When a Child Is Betrayed
by a Parent’s Love
Your children . . . are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
—Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
INCEST CONFUSES AND STIRS US. The word is usually used to describe sexual contact between a parent and child. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines incest as “sexual intercourse be-tween persons too closely related to marry legally.” There are both overt and covert forms of incest.
Overt Incest
Overt incest occurs when there is sexual contact in any dependent relationship involving blood relatives, the most obvious being between parent and child. A more inclusive definition is given by Mike Lew in Victims No Longer where he states, “Incest is a violation of a position of trust, power, and protection.” It is the dependency in these relationships that is exploited by the adult for their sexual needs that crosses the incestuous line. As we shall discuss later, this is the same dependency that is leveraged by the parent to turn a child into a surrogate partner.
Sexual contact in dependent relationships is never justifiable because there is always a loss of choice. People in dependent relationships seldom challenge those in positions of authority, even when they feel victimized and violated. This is especially true when the violation is between parent and child. One of the ways parents justify their behavior is to believe, “This is my child, so I can do what I want.”
Children are not property. They feel terrified and degraded when a parent, or any adult, is sexual with them. Cooperation does not equal enjoyment. They are too scared, too emotionally needy, or too starved for affection to say no. Even if children report that at some level they enjoyed the sexual contact, it is still emotionally damaging. Children are generally too needy and confused to understand inappropriate sexual touch. Their enjoyment is, at some level, a source of guilt and shame later in life: “It was my fault because I enjoyed it and didn’t say no. All my life I carried guilt because I thought I seduced my father. It wasn’t until I went over the wreckage of my life that I realized I was a victim of incest.”
Historically, most reports of overt incest involved girls. However, many boys have been sexually violated by both women and men. Unfortunately, instances of boys being violated have been underreported. This is beginning to change, thanks to the efforts of groups like Male Survivor. (See appendix and bibliography for resources and books about sexually abused boys.) Reported cases generally involve an adult man with a boy; however, many boys report being sexually violated by their mothers, stepmothers, aunts, female neighbors, and babysitters. Sexual stereotypes about men contribute to the underreporting of boys who are incest victims. For example, the myth that “men are just more sexual than women and always want sex” suggests a young boy would welcome being sexually stimulated by an adult woman and would not necessarily feel victimized. On the contrary, a young boy just learning about his body and sexuality is overwhelmed to have a woman touch him in a sexual way.
One man described his shame and confusion during his childhood relationship with his mother:
My mother always insisted on washing my genitals, even when I was old enough to do it myself. Sometimes it was embarrassing; other times I enjoyed it. I didn’t know what to think. Sometimes she’d give me kisses on the lips that seemed to last too long. I would often find myself sexually aroused when I looked at her. I privately felt I was strange, and I worried that someone would find out. To this day I feel like I was some kind of pervert, because I was sexually aroused by my mother’s presence.
A victim of overt incest commonly reacts by internalizing fault—in other words, the victim feels responsible for what occurred. This internalization of fault or guilt inhibits healthy expression of anger. Instead, self-hatred festers. The expression of anger is necessary, however, in the healing and letting go process of an incest victim.
Overt incest is one of the most frightening and traumatic experiences a young girl or boy has to endure. A common myth is that overt incest is the exception rather than the rule in American families. This is not the case. The National Center for the Victims of Crime reports that one in four girls and one in six boys will have experienced an episode of sexual abuse by the time they are eighteen years of age. Another myth is that most sexual abuse is perpetrated by strangers or nonfamily members. In fact, according to Childhelp, 68 percent of all childhood sexual abuse is committed by family members.
Yet, as traumatic and injurious as overt incest is, healing is possible if adults are gently guided and supported through the pain and into expression of their feelings. Victims have to be encouraged to express anger and separate from the shame and guilt. They need to be reassured that they did not cause the incest. Over time, this approach helps victims grieve the loss of their sexual innocence. Experiencing the sadness and shedding tears permit a cleansing from the incest experience. In its place grows comfortableness with one’s sexuality and the hope for a healthy sexual future.
Generally, incest victims who do not recover are the ones who keep the experience a secret, deny it ever occurred, or minimize its effects. In these cases, comments frequently include statements like: “Well, it only happened once . . . maybe a couple of times,” or “It’s easier just to forget about it.” As a result, the victim remains stuck in the guilt and shame. This contributes to dissatisfying intimate and sexual relationships.
