Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships (20 page)

The third leg of the triangle need not be a child. It could be Judy’s mother, an in-law, or a person with whom Judy or Victor is having an affair. Triangles take on an endless variety of forms; but in each case, the intensity between Judy and a third party will be fueled by unaddressed issues in her marriage, and marital issues will become increasingly difficult to work on as the triangle becomes more entrenched. Of course, Judy’s anger at her husband may be gaining steam from unaddressed issues with others, such as her own mother or father.

People of both sexes and all ages participate in multiple, interlocking triangles that may span several generations. But, as we have seen, women often have a greater, exaggerated fear about rocking the boat in an important relationship with a man. Thus, we are likely to avoid a direct confrontation and instead detour our anger through a relationship with a less powerful person, such as a child or another woman. How might such a triangle operate at work?

Melissa’s sense of gratitude for being among the “chosen few,” her dread of her own anger at male authorities, and her unconscious fear that greater personal clarity might lead to a confrontation that would lose her the approval of those in power—all combined to keep her from feeling angry and addressing issues directly where they belonged. Melissa’s customary style was to behave deferentially to high-status males and to protect men in authority from the criticisms of other women. Perhaps this style played some part in her landing the director’s position to begin with.

Melissa began to deal with her underground anxiety and anger in a triangular fashion. First she began to supervise her nursing staff very closely, moving in quickly at the slightest hint of a problem. Over time she became increasingly reactive to one particular nurse, Suzanne, who became the third leg of the triangle. Suzanne was an outspoken, highly competent young woman who was not particularly mindful of rules and paperwork deadlines and who easily voiced the anger at male leadership that Melissa could not. Melissa overreacted to any careless error that Suzanne made or paperwork deadline that she failed to meet, and began to treat her as a “special problem” who needed to be watched. For example, Melissa wrote long memos to another of Suzanne’s supervisors about Suzanne’s late paperwork rather than express her concerns directly to Suzanne. As Suzanne’s anxiety skyrocketed, she unwittingly escalated things further by running around and trying to form allies among her fellow nurses to join her in criticizing Melissa. Tensions between the two women continued to mount. Suzanne’s late paperwork became a more serious problem and six months down the road Melissa fired her, with the seal of approval from her male superiors.

Melissa and Suzanne were involved in a triangle that began at the highest levels of the organization. The relationship between Melissa and her male superiors could stay calm and nonconflictual because the underground anger was played out lower down the hierarchy, in this case at Suzanne’s expense. Melissa made no moves to empower the nursing staff within the organization, and this remained the unspoken and unacknowledged hot issue between her and the male authorities.

Was Melissa, then, the
cause
of the problem? Did it start with her? Of course not. If Melissa had been in an institution where women were truly empowered and where she, as a female, was not a numerically scarce commodity at the top, her behavior would have been quite different. In fact, research indicates that women who hold positions of authority in male-dominated settings are not able to clearly define their own selves or successfully identify issues common to women until the relative numbers of men and women become more balanced. No one person was to blame for the scapegoating of Suzanne, nor was she a helpless victim of circumstances who had no participation in her fate.

In the best of all possible worlds, we might envision separate, person-to-person relationships with our friends, coworkers, and family members that were
not
excessively influenced by other relationships. For example, our relationship with our mother and that with our father would not be largely defined by the fact that they were battling something out together. We would stay out of conflicts between other parties and keep other people from getting in the middle of our own fights. If we were angry at Sue, we would go to Sue about it and not complain to Sally about Sue. We would not detour anger and intensity from one relationship to another. That’s the ideal. However, we achieve it only more or less. Triangles are present in all human systems. When anxiety mounts between two people or conflicts begin to surface, a third party will automatically and unconsciously be drawn in. All of us participate in numerous interlocking triangles we are not even aware of. Many of these are not particularly problematic, but one or more may well be. How do we get out of something that we may not even realize we’re in?

Understanding triangles requires that we keep an eye on two things; First, what unresolved and unaddressed issues with an important other (not infrequently someone from an earlier generation) are getting played out in our current relationships? Intense anger at someone close to us can signal that we are carrying around strong, unacknowledged emotions from another important relationship. Second, what is our part in maintaining triangular patterns that keep us stuck? To find out, we must begin the complex task of observing our three-person patterns. Let’s consider a key triangle in a family that was plagued by anger and anxiety on all fronts.

In the first few minutes of our first appointment, Ms. Kesler’s view of the problem became clear. The “problem” in the family was Billy and Billy’s father. If we could ask Mr. Kesler, he might see the “problem” as Billy and Billy’s mother. It is expectable, predictable, and quite normal for family members to define a problem in this way. When we feel angry, we tend to see
people
rather than
patterns
as the problem.

Below is a diagram of the Keslers’ nuclear family. Squares stand for males and circles for females. The horizontal line connecting a square and a circle indicates a marriage. Children are drawn on vertical lines coming down from the marriage line, in chronological order, beginning with the oldest on the left. We can see that eight-year-old Billy is the first-born child, who has a six-year-old brother, Joe, and a four-year-old sister, Ann.

Billy watched television after dinner instead of doing some math problems that he had agreed to finish at this time. Father noticed first and sternly reprimanded Billy for behaving “irresponsibly” and “failing to meet his agreement.” Billy hedged (“I’ll do it after this program is over”) and his father became angrier. Mother, who was doing the dishes and listening from the next room, yelled from the kitchen, “John, there is no need to be so hard on the boy. The program will be over in fifteen minutes.” Father yelled back, “You stay out of this! If you didn’t spoil Billy to begin with, the situation in school would never have gotten this far!” Mother and father continued to argue while Billy retreated to his room and lay down on the bed. Father then distanced from mother, who pursued him unsuccessfully and then withdrew herself.

Before Ms. Kesler spoke up, the triangle consisted of two calm sides and one conflictual side between father and son:

When Ms. Kesler entered the interaction in a rescuing position toward Billy, she became the focus of Mr. Kesler’s criticisms and the triangle shifted:

This triangle would not necessarily be problematic if the pattern was transient and flexible. Let us suppose, for example, that the following events occurred later that evening: After Billy went to sleep, Mr. and Ms. Kesler talked together about their different perspectives on Billy’s problem. They recognized that they had different opinions about the meanings of their son’s behavior but were nonetheless able to reach a consensus on how to handle Billy that they both could support. Mr. Kesler then shared with his wife that he was upset about an incident at work and perhaps that was part of the reason why he had reacted so strongly to Billy. Ms. Kesler speculated that perhaps she was especially sensitive to his criticizing Billy because her own dad was always fighting with her older brother (also a first-born son, like Billy) and this had been very stressful for her. Mr. and Ms. Kesler would leave the subject of Billy behind as they moved on to talk about other issues in their personal or work lives or in their relationship together.

But such flexibility did not characterize the Kesler family. Instead, Ms. Kesler was describing a repetitive pattern that was moving in increasingly rapid and intense cycles. When this family was under stress, the following occurred:

Father was stuck in a
blaming
position toward Billy. He became intense at the first sign of misbehavior or irresponsibility on the part of his son. (“You’re going to get into deep trouble if you don’t shape up!”)

Mother was stuck in a
rescuing
position toward Billy and a
blaming
position toward father. (“John, that boy needs a little love and understanding from you, not an iron hand!”) Sometimes she would adopt the role of the
mediating
, or
fix-it
, person. She would offer both her husband and her son advice on how they might better handle each other and themselves.