Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships (26 page)
Read Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships Online
Authors: Harriet Lerner
Tags: #Anger Management, #Personal Growth, #Happiness, #Self-Help
If you can do some work on an important triangle in your first family, it will not only help you with your anger; it will influence every relationship that you are in. Do you want to give it a try? The first step, as always, is observation!
Sharpening Your Observational Skills
As you learn to observe your own position in a family triangle, you may want to diagram it. For example, when your mother calls and says, “Let me tell you what your brother, Joe, is doing now,” you might participate in a triangle involving you, your mother, and your brother.
When things are calm in the family, you and your mother discuss Joe’s problems (Position A). The relationship between your mother and Joe remains calm and distant because your mother is lowering her anxiety by talking with you, rather than dealing directly with her son. The relationship between you and your mother stays calm and close as you focus attention on your brother’s problems instead of identifying and addressing issues in the relationship between the two of you. Here, the triangle looks like this:
When stress increases, open conflict may break out between your mother and brother. You may then take a mediating position in the triangle, trying to be helpful to each party (Position C). You may say to your brother, “Mother really loves you.” To your mother you may advise, “I think what Joe needs from you is a firm hand. It’s not that he’s bad; he’s just testing the limits.” Your relationship with both your mother and your brother intensifies, while the conflictual side of the triangle is between your mother and brother. Here, the triangle looks like this:
If tension escalates further, the triangle may shift again. Your mother may get angry at you for not seeing the “truth” about your brother, Joe may get angry at you for not taking his side against mother, and you may get angry at one or both of them for the way they are behaving with you or each other. All three of you are in a blaming position and there is conflict on all sides of the triangle:
Can you now begin to identify your own position in a key family triangle? “Joe” may be your father, your grandmother, your cousin, or your aunt. If you’re saying, “This doesn’t apply to
my
family,” keep thinking about it.
How would you respond to your mother’s telephone call if your task was to move out of the triangle rather than participate in it?
Close this book and get clear on what you would say, before reading further. If you feel stuck and unclear, reread Chapter 8.
When your mother calls to talk about Joe (or he talks about her), you can casually show disinterest. Remember that triangles are driven by emotionality and anxiety (our own included), so that the more low-keyed you can be, the better. You might say, “Well, I’m not sure what Joe is up to. Beats me what it’s all about. I just don’t know what to say. To change the subject, Mother, what are you up to lately?” When one party pressures you to give advice or take sides, you can do neither, and instead express your confidence in both parties: “Well, I don’t have the slightest idea about what’s going on, but I love you both a lot and I trust that the two of you can work it out.” If your mother’s focus on your brother remains persistent and intense, you might address the issue more directly in a nonblaming way. “You know, Mother, I feel kind of selfish about our time together and I’d like to use it talking about us and what’s happening in our lives without bringing my brother in. I know you’re struggling with him, but I don’t have the slightest idea how to be helpful, and it takes time away from you and me. When I’m with you, I like to talk about you, and when I’m with him, I like to talk about him. Right now I’m much more interested in hearing about . . .” In extremely rigid triangles, even greater directness may be required: “Mom, I just can’t listen to you talk about Joe [Dad, etc.] anymore. I love you both and I need to work on my own relationship with each of you. I’ve no way to be helpful, and for some reason I just start feeling tense when you talk about him.”
The exact words you choose are far less important than your ability to maintain a warm, nonjudgmental, nonreactive position. That is, you can calmly communicate that your relationship to both parties is important to you and that you have nothing to offer in the way of help, advice, blame, or criticism as far as their struggle with each other is concerned. Keep in mind that changing a pattern is never a one-shot deal but something we do over time—getting derailed when intensity mounts and then getting back on track again.
1.
If you are angry with one family member, put your emotional energy into dealing directly with that person.
If your reaction is, “But I’ve tried everything and nothing works,” reread this book and think about new ways to move differently. If you feel stuck in an unsatisfying relationship and you want to talk about what is wrong with the other person, talk to someone outside the immediate family who does not have a relationship with the person at whom you are angry. It can be enormously helpful to share your struggle with a close female relative who may have been through a similar experience,
if
you can steer clear of a blaming position as you learn more about how she handled her own problem.
2.
Avoid using a child (even a grown-up one) as a marital therapist or a confidant.
Don’t try to protect your children by telling them what’s wrong with their father even if you are convinced that it will help them to know the “truth.” Children need to discover their own truths about family members by navigating their own relationships.
3.
Distinguish between privacy and secrecy.
Each generation needs its privacy. Siblings need privacy from parents, and parents need privacy of their own. Secrecy, however, is a cardinal sign of a triangle when it crosses the generations. (“Don’t tell your father that you had an abortion, because it will upset him too much.” “Don’t tell your sister that Dad lost his job, because she’ll tell the neighbors.” “Dad, I’m living with Alex now, but you can’t tell Mom about it.”) We may have the loftiest motives (“So-and-so just couldn’t handle the information”), but the bottom line is that we are asking one person to be closer to us at the expense of another. If you are at the listening end of the secret-keeping business, you can let people know that there are certain secrets that you’re just not comfortable keeping.
4.
Keep the lines of communication open in the family without inviting others to blame or take sides in your battles.
It’s fine to tell your mother or your kids, “Yes, Frank and I are really having a hard time in our marriage now. We have many differences and we are struggling to work them out.” This is quite different from inviting a family member to be your ally or take your side. Do your best to block other family members from getting involved in your battles. If little Susie says, “Daddy is just terrible to divorce you,” you can say, “Susie, I am feeling angry with your father now, but it’s my job to work on that, and not yours. Your job is to work on having the best relationship with me and with your dad that
you
can.”
All of the above are different reminders that every family member needs to have his or her own person-to-person relationship with every other family member—that is separate from your anger and your relationship issues with a particular party. You may be enraged at your ex-husband or black-sheep sister, but try not to discourage other family members from having the best relationship with that person that they can. Not only will others be
more
sympathetic with your situation in the long run, but you will be less likely to get entrenched in a bitter position in which your anger only serves to hold the clock still.
Katy’s story (Chapter 6) is one illustration of how useful it can be, not only to share our problems with other family members, but also to solicit from them information about how they dealt with similar issues.
If you didn’t do so when you read about the Kesler family (Chapter 7),
put together your own family diagram.
You’ll be surprised at how many things—birth order of aunts and uncles, marriage dates, causes and dates of grandparents’ deaths—you don’t know. You may also be surprised at the connections you can make if you study this diagram. For example, you may notice that the year that you and your brother were constantly at each other’s throats was the same year that your grandmother’s health began deteriorating. Perhaps the fighting between you and your brother reflected the chronically high level of anxiety in the family at that time. The more you can enlarge your focus to the broader multigenerational picture, the less likely you will be to blame or diagnose yourself or others.
