sadness? Perhaps Alicia herself is anxious about going out, although she may not be aware of it. Perhaps she overfunctions or “rescues” when it comes to other people’s feelings—especially those of her child. So many of us do this. As soon as our son or daughter expresses sadness, anger, hurt, or jealousy, our first reaction may be to rush in and “do something” to take it away or to make things better. The “something” may be to give advice, interpretations, or reassurance. We may try to change the subject or cheer the child up. We may try to convince our child that she or he doesn’t, or shouldn’t, feel that way.

Emotional overfunctioning reflects the fusion in family relationships. Family roles and rules are structured in a way that fosters overly distant fathering and overly intense mothering. If our child itches, we scratch. 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.

What would you do in Alicia’s place? Claudia calmed down considerably when Alicia was able to take the following three steps:

First, Alicia listened to Claudia’s thoughts and feelings without trying to change them or take them away.
She did not offer her daughter advice, reassurance, criticism, interpretation, or instruction. Instead, she made empathic, non-fix-it statements, such as: “It sounds like you are pretty angry that I’m going out tonight”; “You really don’t like Carlos very much, do you?” Claudia felt reassured by her mother’s calm, nonreactive listening, and she began to more openly express her anger, fears, and unhappiness about her parents’ divorce. Alicia felt as though a burden had been lifted from her shoulders when she learned to listen to her daughter’s problems without having to “do something.”

Second, Alicia realized that it was her responsibility to make her own decisions about dating Carlos—or about anything else, for that matter—and that these decisions were not based on her daughter’s emotionality.
Alicia communicated that she respected her daughter’s feelings and took them into account but that she would not make her decisions in reaction to her daughter’s emotional outbursts. For example, Alicia would say, “I know you are having a hard time tonight, but Carlos and I are still going to the movies and then out to dinner. I will be home at about eleven-thirty, after you are asleep.” And when Claudia said tearfully, “I hate him,” Alicia simply replied, “I understand that.” 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. In the old pattern, Alicia would give in to Claudia and then angrily blame her for being manipulative (“That kid always gets her way!”).

Third, Alicia took responsibility for setting clear rules about behavior and enforcing them. For example, throwing a tantrum was unacceptable behavior.
If Claudia did this, Alicia would pick her up and take her to her room, where she would have to stay until she calmed down. Alicia also clarified that it was not acceptable for Claudia to continue to ignore Carlos whenever he spoke to her. “You do not have to talk to Carlos if you don’t want to,” Alicia said to her daughter. “But if he asks you a question,
tell
him if you don’t want to talk about it instead of just ignoring him.” For several weeks Claudia proceeded to say “I don’t want to talk about it” every time Carlos initiated a conversation. Alicia decided that she could live with this behavior. Alicia also observed that the more she pursued her daughter to relate to Carlos, and the more Carlos attempted to move closer to Claudia, the more Claudia distanced. She and Carlos were both able to back off a bit and provide Claudia with the space she wanted. When Claudia no longer felt pressured to like Carlos or to feel close to him, she felt more comfortable and relaxed in his presence and in time she began to warm up to him.

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. As we sharpen our observational skills, some patterns may be easy to identify (“I notice that the more I ask Claudia to discuss her feelings about the divorce, the more she closes up. But when I leave her alone and calmly share some of my own reactions to the divorce, she will sometimes begin to talk about herself.”) Other patterns that involve three key people are more difficult to observe, as we shall see in the next chapter.

Recently I visited my parents in Phoenix. I made this particular trip because my father—who prides himself on having made it to age seventy-five without even a sniffle—suddenly had a heart attack. It was a wonderful visit, but after I returned, I found myself feeling intense surges of anger toward my children. During the next few days, Matthew began waking up with headaches, Ben became increasingly rambunctious, and the boys fought constantly with each other. My two children became the prime target for my free-floating anger.

As I talked my situation over with my friend Kay Kent, a sensitive expert on families, I began to make the connection between my anger toward my children and my visit home to my parents. The good time that I had had with my parents was a reminder, not only of the geographical distance between us, but also of how much I would miss them when they were no longer around. On this particular visit, I could no longer deny their age. My father was tired, considerably slowed down, and easily out of breath. My mother, a spirited survivor of two cancers and a recent surgery, seemed her usual self; however, I was all too aware of her mortality.

