The Dance of Intimacy

Harriet Lerner

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061741074
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

In The Dance of Intimacy, the bestselling author of The Dance of Anger outlines the steps to take so that good relationships can be strengthened and difficult ones can be healed. Taking a careful look at those relationships where intimacy is most challenged--by distance, intensity, or pain--she teaches us about the specific changes we can make to achieve a more solid sense of self and a more intimate connectedness with others. Combining clear advice with vivid case examples, Dr. Lerner offers us the most solid, helpful book on intimate relationships that both women and men may ever encounter.

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Reviewing Self-Focus: The Foundations of Intimacy

Compared to the Good Old Days (or the Bad Old Days, depending on how you look at it), prescriptions for intimacy are improving. We are now encouraged, at least in principle, to bring to our relationships nothing less than a strong, assertive, separate, independent, and authentic self. Yet these agreeable adjectives have become cultural clichés, their meanings trivialized or obscured. Popular notions of “selfhood” do not easily translate into clear guidelines for genuine intimacy and solid connectedness with others. In the name of either protecting or asserting the self, we may fail to take a position on something that matters or we may cut off from significant others, operate at their expense, or behave as if we have the truth of the universe.

I hope that this book has helped you appreciate the challenge of intimacy and all that it requires. Working toward intimacy is nothing short of a lifelong task. The goal is to be in relationships where the separate “I-ness” of both parties can be appreciated and enhanced, and where neither competence nor vulnerability is lost sight of in the self or the other. Intimacy requires a clear self, relentless self-focus, open communication, and a profound respect for differences. It requires the capacity to stay emotionally connected to significant others during anxious times, while taking a clear position for self, based on one’s values, beliefs, and principles.

Laying the groundwork for intimacy is such a difficult challenge because what we do “naturally” will naturally take us in the wrong direction. As we have seen, our normal and reflexive ways of managing anxiety inevitably lead us to participate in patterns, polarities, and triangles that keep us painfully stuck. The higher and more chronic the anxiety, the more entrenched the pattern—and the more courage and motivation we must summon to sustain even a small change.

How You Can Best Use This Book

Go slowly and thoughtfully, for starters. The book’s lessons are far too complex to translate into a list of how-to skills, although careful attention to each woman’s story will provide you with more than enough ideas about what you might work on for the next decade. My first book, The Dance of Anger, lays out clear and specific guidelines for changing stuck relationship patterns. If you are interested in learning more about triangles, reactivity, styles of managing anxiety (pursuing, distancing, overfunctioning, underfunctioning, and child-focus), and countermoves, I suggest that you read The Dance of Anger as well. Each book will help you appreciate and consolidate the lessons of the other. You may also decide to start a “Dance” group with other women, using these books as a springboard for discussion and for work on important relationships.

You will make the best use of this book if you are willing to struggle with theory rather than to focus narrowly on technique. When a relationship is going badly, or not going at all, we obviously want “techniques”—that is, we want to know what we can do to make things different. We may want a six-step program to fix things, a list of Do’s and Don’ts, and (if we’re honest) new maneuvers to change or shape up the other person. Even the best how-to advice, however, will at best yield short-lived results unless we struggle to understand the underlying theory or principles—in this case, a theory about how anxiety is managed and how relationship systems operate under stress.

The fact is, there are no techniques to “make intimacy happen,” although countless self-help books offer this promise. Intimacy can happen only after we work toward a more solid self, based on a clear understanding of our part in the relationship patterns that keep us stuck.

The principles in this book may sound clear and simple when they are illustrated through the lives of other women. But when you try to apply what you have learned to your own relationships, you will see how quickly complexities and ambiguities arise. In this final chapter, I will help you to review and consolidate some important concepts that provide a foundation for thinking about intimacy. The more solid your understanding, the more clearly you will make your own decisions about how, when, if, and with whom you want to experiment with change. Let’s look first at feelings and reactivity, and then at the complex principle of self-focus.

Thinking About Feelings

When I started writing this book, I asked eight people to define “an intimate relationship.” The majority responded with a variation of the same theme: “A relationship in which you can express your true feelings.” The word “feelings” was unanimously emphasized, their free and spontaneous expression highlighted. I would agree: A truly intimate relationship is one in which we can be who we are, which means being open about our selves. Obviously the sharing of feelings is an integral part of intimacy.

And yet if you go back through this book, you will notice little focus on “getting out feelings” and none on “letting it all hang out.” Rather, I have emphasized observing, thinking, planning, and learning to stay calm in the midst of intensity. Does this mean that feelings are wrong or bad, or that their full and spontaneous expression will always impede rather than facilitate the process of intimacy and change?