Victims need support and appropriate professional guidance to recover from the violation. Incest victims (both as children and adults) who report their experiences to a helping professional (therapist, doctor, clergy, nurse, or teacher) may find they are not believed. Worse, they are sometimes accused of being the seducer. This furthers the shame and is another violation. Appropriate professional guidance that does not further the shame is available and should be sought. Support groups such as Incest Survivors Anonymous and Survivors of Incest Anonymous are available for help. (See appendix for listings of these and other support groups.)
If children are discounted by a helping professional or any adult, they fall into deep despair. Helping professionals must be willing to follow through and intervene when necessary. A helping professional who receives a report of incest and consciously chooses not to take appropriate action participates in the victimizing process. This is also true if a child goes to one parent complaining that the other is sexually abusive. For that parent to minimize or deny the violation is to become a participant in the incest. The child is being abused by both parents through the direct sexual contact of one and the failure to protect of the other.
Covert Incest
Victims of covert incest, also referred to as emotional incest, suffer pain similar to that of overt victims. Understanding covert incest as a sexual violation is less clear, since direct sexual contact does not occur. This is not to imply that it is easy to identify or sort feelings of overt incest: it is not. However, similar feelings and dynamics are at work with covert incest. Although estimated numbers of overt incest victims exist, similar statistics are not available regarding covert victims. The numbers are potentially staggering, since the possibility for covert incest exists anytime a chronic break occurs in the emotional, spiritual, or sexual bond between parents.
Covert incest occurs when a child becomes the object of a parent’s affection, love, passion, and preoccupation. The parent, motivated by the loneliness and emptiness created by a chronically troubled marriage or relationship, makes the child a surrogate partner. The boundary between caring love and incestuous love is crossed when the relationship with the child exists to meet the needs of the parent rather than those of the child. As the deterioration in the marriage progresses, the dependency on the child grows, and the opposite-sex parent’s response to the child becomes increasingly characterized by desperation, jealousy, and a disregard for personal boundaries. The child becomes an object to be manipulated and used so the parent can avoid the pain and reality of a troubled marriage.
The child feels used and trapped; these are the same feelings overt incest victims experience. Attempts at play, autonomy, and friendship render the child guilt-ridden and lonely, never able to feel okay about his or her needs. Over time, the child becomes preoccupied with the parent’s needs and feels protective and concerned. A psychological marriage between parent and child results; the child becomes the parent’s surrogate spouse.
A healthy emotional, sexual, and spiritual bond between parents creates an unspoken, unseen boundary that properly channels sexual feelings and energies. When a child grows up in a family in which the marriage is chronically disturbed, sexual feelings and energy are never put into perspective. To the child, the parent’s love feels more confining than freeing, more demanding than giving, and more intrusive than nurturing. The relationship becomes sexually energized and violating, even without the presence of sexual innuendos, sexual touch, or conscious sexual feelings on the part of the parent. The chronic lack of attachment in the marriage is enough to create an atmosphere of sexualized energy that spills over to the child.
The sexual energy or tension created in a relationship of covert incest is more akin to young love than to a caring parent-child love. Eric described his story of growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who kept him close.
My mother and I fought a lot, but I would have killed anyone who put their hands on her—including my father. Sometimes I had fits of jealous rage when she paid more attention to my father or some other man. She was mine and I wasn’t going to share her.
Monica described her experience this way:
I always felt special being Daddy’s girl, especially when he brought home presents just for me and no one else. I wanted to be with him wherever he went; I was so in love with my daddy.
There is an important difference between overt and covert incest: while the overt victim feels abused, the covert victim feels idealized and privileged. Yet, underneath the thin mask of feeling special and privileged rests the same trauma of the overt victim: rage, anger, shame, and guilt. The sense of exploitation resulting from being a parent’s surrogate partner or spouse is buried behind a wall of illusion and denial. The adult covert incest victim remains stuck in a pattern of living that is aimed at keeping the special relationship going with the opposite-sex parent. It is a pattern of always trying to please mommy or daddy. In this way, the adult continues to be idealized. A privileged and special position is maintained, and the pain and suffering of a lost childhood are denied. Separation never occurs, and feelings of being trapped in the psychological marriage deepen. This interferes with the victim’s capacity for healthy intimacy and sexuality.