Kay suggested that I address this new awareness directly with my children and parents, and so I did. At the dinner table the following night, I apologized to my whole family for being such a grouch and grump and I explained to Matt and Ben that I was really feeling sad following my Phoenix trip because Grandma and Grandpa were getting old and Grandpa’s heart attack was a reminder to me that they would not be around forever and that one of them might die soon. “That,” I explained, “is why I’ve been so angry.” I also wrote a letter to my folks telling them how much I had enjoyed my visit and how, after my return home, I had come in touch with my concerns about their aging and my sadness about my eventual future without them.

What followed was quite dramatic: Both boys relaxed considerably and the fighting diminished. Each asked questions about death and dying and inquired for the first time about the specifics of their grandfather’s heart attack and grandmother’s cancer. I stopped feeling angry and things returned to normal.

The following week I received a letter from my father, who gave only a perfunctory reply to my self-disclosure by suggesting I not dwell on the morbid side of life. In the same envelope, however, he enclosed a separate lengthy letter to each of the boys explaining how the heart works and exactly what had happened in his own case. He concluded his letter to Matthew by directly addressing the subject of death. These letters, which were factual and warm, began the first correspondence between the two generations.

Underground issues from one relationship or context invariably fuel our fires in another. When we are aware of this process, we can pay our apologies to the misplaced target of our anger and get back on course: “I’m sorry I snapped at you, but I had a terrible day with my supervisor at work.” “I’m scared about my health and I guess that’s why I blew up at you.” “I’ve been angry at everybody all day and then I remembered today is the anniversary of my brother’s death.” Sometimes, however, we are not aware that we are detouring strong feelings of anger from one person to another—or that underground anxiety from one situation is popping up as anger somewhere else.

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.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he says. “There was an accident on the road and I got stuck.”

It is an entirely reasonable excuse, but Judy is furious. Not, however—as she experiences it—because of her
own
needs. She is not able to acknowledge that.

“I’m really upset!” she says, with intense anger in her voice. “Johnny and Mary [the children] have been waiting all day for you to come home. Now it’s almost their bedtime. And I’m especially worried about Johnny. You’ve hardly been with him this week. He has been missing you terribly. He is a son without a father!”

What is happening here? The question of Victor’s parenting may be a worthwhile subject for discussion, but it is not to the point. At this moment Judy is using the children as a deflection from an important issue between her and Victor. Victor, too, may have his own motives for colluding with this deflection.

Perhaps Judy feels that she has no right to be angry about Victor’s late return. After all, the meeting was an important part of his job and the traffic jam was not his doing. Her belief that her anger is not rational, legitimate, or mature may prevent her from being able to articulate it, even to herself. Or it may be that the issue is a loaded one. Victor’s lateness may touch on Judy’s long-buried anger regarding the extent to which Victor is pulling his weight in the marriage.

If Judy and Victor have a flexible relationship, free from unmanageable levels of anxiety, the triangle will be temporary and of little consequence. When Judy cools off a bit, she will be able to share her feelings with Victor, including what a hard day she had and how angry and frustrated she felt when he did not return at five to offer her company and relief. But what if Judy does not feel safe speaking to Victor in her own voice? What if this couple is rigidly guarded against identifying the underground conflicts in their marriage?

Over time, a triangle consisting of Judy, Victor, and one of the children may become rigidly entrenched. Judy may find herself constantly blowing up at one of the kids instead of at Victor or she may intensify her relationship with Mary or Johnny in a manner that will help keep things calm on the marital front. This can happen in any number of ways: Mother and Johnny may form an overly close relationship that will compensate for a distant marriage and help keep father in an outside position in the family. Mother may complain to her daughter about her husband, rather than confining these issues to the marriage, where they belong. Or one of the children may become a major focus for concern, perhaps through the development of an emotional or behavior problem, thus drawing Judy’s attention away from her own dissatisfaction in the marriage and perhaps enabling Victor and Judy to experience a pseudo-closeness as parents attempting to care for their troubled child.