Certainly not. In flexible relationships, the emotional tone we use to take a position becomes relatively unimportant—a matter of personal style. With my husband, children, and certain friends, for example, I occasionally engage in impassioned arguments about “who’s right,” and if things don’t get too stuck, I enjoy these exchanges. At certain times, however, and in other relationships, I will proceed with as much thoughtfulness and calm as I can muster.

It is always important for us to be aware of feelings. Our feelings exist for good reason and so deserve our attention and respect. Even uncomfortable feelings that we might prefer to avoid, such as anger and depression, may serve to preserve the dignity and integrity of the self. They signal a problem, remind us that business cannot continue as usual, and ultimately speak to the necessity for change. But as I explained in The Dance of Anger, venting feelings does not necessarily solve the problem causing us pain.

Venting our feelings may clear (or muddy) the air, and may leave us feeling better (or worse). When we live in close quarters with someone, strong emotional exchanges are just a predictable part of the picture and it’s nice to know that our relationships can survive or even be enhanced by them. But venting feelings, in and of itself, will not change the relationship dances that block real intimacy and get us into trouble. In stuck relationships, venting feelings may only rigidify old patterns, ensuring that change will not occur.

In some instances, a passionate display of intensity is a turning point, even in a stuck relationship, because it indicates to ourselves and others that we “really mean it.” It is part of a process in which we move toward clarifying the limits of what is acceptable and what is not. But just as frequently the opposite is true: reactivity serves to “let off steam,” following which things will continue as usual. Reactivity and intensity often breed more of the same. When it becomes chronic, reactivity blocks self-focus, which is the only foundation on which an intimate relationship can be built.

Emotions are not bad or wrong, and women certainly are not “too emotional,” as we have often been told. The ability to recognize and express feelings is a strength, not a weakness. It does not help anyone, however, to be buffeted about by feelings or to drown in them. It does help to be able to think about our feelings. By “thinking,” I do not mean intellectualizing or distancing from emotional issues, which men tend to do especially well. I simply mean that we can reflect on our feelings and make conscious decisions about how, when, and with whom we want to express them.

Even as we strive for objectivity, it is not easy to distinguish between true emotionality and anxiety-driven reactivity. When Adrienne (Chapter 5) cried with her dad about his impending death, they were sharing an emotional experience. But when she avoided dealing with his cancer—and instead fought with or distanced from her husband—that was reactivity. When Linda told her sister, Claire, how terrified she was of losing her, and later shared how scared she was that they would end up as distant as their mother and their aunt Sue, she was in touch with her real feelings. But when she angrily lectured her sister or mother about what they should do differently, that was reactivity. Reactivity is an anxiety-driven response that blocks a truly intimate exchange—one that encourages the open sharing of thoughts and feelings, as well as problem solving around difficult issues.

Because anxiety will always be hitting us from all quarters, reactivity is simply a fact of emotional life. As we have seen, the question is reactivity . . . and then what? To move toward a more gratifying togetherness and authentic emotional exchange, we may first need to deintensify the situation to lower the anxiety. When an important relationship is stuck, we become powerful and courageous agents of change by making a new move in a low-key way, by taking a new position with humor and a bit of teasing, by making our point in a paragraph or two rather than in a long treatise. Trying out new steps slowly and calmly is also what allows us to keep in check our own anxiety and guilt about change, so that we can stay on course and stay self-focused when the powerful countermoves start rolling in.

Understanding Self-Focus

When couples enter therapy for “intimacy problems,” they are invariably other-focused; that is, they see the other person as the problem and they believe the solution is for that person to change. I use the term “couple” here in the broadest sense, to mean any and all ongoing relationships between two persons.

What happens if a couple remains other-focused over time? She continues to insist that the only way the relationship will improve is for him to become more responsible. He says that instead she must become less critical and more sensitive to his needs. What happens is that no change will occur. I have yet to see a relationship improve unless at least one individual can give up his or her negative or worried focus on the other and put that same energy back into his or her own life.

Every courageous act of change that I’ve described in this book, like those in our own lives, requires a move toward greater selfhood or self-focus. Whether the other party is our lover, spouse, child, sibling, parent, friend, or boss, self-focus requires us to give up our nonproductive efforts to change or fix the other party (which is not possible) and to put as much energy into working on the self. Only then can we move out of stuck patterns and create a new dance.

We need to understand, however, that self-focus does not mean self-blame. It does not mean that we view our selves as the “cause” of our problems, or that we view our struggles as being isolated from the broader context of family and culture. It certainly does not mean that we remain silent in the face of discrimination, unfairness, and injustice.