James’s description of his divorce is a common story.
Ann just got fed up with me putting my mother before her. We would be enjoying a Sunday, our only day off together. My mother would call, and I would run right over there. I knew it was hurting my marriage, but I couldn’t stand the guilt of not doing what my mother wanted. I felt trapped. Then I’d get angry with my wife and accuse her of being selfish when she complained. Finally, Ann divorced me. I never understood my relationship with my mother was so damaging. It always felt good being Mom’s “man of the house.” My feelings for her used to be special to me, but now I only feel guilty, confused, and angry.
Consider Bonnie’s story. A bright, attractive, forty-year-old professional, she can’t understand why she has never married, despite wanting to.
As I started dating, I kept bringing men home for my dad to approve of, but he never did. I went through one relationship after another. I felt I would never find a man as good as my daddy. So my relationships became less and less meaningful and exclusively sexual. I became addicted to sex. When I began to need to be physically abused to be sexually aroused, I finally sought help. I had traveled far astray from my original dream of getting married to a man as good as Daddy. During therapy I learned that Daddy’s special love for me actually left me feeling ashamed and angry. I had no idea being Daddy’s little girl wasn’t normal and set me up for a life of pain and loneliness.
These stories and similar ones are told by men and women who have been their parents’ partners. The seduction inherent in these psychological marriages is subtle and insidious, as is its effect on one’s capacity for a fulfilling sexual and intimate life. Since the parent-child relationship is used to meet the needs of the parent in the psychological marriage, the child feels ashamed of legitimate needs and fears displeasing the parent. As unhealthy as it is, the child has no choice but to actively participate in meeting the parent’s needs. The child already feels emotionally abandoned, and expressing needs raises the fear of more abandonment. Children assign blame to themselves and find it difficult to understand or see that the needs of the parent are self-serving. They feel guilty and obligated, and with no other option, they strive to please. They are trapped.
As the children become adults, this entrapment continues as long as the reality of being a covert incest victim is denied. Adults continue to feel ashamed of their dependency needs and seek to fulfill parents’ needs at a cost to their own ability to be intimate. One important ingredient in learning to be intimate is to accept one’s own personal dependency needs. The silent seduction, if not faced directly, continues to sabotage the desire to reap the benefits of intimacy and love with another.
The Family System
All families function as a system in which one person’s actions affect another and vice versa. Although each member functions independently, that member also affects and is affected by the whole. Salvador Minuchin, in Families and Family Therapy, says the family system has a function or purpose of seeking to bring itself back into balance or stability when disrupted. So in the case of a marriage not bonded in a healthy way, the parents’ unmet dependency, intimacy, and emotional needs will be met by the rest of the system—the children.
In a covertly incestuous relationship, the parent complains to the child about the difficulties in the marriage. The child becomes the parent’s confidante. Loneliness, bitterness, and dissatisfaction with the marriage and sex life are common topics in these discussions. The child feels “icky” about it, but quickly comes to the parent’s rescue and begins to serve as the surrogate spouse the system is lacking. Both parents are active participants in this covertly incestuous relationship. One is getting some needs met through the child and the other is relieved at not having to deal with the reality of the unsatisfied partner. Covert incest victims often report that the same-sex parent encouraged them to comfort the opposite-sex parent after a marital fight or in their absence with statements like, “You take care of your mother while I’m gone; I’m counting on you.” The child, hoping to get some of his or her own needs met, readily obliges.
Once the boundary between parent and child is crossed in a covertly incestuous relationship, the potential for more victimization exists. For example, if the oldest boy is in a psychological marriage with his mother, he may act out the covert sexualized energy with a younger sister in an overt sexual way. What started out as a spillover of unmet intimate and sexual needs from the marriage to the oldest boy in a covert way, becomes overt incest between siblings. This example clearly demonstrates how one person’s behavior in a family affects the family system as a whole.
The family system works to seek balance and tries to correct itself, even in adulthood. As long as the abuse or neglect experienced in childhood remains buried within, we re-create our family in adult relationships. This is an effort to work out and resolve the childhood pain. Yes, the family system continues to affect one’s life even when one is no longer living at home and has dismissed childhood as gone and best forgotten.
