Setting Boundaries With Your Parents

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From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome

” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 166 -167:

An essential aspect of making peace with your parents is to establish clear boundaries between you. As I explained in chapter 7, a healthy family system has a firm but flexible barrier between parenst and children. When the children mature, this barrier is reinforced. The adult child no longer needs to turn to the parents for protection, guidance, day-to-day affection, nurturing, or financial support, because those needs are now taken care of by a partner or adult friends. The two generations stay in touch because of the love between them and because they are genuinely interested in each other, not because they meet each other's fundamental needs or feel a sense of obligation.

The exceptions are worth mentioning. I believe a parent and adult child are obligated to keep each other apprised of their status and whereabouts. A significant illness, a death in the family, a job change, a divorce or a marriage, and a change of address are examples of information that needs to be shared. In addition, I believe that adult children have a responsibility to care for their aging parents in some fashion. Whether that entails home care or institutional care is for each family to decide.

Beyond these minimal obligations, a healthy relationship between a parent and adult child is one characterized by choice. For example, one reason to stay in touch is to give everyone a sense of history. When family members play the game “remember when,” everyone has a sense of belonging and a connection to earlier times. Though repetition of these anectotes, a family identity is passed down from generation to generation...

The need for guidance may also connect adult children and their parents. The older generation may have expertise in a special area or have an overall wisdom that comes from having lived a few more decades. The tables turn as the parents become limited by poor health or age, and the older generation may turn to the younger generation for advice. In this exchange of insight and information, two ideas are kept in mind: (1) asking for advice is not the same thing as taking it, and (2) unsolicited advice can lead to resentment – especially if the advice is coupled with expectation.

A desire to express affection, history sharing, celebration, and guidance are key components of a healthy parent/adult child relationship. Ideally, these interactions and any beyond this -- mutual interests, cooperative ventures, and joint activities, for example – should be a matter of personal choice.

Excerpt from
Dr. Patricia Love's The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent's Love Rule's Your Life Bantam Books, 1990

The Predictive Power of Triangles

Excerpts from "Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves" by Drs. Stoop and Masteller.

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From pages 140 – 142:

We actually see this sort of dynamic occur around us all the time. Let's take a simple example. Imagine that you are the parent of a six-year old girl. One Saturday, you invite your daughter's best friend from school to come over to your house for the afternoon. You also invite your child's best friend from church. These children have never met each other before.

Things go well for awhile. But soon the friend from school corners your child and says, “I thought I was your best-best-best friend. Am I?” Your child reassures her that, of course, she is her best friend. Immediately, this little girl runs to the other guest and says, “I'm her best friend and you're not!”

...As any parent knows, before very long, one of two things is almost certainly going to happen. Either one of the two friends will feel hurt and will start whining that she wants to go home, or both of the invited guests will become “best friends” with each other and ignore your child...

Children seldom have the maturity and the relational skills to resolve this kind of situation such that everyone winds up being friends – even with parents' help. When that does happen, we are usually so amazed by it that we comment about it to others! Nine times out of ten, what happens is that the two pair off against one. That is the nature of this kind of triangle, and the reason why we consider it an “unbalanced” triangle...

This principle of balance holds true with a remarkable degree of consistency and tenacity. Our experience (and that of other family system theorists) shows that over time, in a close, intimate setting like the family, all three way relationships will inevitably resolve themselves into one of the “balanced” triangle patterns. [Blog host note: Either all relationships and communications between points will be healthy and appropriate, or two persons will align to provide a stable and united front against the third party. Each system provides a type of stability that the other alternatives do not provide. Even human relationships work towards stability or “homeostasis.”]

Not only that, but the characteristic of any given two-way relationship (whether it is a straight-line or a [red, dashed-line] relationship) will remain the same no matter what third party is added.

Sometimes people will say, “My brother and I always got along great.” But then an interesting thing happens. When we draw a triangle to include their mother, there is a straight line between them and their brother. The same thing happens when we draw a triangle to include the sister. But when we try to add in their father, they say, “Well, the three of us never could hit it off together. In that case, you'd have to put a wavy line between my brother and me.”

Our response would be, “Something's not right here. Experience shows us that the quality of your relationship with your brother should remain the same no matter what third party we include.” We will then probe more deeply to see if the individual is not either idealizing his relationship with his brother in the first two settings, or wrongly estimating the negative impact of his father in the third setting.

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop & Dr. James Masteller's
"Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves:
Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families"
Regal/Gospel Light, 1996 (Servant, 1991)

The Hidden Messages Sent to Children in Familes Affected by Covert/Emotional Incest

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From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.

From page 44:

Hidden Messages that Lead to Perfectionism

• “You've never caused me a minute's trouble.”

Translation: “Don't rock the boat. If you want something different than what I want to give you, too bad. You can want only what I want you to have. Repress the rest of your needs.

• “You've always been an easygoing child.”

Translation: “Be happy. Be pleasant. Don't feel your anger, sorrow or pain.”

• “You're the only one who truly understands me.”

Translation: “I would be totally alone in the world if it weren't for you. Therefore, you must sacrifice yourself to be here for me. My needs are what count. Helping me is what's important. If you have needs that conflict with mine, I don't want to know about it.”

• “You are such a special child.”

Translation: “Be like I want you to be. I have hidden needs that I want you to satisfy.”

• “Of all my children, I expect the most out of you.”

Translation: “I've selected you to be the one to make my life worth living. All my unfulfilled desires rest on your shoulders. Give up your playfulness. Sacrifice your own view of the world. Cooperate with the unspoken agenda.”

Excerpt from
Dr. Patricia Love's The Emotional Incest Syndrome:
What to Do When a Parent's Love Rule's Your Life
Bantam Books, 1990