To clarify the point, let’s momentarily consider the changes brought about by the second wave of feminism. None of these changes could have occurred had we denied and disqualified our anger at men or maintained a narrow focus on the question “What’s wrong with me?” At the same time, however, feminists could not have become effective agents of change if we had gotten stuck in reactive gear and focused our primary energies on trying to transform men or make them into nicer and fairer people. The women’s movement changed and challenged all our lives because feminists recognized that if we did not clarify our own needs, define the terms of our own lives, and take action on our own behalf, no one else would do it for us. Thus, feminists began busily writing women back into language and history, establishing countless programs and services central to women’s lives, starting new scholarly journals and women’s studies programs in universities, to name just a few actions. Only in response to our changing our own selves, and to our taking individual and collective action on our own behalf, would men be called on to change.

Moving toward self-focus does not mean narrowing our perspective. To the contrary, it means viewing our intimacy problems in the broadest possible context of family and culture. This broader perspective helps us think more calmly and objectively about our situation and how we might change our own part in it. Our part in it is the only thing we can change.

Self-Focus and Humility

Self-focus requires more than an appreciation of the fact that we cannot change the other person and that doing so is not our job. It also requires a transformation of consciousness, a different worldview from what comes naturally. I refer here to the challenge of truly appreciating how little we can know about human behavior and how impossible it is to be an expert on the other person. As I emphasized at the start of this book, we cannot know how and when another person is ready to work on something and how she or he (and others) will tolerate the consequences of change. These things are difficult enough to know for our own selves. Yet in the name of love and good intentions, we readily assume an “I-know-what’s-best-for-you” attitude. This attitude precludes the possibility of intimacy and makes it much harder for other persons to assume responsibility for solving their own problems and managing their own pain.

Self-Focus and Being a Self

At the same time, we have seen that taking the focus off the other does not mean silence, distance, cutoff, or a policy of “anything goes.” Rather, it means that as we become less of an expert on the other, we become more of an expert on the self. As we work toward greater self-focus, we become better able to give feedback, to share our perspective, to state clearly our values and beliefs and then stand firmly behind them. As Adrienne and Linda’s stories have illustrated, we can do this as part of defining a self, and not because we have the answers for the other person. The following story shows another example of a woman working toward greater self-focus.

Regina’s husband, Richard, became severely depressed after losing his job and his father in the same year. He spent more and more time in bed, isolating himself from others and failing to put much effort into seeking new employment. For several months, Regina, a natural overfunctioner, organized herself around his problem. She did double-duty housework and childcare, because Richard said he couldn’t handle it. She circled help-wanted ads in the newspaper and brought Richard leads about job openings. She turned down social engagements he wished to avoid. Increasingly, she accommodated to her husband’s problem or tried to solve it. Richard’s depression persisted and worsened.

After several months, Regina was feeling exhausted and out of sorts. She told Richard that she wasn’t taking good care of herself and that she needed to make doing so a priority. She joined an exercise class, began going out with friends, and accepted social invitations even though Richard stayed home. She also stopped covering up or functioning for him. For example, when the phone rang and he said, “Tell Al I’m out. I’m too depressed to talk,” she handed him the phone and said warmly, “Tell him yourself.” When Richard insisted that she keep his depression a secret, she clarified a position she could comfortably live with. “Look, I won’t tell your mom or Al, because I figure that’s your job. But I have talked with my parents and Sue about it, because I can’t have a relationship with them and keep such a big secret.” Increasingly, Regina struggled to clarify a responsible position for herself and she stopped organizing her behavior around Richard’s symptoms and his demands.

When Richard continued to remain in hibernation, Regina walked into the bedroom one Saturday and said, “Richard, if this continues for one more week, I’m going to be so depressed myself that I’m going to crawl into that bed with you. Then this family will really be in a fix. So what are we going to do about it?”

These were not just words on Regina’s part. She really meant it. She had no answers for him, although she had a few suggestions if he were interested. What she did know was that she could not continue with the status quo for much longer, for her own sake—and out of her concern for him and the family as well. At this point she was no longer willing to keep his depression a secret from any friends or family.

Regina ended up taking a bottom-line position that Richard had to do something because she could no longer live with the situation. Richard was briefly hospitalized and then began psychotherapy. Regina was able to give him lots of space to struggle with his depression because she empathized with his pain without focusing on it. She put her primary energy into her own problems, which she shared with him. And when he initially “couldn’t listen,” she addressed this with him over time (“Rich, I hear yo...