As Emily put it:
I couldn’t believe I married a man just like my father . . . at least he felt that way to me. When I married him, he seemed the opposite of my dad, but after a while, we began responding to each other the way it happened with my dad. My husband began treating me like his “princess,” the same way my dad did. I couldn’t stand it, yet I acted in ways that demanded that kind of treatment from him. It wasn’t until I was about to divorce him that my therapist helped me see it wasn’t my husband I wanted to divorce, but my past . . . my father.
The covertly incestuous relationship system continues to affect one’s choice of partners, decisions about separation and divorce, sexuality, and all attempts at emotional fulfillment until the truth is faced and resolved. This is not about blaming or accusing parents. It is about assigning responsibility where it belongs: the parent’s relationship with the child. Children do not choose this relationship; it is created for them. Even as adults, we do not gain freedom of choice until we see the past clearly and experience our feelings about it. Relationships continue to be dictated by the sense of entrapment experienced as a surrogate partner to one’s parent. Assigning responsibility where it rightfully belongs is the first crucial step in gaining access to one’s true feelings, needs, and wants.
It is important to understand that parents re-create their own family systems. Most parents are not malicious and are not aware of the effect they have on their children because a part of their own childhood is buried within. Sadly, if one’s own childhood is not seen for what it really was, the pain of these incestuous relationships gets passed on from one generation to the next. If parents never recover their own lost childhoods, their grief deepens. They continue to expect their children to be there for them in ways they wished their parents had been. When this expectation goes unmet, parents see their children as ungrateful, unloving, and selfish. The result heightens struggles between adult children and aging parents. Willpower or the right set of moral standards isn’t enough to produce lasting, healthy changes. Only by facing one’s past can one take responsibility for oneself and reclaim the vitality surrendered by being a parent’s surrogate partner.
Let’s look at two specific types of family systems that produce a covertly incestuous relationship between a parent and a child—the alcoholic family and the dysfunctional family.
THE ALCOHOLIC FAMILY
Ann is a thirty-six-year-old professional and mother of two children. On the surface she always seemed happy and to have everything going for her. When her marriage began to collapse, she entered therapy and support groups for adult children of alcoholics. Ann described growing up in her alcoholic family.
My mother was the alcoholic in my life. I was the eldest of four children and always had the duties of taking care of my brothers and sisters, the house, and my dad. I resented my mother for this. But my dad praised me so much and gave me so much special attention for being the “little mother” around the house for him, that eventually I didn’t seem to mind my mother’s alcoholism. My dad would always let me sit in his lap at night for being “his girl,” comb my hair, and do special things for me. Something didn’t feel right about it, but it was the only attention I got.
As an adult, I seemed to have everything going for me and seemed in control. But my husband confronted me one day and said he was dissatisfied with my difficulties in being intimate with him. He wanted changes or a divorce. I was stunned. That’s when I discovered that growing up in an alcoholic family affected my ability to be intimate. I figured if I dealt with my feelings and issues about my mother, things would be fine. After all, she was the alcoholic. Well, I did deal with her, but things weren’t fine. I came to realize that all that special attention from my dad was really a source of pain and the real culprit behind my difficulty in being close to my husband.
Now I realize that I’ve lived my life for him. I chose my husband because I thought my father would approve. The career and family I built were intended to win my father’s admiration and love. Even as an adult, I went to him with intimate details of my life, which he invited. God, I began to feel icky all over again. I was scared and guilt-ridden. I knew I had to stop being “Daddy’s girl” if I was going to save myself and my marriage. It was the most difficult decision I ever had to make about my life: separating from the man who had been the only source of comfort while I was growing up. Yet it was also the most freeing decision I ever made.
There are an estimated 26.8 million children of alcoholic parents in this country, according to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics. Of that group, many have played the role of a parent’s partner to fill in for the emotionally or physically absent alcoholic. These are the ones who, as adults, appear to have it all together and organized. They are high achieving, in control, successful, and giving. They are also the ones who struggle intensely with feeling undeserving and incapable of intimacy. This pain and struggle is often hidden behind a mask of competency and proficiency in helping others. These are the children of alcoholic parents who are described as the “heroes” and “responsible” ones.
