Family Balance and How All Members Help Keep It Afloat

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About Covert Incest from “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. .

From pages 12 – 13:

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...

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The child becomes the parent's confidant. Loneliness, bitterness and dissatisfaction with the marriage and sex life are common topics in these discussion. 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 relived at not having to deal with the reality of the dissatisfied 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, for example, “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.

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Once the boundary between parents and child is crossed in a covertly incestuous relationship, 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 needs from the marriage to the oldest boy in a covert way works its way into the 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 recreate our family all over again in adult relationships. This is an effort to work our and resolve that 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.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams"Silently Seduced:
When Parents Make Their Children Partners
~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991

When Children are Made Responsible for Parents

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From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 13 -14:

The covertly incestuous relationship system continues to affect one's choice of partners, decisions about separation and divorce, sexuality and all attempted at emotional fulfillment until the truth is faceted and resolved. This is not about blaming or accusing parents. It is about assigning responsibility where it belongs: the parents' 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.

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I think it's important to understand that parents recreate 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 hoped their parents would have been. When this expectation goes unmet, parents see their children as ungrateful, unloving and ungiving. The result is heightened struggles between adult children and aging parents. Willpower or the right set of moral standards aren'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.

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From page 19 – 20:

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 well put together, almost the ideal or perfect family on the outside. This makes it much more difficult to confront the past in the effort to find the roots of one's current struggles to grow and become healthy. These dysfunctional families have been described as co-dependent.

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 the rules within the family system. These rules make healthy growth and change very difficult.

These rules are described by Subby and Friel as follows:

1. It's not okay to talk about problems.
2. Feelings should not be expressed openly.
3. Communications is best if indirect, with one person acting as messenger between the other two (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 good to play or be playful.
8. Don't rock the boat.

Excerpts from

Kenneth Adams

"Silently Seduced:

When Parents Make Their Children Partners

~Understanding Covert Incest"

Health Communications, 1991

Family Rules That Stifle Expression of Feelings and Expression of Needs

-->About Covert Incest from “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams.

From page 20 - 21:

These rules, practice collectively or singly, make it difficult for people to be close or intimate. The desire to share oneself (i.e., feelings, thoughts, preferences, wants and needs) becomes frightening. The family system's mask of perfection and idealism is threatened. These families, with their codes of silence, suffer from chronic tension and anxiety that lurk 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 unusually 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.

Although there is no clearly absent parent due to alcohol or drug abuse, families operating under co-dependent rules create the potential for covertly incestuous relationship. Co-dependent families originate from marriages which 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 will feel dissatisfied.

-->Trapped by a set of rules which do not permit the healthy expression of feelings and problems, a parent can easily turn to a child to get needs met. The child lessens the parent's loneliness and helps the parent deny the breakdown inherent in a marriage built on co-dependent 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 was 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.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams"Silently Seduced:
When Parents Make Their Children Partners
~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991

The Child Always Loses in a Psychological Partnership with the Parent

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When Children Are Used to Meet the Needs of their Parents

About Covert Incest from “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams.

From pages 11 - 12:

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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. A child seeking to have those needs met by the parent fears loss of 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 do not have the cognitive capacity to see the situation as it is. They are trapped.

As the children become adults, this entrapment continues as long as the reality of being a covert incest victim continues to be denied. Adults continue to feel ashamed of their dependency needs and seek to fulfill parents' needs at a continued 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.

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From page 33 - 35:

When Peter came for therapy, he complained of feeling burned out and lethargic. He was a successful therapist who, in spite of his thorough understanding of himself, was unable to stop over committing and overextending himself. His life primarily consisted of helping, pleasing and being there for others. He complained of having no sense of identity and not having any free time for himself. Peter felt unappreciated and that others took advantage of him. He reluctantly acknowledged that for some time he had resented his wife. He complained he was always there to listen to the multitude of problems she had, but he never felt he got equal time. Yet Peter claimed to be going out of his way to be there for his wife even more than he had done previously. He felt crazy. He was sexually shut down and had lost all interest in being intimate with his wife...