These are roles that develop in all families during times of stress as the system tries to bring itself back into balance. In the alcoholic family, the children get stuck in the roles unless there is recovery of both the alcoholic and coalcoholic (partner of the alcoholic). Alcoholism is a progressive disease process where the alcoholic becomes more and more attached to the bottle over time. Someone whose attachment is to the bottle cannot be emotionally attached to a partner. The vacancy created by the progressing disease makes room for a surrogate spouse. The hero or responsible child fills that space through no choice of his or her own.
The child is compelled to play the surrogate partner because it is a gratifying source of self-worth in a family with little worth to share. Again, this pattern holds true in adulthood. If the coalcoholic is not in recovery, he invites and seduces a partnership with the child out of desperation to have needs met and to deny the reality of the progressing alcoholism. Alcoholic families are a true breeding ground for covert incest. Many heroes and responsible adult children have been its victims.
Heroes and responsible adult children have benefited from the recovery process offered by adult child support groups and specialized therapy programs. They have been able to let go of some of their perfectionism and feel a sense of belonging, for perhaps the first time in their lives. However, many still suffer in silence over their continued struggles with intimacy. In that silence is the “ickiness” they feel and the struggles they continue to experience with the coalcoholic. Most fear if they talk about it at their support group meetings, they’ll be ostracized by the people whose acceptance they have worked so hard to earn. At their meetings, they do what they do best: people-please in order to be accepted. They don’t talk about the truth, saying instead only what they know will be accepted. To do otherwise might “rock the boat” at their meetings. Adult children support groups sometimes have their own unspoken rules, which blame the alcoholic for the pain and continue to idealize and revere the coalcoholic for all the sacrifices offered during the adult child’s growing-up years. Out of their own desperation to fill personal emptiness, heroes or responsible adult children who have been covert incest victims perpetuate the pain by abiding by the family rule that Claudia Black summarizes in It Will Never Happen to Me!—“Don’t talk, feel, or trust.”
One of the more difficult tasks for heroes or responsible adult children involves removing themselves from the idealized and privileged pedestal they were given by the opposite-sex parent. Sitting on a pedestal represents being loved for what they can provide their parent, not for who they are. In reality, heroes or responsible adult children who suffered covert incest have been emotionally abandoned and sexually violated. Their personhood (feelings and sexuality) has been objectified or used for the purpose of another, leaving them emotionally and sexually scarred. For them, the struggle is not primarily with the alcoholic, but with the coalcoholic.
The characteristics and patterns of the alcoholic family also hold true when a parent is addicted to drugs (including mood- or mind-altering prescription drugs), food, sex, shopping, spending, gambling, or work. Like the alcoholic, the parent is emotionally absent due to the addiction. As a result, the potential for covert incest exists. Other potential situations include a chronically ill parent or a parent who rigidly holds onto rules dictated by a religious or ethnic tradition. The emotional absence in the second case occurs because the parent is more interested in upholding the moral principles of the religion or the rituals and rights of the ethnic background than in considering the needs of individuals. The emotional life of the parent gets lost, ultimately producing a break in the emotional, spiritual, and sexual bond of the partnership.
Covert incest is a possibility in any dysfunctional family where there is a chronic void in the marriage relationship. We’ve discussed the alcoholic and substance abuse family system; now, let’s take a closer look at the dysfunctional family system.
The Dysfunctional Family
Mark, a thirty-four-year-old successful attorney, has had many meaningful relationships over the years. He now finds himself lonely and destitute regarding intimacy. Mark describes his childhood.
I thought I had the perfect parents. I was particularly fond of my mother, because she was always there for me, to comfort me and talk. We talked about everything. Often she talked about my dad. I always felt special around her because she trusted me with personal information. My father was an attorney who loved his work. He seemed more married to his job than to my mother. But he made sure we had everything—the best clothes, the best schools, and whatever we wanted. It was hard to be angry with him. Besides, as a family, we seemed fine. We were invited to all the “right” places and said and did all the “right” things. We had strong ethnic traditions and followed them to the letter. There was never any overt family fighting or feuds. We seemed real close. And I always found some time alone with my mother at our family gatherings. I always felt special after one of our talks.
As Mark began to face the pain of his loneliness and entered therapy, he described his family differently.
I had no idea there were people who talked about feelings and problems directly. I was shocked to realize my family was dysfunctional. But it was true. No one ever talked about problems except when my mother complained about my dad. I never knew that in functional marriages, partners spoke to each other about their dissatisfaction. I thought including me was my mom’s way of making me feel special. I had no idea my mother was seducing me because she was lonely. I also began to realize my family’s insistence in following tradition was an unspoken rule that said, “See, we are one big happy family, and don’t anyone challenge that by talking about feelings or problems directly.” It was our way not to “rock the boat” and to hide all concerns. Behind that mask was the loneliness both my parents and I experienced. Since I had no knowledge as I grew up that it was okay to talk about feelings and problems, I never thought to question my mother’s close relationship with me, even though at times it felt funny to be treated so special.
Mark went on to describe how his family relationships, particularly the one with his mother, affected his quest for intimacy.
I had many romantic, meaningful relationships with women. At times, I was involved with more than one woman. It wasn’t until I began to question my family, and see the system for what it was, that I realized I had ended or destroyed one relationship after another because none of the women made me feel like my mother did—her “prince” and “knight in shining armor.” If I did feel “special” in a relationship, that feeling usually didn’t last long. Although there seemed to be many women interested in a “prince” to “save” them, the high or excitement of acting and being treated like one never endured. When the infatuation ended, I was faced with the realities of the person and the demands of real intimacy. So I would drop or destroy the relationship in search of the woman who would make me feel special forever. Of course, this never happened, and I became lonelier than I imagined I could be. I was desperate. I never dreamed this was the result of my family system. For me, having this awareness was both enraging and freeing.
Many men and women have grown up in families where there is no alcoholic or chemically dependent parent, yet the struggles for love and intimacy are similar. In fact, many of these families appear to be the ideal or perfect family on the outside. Such an illusion makes it much more difficult to confront the past, find the roots of one’s current struggles, and become healthy. These dysfunctional families have been described as codependent. In Co-Dependency and Family Rules: A Paradoxical Dependency, Robert Subby and John Friel offer this definition:
Co-dependency is a dysfunctional pattern of living and problem solving, which is kept in place by a set of rules within the family system. These rules make healthy growth and change very difficult.
The rules described by Subby and Friel are:
1. It’s not okay to talk about problems.
2. Feelings should not be expressed openly.
3. Communication is best if indirect, with one person acting
as messenger between two others (triangulation).
4. Be strong, good, right, perfect. Make us proud.
(unrealistic expectations)
5. Don’t be selfish.
6. Do as I say, not as I do.
7. It is not okay to play or be playful.
8. Don’t rock the boat.
Practiced collectively or separately, these rules make it difficult for people to be close or intimate. The desire to share oneself (that is, through feelings, thoughts, preferences, wants, and needs) becomes a frightening endeavor. The family system’s mask of perfection and idealism is threatened. With their codes of silence, these families suffer from chronic tension and the anxiety that lurks below the surface. Remarks such as, “You could have cut the tension with a knife,” are not uncommon. Family members operating in these systems are usually relieved no one said anything, for fear of what might happen—“I’m sure glad I got out of there before someone said something.”
Talking about feelings or problems helps to resolve tension. These families believe, however, that if they don’t talk about problems, the tension will go away. Any sort of emotional bonding between family members is impossible as long as these rules are observed.
Like families with a parent who is absent due to alcohol or drug abuse, families operating under codependent rules create the potential for covertly incestuous relationships. Codependent families originate from marriages that operate in a code of silence. Even though there is no obvious break, healthy intimacy and sexuality have no chance to grow. One or both partners feels dissatisfied. Trapped by a set of rules that do not permit the healthy expression of feelings and problems, a parent can easily turn to a child to get needs met. This child lessens the parent’s loneliness and helps the parent deny the breakdown inherent in a marriage built on codependent rules. It is easy to see how a parent can channel his or her passion and energy into the child and how that child can feel like the parent’s surrogate partner.
For the adult child of a dysfunctional family, the task of seeing the family for what it is becomes difficult due to the family’s rigid adherence to the idealistic or perfect image. To name the covert incest that went on is much more difficult. Yet to break the walls of silence and denial is far better than to keep the pain and suffering of being a parent’s surrogate partner secret for a lifetime.