Peter's story is not unlike those of other helping professionals: doctors, therapists, ministers or nurses. On the outside is a mask of competence supported by a proficiency in helping others by always being there for them. These individuals gain their self-esteem through pleasing and helping others. But this sense of esteem is false. Feelings of worthlessness and shame generally prevail underneath the exterior of “being so together.” A compulsion and desperation to help others usually consumes the lives of individuals like Peter. They hope that soon they will feel worthy and have their own needs met. This never happens and the desperation grows.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams
"Silently Seduced:
When Parents Make Their Children Partners
~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991

Characteristics of Covert (Emotional) Incest

From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

In his book “Silently Seduced,” Kenneth Adams continues to describe covert incest, the process by which a parent or major caregiver uses a child to meet and satisfy their (non-sexual) unmet adult needs. Dr. Patricia Love in her work, “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” describes her own experience with her adult clients who have also become enmeshed emotionally and psychologically with their parents as a result of the process of covert incest. She terms the child within these relationships the “chosen child,” but the dynamics are all the same. Pia Melody builds upon this premise to describe the interaction and dynamics of adult children who follow the same dysfunctional patterns that they did in their child-parent relationships because we are all drawn to what we find familiar. In any case, the basic rules are quite the same. Adults will recreate the unresolved conflicts of their childhood in their adult lives, using the only relationship skills they have and know, however dysfunctional.

Please read Adams' description of the basic characteristics of covert incest in both parent-child and adult child (grown adults who experienced covert incest as children), considering the profound effects of this type of parenting on children. [Blog host notes are italicized and noted in blue text.]

From pages 2 -4:

There is nothing loving or caring about a close parent-child relationship when it services the needs and feelings of the parent rather than the child. “Feeling close” with your parents, particularly the opposite-sex parent, is not the source of comfort the image suggests. It is a relationship in which the individual, both as a child and later as an adult, feels silently seduced by the parent. Feelings of appreciation and gratitude do not prevail in these “close relationships.” Instead they are a source of confusing, progressive rage.

During the feedback section of my lectures on the subject, some participants are quite vocal with their rage and express relief that they now understand why at times they hate with vengeance the same parent who has always loved them “so much.” Some are frozen in their seats and can't speak, while others can't wait to leave. A few courageous parents speak up, expressing that they are now beginning to understand why their son or daughters struggle in relationships.

Others listen to the lectures and insist there is no harm in their close relationship to their opposite-sex parent. Actually they claim to feel special and privileged. These children were given a special position by being idealized by the parent. But there is no privilege in being cheated out of a childhood by being a parent's surrogate partner. As adults these individuals in turn idealize their parents to cover the pain of the abandoned and victimized child within. To be a parent's surrogate partner is to be a victim of covert incest. This book is about the silent seduction covert incest victims experience and its effect on their sexuality, intimacy and relationships...

Characteristics of Covert Incest:

• Love/Hate Relationship. One often has intense feelings of both love and hate for the opposite-sex parent. On one hand, you feel special and privileged because of the relationship; on the other you frequently feel you aren't doing enough for that parent. This results in feelings of guilt which result in rage that is seldom directly expressed. [According to Pia Mellody, this is more common in the Love Avoidant counterpart in a relationship.]
  

• Emotional Distance from Same Sex Parent. In contrast to the love/hate relationship with the opposite-sex parent, you feel abandoned by the same-sex parent. This relationship often is competitive and the parent feels like an adversary. Feeling contempt for this parent is common. [Adams focuses on the opposite-sex enmeshment relationship, but a same-sex enmeshment is also possible and common.]
  

• Guilt and Confusion over Personal Needs. You feel guilty about your needs and probably never have a difficult time identifying what they are. You generally try to “be strong,” caretake or always “be there” for others as a way of meeting your own needs. [Pia Mellody terms this the“shame-existence bind” in other texts.]
  

• Feelings of Inadequacy. You are likely to have chronic feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. You believe your worth as a man or a woman is determined by what you can do rather than who you are.
  

Daddy's Little Girl: Covert Incest and Inappropriate Intimacy

Tears" photo by Crimfants on Flickr.com

From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 50 – 52:

Rebecca had been her family's princess. On the outside, she seemed to have it all. She was indulged by her parents and seldom held accountable for any misbehavior. Rebecca frequently received special privileges and rarely wanted for anything. Her siblings hated her, and her friends were envious. It was difficult to imagine that a child treated as so special could have been so deeply injured. She was adored by her father. As she described the specialness her father felt toward her, the emotional damage she endured became clearer. Rebecca's father treated her more like his mistress than his daughter.

As Rebecca began to recount her father's relationship to her, the “ickiness” of this seduction became evident to her. Though she had never been sexually touched in an overt way by him, Rebecca squirmed in her seat as if to get her father off her. She grimaced and exclaimed,

My dad actually bought me sexy underwear. I can't believe it. I forgot all about that. I felt a little funny at the time, but he always said I was his “princess” and deserved the best. So I didn't think much more of it. Besides part of me liked being treated so special. When I started developing breasts, my dad would look at me with a big smile and proclaim, “You are becoming a woman.” At that point, he started taking me out shopping and buying whatever I wanted. I'd come out of the dressing room with my new clothes on to get his approval. That felt funny, too, but I didn't think much about it since I really loved being so special.

I've always been my dad's favorite. He paid lots of attention to me at home and wanted to know all about my day. I was adored by him and I knew it. I began to expect that from everyone in my life, especially men. He even talked about boys to me, telling me I should find a man who would love me like he did.

Even as an adult, he continues to adore me. I almost seem more special to him than my mother. Last week when I was at their house, my dad wanted to go into the family pool for a swim, just the two of us. It felt kind of icky, but he said that he just wanted some time alone with “his doll.” That night when I got back home, I binged on food. The next morning I starved myself and exercised until I pulled a muscle. Throughout my life, overeating has been an off-and-on pattern. Sometimes I used to vomit or take laxatives as a way not to become overweight. I've stopped that, but now I'm into compulsive exercising and dieting.

Rebecca's eating disorder was another consequence of the sexually charged relationship her father had with her. Although she suppressed the memory of her father's seduction, her body continued to carry the feelings and sensations of the trauma. Her eating disorder masked her body's attempt to bring to consciousness the awareness of the injury. The preoccupation with food and weight helped keep the the reality hidden. Compulsive overeating, binging and purging oneself (vomiting, exercising or laxatives) or starving oneself are eating disorder patterns common to victims of covert incest as well as overt incest.

[Blog host note: Self-injury is also very common, but was not when this book was written. Excessive numbers of body piercings and tatoos also can also be considered an presumptive factor in the presence of the signs of other emotional and/or clinical issues associated with incest (covert or overt). I was also taught while studying hypnotherapy that obesity and sex issues correlate very closely. Anyone seeking help with weight control should consider investigating sexual cause in hypnotherapy. Van der Kolk, a psychiatrist with expertise in trauma, brain imaging and pharmacology, teaches that “the body keeps score” and felt sense is a strong component of trauma and is felt by the body as well as remembered by the mind. The two are strongly intertwined. In a sense, if the mind ignores the trauma, the body still tries to heal itself through ineffectively playing out the trauma.]

The energy spent focused on food and weight leaves no room for the body to heal. As Rebecca began to validate her inner reality of being a covert incest victim, the compulsion to overeat slowly subsided. She also needed the support of Overeaters Anonymous to help her overcome her complusion.

It was crucial that Rebecca directly address both the compulsive eating pattern and the root cause of the compulsion. There is an unwritten rule expressed from time to time by members of Anonymous programs: Understanding the reason behind the addiction is not important. One is sometimes encouraged to use the support and philosophy of the Anonymous program and forget the “why.” Though there is some merit to this belief in the early part of recovery (stopping the compulsive behavior and making one's life more manageable), it actually is a hindrance to ongoing recovery (peace of mind, comfortableness with one's own body and self, and emotionally fulfilled and functional relationships with others). It has been my experience that those people who give in regularly to their addiction (be it food, sex or gambling) are the ones who remain in denial about the root injury that opened the way to the addiction in the first place.

The preoccupied relationship Rebecca's father bestowed upon her was motivated out of his needs, not hers. Rebecca was seduced into a sexualized, idealized relationship with her father, believing his special attention was all she needed. Simultaneously, she felt emotionally abandoned. Her legitimate needs for love, belonging and separateness were never met. Being adored and admired were her only clues to the mystery of what it would finally take to fill up the restless, empty space that lay in her soul.

Romantic Relationships and Marriages of Adults Who Grew Up Enmeshed With Their Parents

From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 82 – 84:

Ambivalence serves as a way to protect. By holding the ambivalence as a defense, covert incest victims stay guarded from the threat of being used and abused again. The original pain of being abused by the parent surfaces in relationships with spouses. As the need for further commitment in a relationship grows, the fear of being used again grows as well. Since the boundaries are often blurred between the incestuous wound of childhood and that of adulthood, being able to differentiate between one's spouse and the incestuous parent is difficult. Consequently the feelings of being violated become active. Ambivalence shields the covert incest victim from the threat of further abuse.

Although covert incest victims experience chronic ambivalence in relationships, the beginnings of the relationship are often quick and intense. Immediate and total commitment occurs, followed by the uncertainty of the ambivalence. The tremendous guilt the covert incest victims carry prohibits leaving if the relationship is not working. Instead, they try to make it right, only to be disillusioned after each attempt. Or if the relationship has potential, the guilt interferes with clearly identifying personal needs to make a legitimate attempt to make the relationship work. Commitment becomes an arena desperately longed for. However, it is an experience which generates fear and confusion.

These hasty and intense commitments are born out of the attachment to fantasy as well as the tremendous neediness experienced by the covert incest victim. Rather than bonding with the person, the bod is to the fantasy the person represents. Since the fantasy represents the ideal or perfect person, the commitment is immediate. The person may have some of the qualities of the fantasy spouse, but in reality is never seen as for who he or she really is. When the illusion dies, and they all do, the struggle regarding commitment surfaces. Now faced with who the person really is and realizing the vulnerable of committing so quickly, ambivalence sets in.

Making the Break from Your Parents

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About Covert Incest from “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 99 – 105:

The primary task for covert incest survivors is to separate from the opposite-sex parent. [Blog host note: It has been my task to separate from the same-sex parent, and the sexualized energy was actually limited punishment for being womanly.] 

The fact that so many covert incest survivors remain inappropriately bonded well into their adulthood suggests a tremendous struggle to let go. The separation will not be given. Real emancipation cannot be given. It must be taken. Emotional maturity cannot be realized until emancipation occurs. You cannot be an adult man or woman and hold onto Mommy or Daddy. For a marriage and a relationship to work, full access to your emotional and sexual energy is necessary. Even then, it's tough...[A] relationship cannot be fully functional when leftover sexual energy is tied to the opposite-sex parent...

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Remember that abandoned and hurt little child inside you has likely created a rich fantasy life about love, sex and romance as a way to cover your pain. If you continue to attempt to create adult relationships out of your fantasies, you will add to your sense of abandonment and chronic feelings of dissatisfaction. Keep working toward acceptance of the reality of yourself and your partner. You stand a much better chance at establishing a workable relationship. Allow yourself to grieve the loss of your fantasies and illusions...

Set boundaries and make your personal needs a priority in your relationship. The fear of losing yourself in a relationship is usually founded in truth. The incestuous relationship teaches you to sacrifice your needs for the love of your partner. Though this is needed at times in all relationships, you may experience a loss of choice and do it chronically. The hope is that maybe finally your needs will be met. This doesn't work, and the seeds sown for deep resentment eventually help erode the relationship.

It's okay to do what's good for you and not be concerned with pleasing your partner all the time. Setting boundaries needs to be concrete, even though you fear it will displease your spouse. It is crucial that you begin to develop a tolerance for allowing your spouse to be angry or displeased with you. If not, you'll stay stuck in the incestuous pattern of trying to please in the hope of getting your needs met. At this juncture, it is no longer your parent betraying you – it is your own self-betrayal.

You're likely to feel guilty in these attempts. Your guilt is the result of being violated in the incestuous relationship. Allow yourself to be outraged over being burdened with so much guilt. Your sense of outrage helps you to set boundaries. Adults who grew up with dysfunctional parents who did not use them to gratify their own needs do not feel enormous guilt when they attempt to get their needs met.

Excerpts from

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Kenneth A. Adams "Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners ~ Understanding Covert Incest"

Health Communications, 1991

Incest? Covert ~versus~ Overt

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About Covert Incest from “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 9 – 11:

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. This boundary between caring 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 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.

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The child feels used and trapped, the same feelings that overt incest victims experience... Over time, the child becomes more 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...

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 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...

An important difference between overt and covert incest is that, 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 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; the pain and suffering of a lost childhood 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.

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From page 17:

One of the more difficult tasks for heroes or responsible adult children is to take themselves off the idealized and privileged pedestal they were given by the opposite-sex parent. That position represents being loved for what you can provide for your parent, not for who you are.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams
"Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners ~ Understanding Covert Incest"

Health Communications, 1991.

The Fantasy Parent

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From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From page 46:

[Following a case study of a young woman named “Vickie”]

Vickie had kept [her pain and rage] behind her illusion that her daddy was “all good and loving.” Children who are abused have no choice but to create a false illusory image of the abusing parent. This enables them to believe they are loved. Children need to believe they are loved at any cost, much as they need food and water. For this reason, children who are severely abused are always willing to follow and love the abusing parent.

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From page 56:

Playing the role of a surrogate spouse to both parents is devastating, perhaps the most tormenting of the situations presented so far. The result is a loss of clear identity. One's inner life feels empty and agonized. Awareness of feelings, choices, preferences, wants and desires is lost under a deep sense of worthlessness and inadequacy. Outwardly, these women seem to be able to do it all. They also are capable emotional caretakers of others. They leave the impression that they have few cares of their own, and if they do, they handle them just fine. Yet there is great pain in the experience of self for these women. They have contempt for their own femininity and fear men as well.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams
"Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners ~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991