The All-Good Father

A Christian perspective on forgiveness ~
From Dr. Stoop’s “Making Peace with your Father”


Page 167 - 168:


Sherri’s father died when she was twelve. When I asked her what she remembered about him, she smiled and described a virtuous, heroic, utterly perfect human being. I pressed her for any less-than-perfect aspects he may have had, but the more I did, the more positive traits she recited. The tables were turned when we discussed her mother. Sherri had nothing good whatesoever to say about her.

What Sherri was doing is called “splitting.” It represents our tendency to make one person all-good and the other person all-bad. Little children do it all the time; it’s a natural part of the process of emotional development. When adults practice splitting, however, it can cause trouble.

In her strong attachment to the too-good father, Sherri was setting herself up for some serious problems. To preserve her image of her father, she had to explain away his shortcomings as inadequacies in someone else. First it was her mother: Dad was all-good; Mom was all-bad. Eventually Sherri attached this badness to herself as well. Her idealized view of her father was the driving force behind a perfectionism that enslaved her.

Sherri’s unrealistic view of her father also led her to adopt a good husband, but Sherri had come to see him as hopelessly inadequate. She resented his weakness and believed there was almost nothing that she could do better than he could. She laughed at the very thought of comparing Walt to her father.

Without realizing it, Sherri had cast her marriage in the same mold as she had her parents – seeing one person as the repository of all that is good, and the other as the embodiment of all that is bad. No matter what issues we discussed, her inevitable refrain was that Walt had to “fix himself” before they could hope to have a successful marriage. Until Sherri becomes comfortable with the untidiness of human reality – that all fo us have both good and bad qualities, bot that all fo us are unique and valuable just the same – she will be imprisoned by her distorted view of life.

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop in
"Making Peace With Your Father:
Understanding the Role Your Father
has Played in Your Life – Past to Present"
Regal, 2004 (originally Tyndale, 1992)

The Enmeshed Family

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


From pages 85 - 87:

The Enmeshed Family

Enmeshed families are characterized by an extreme sense of closeness, so much so that almost any expression of independence or separateness is seen as disloyalty to the family. This kind of false loyalty is a very high value in an Enmeshed family.

Take Marti as an example. She expressed a great deal of hostility toward her mother. But then she was overwhelmed with guilt at her “disloyalty.” How could she speak of her own mother that way?

Marti had very few friends growing up. Her mother dominated her use of time and energy. Marti felt obligated to check everything she did with her mother, to run all her plans and ideas past her for approval before proceeding. Even after she grew up and got married, Marti felt compelled to seek her mother’s approval for decisions she was making about her family. On one hand, Marti greatly resented this state of affairs; she knew it was a way for her mother to keep her under her thumb. But the thought of breaking free from her mother terrified Marti...

Where does one person’s business, one person’s identity, one person’s life, end – and another’s begin? Within the Enmeshed family, boundaries are virtually non-existent. Everyone experiences his life as almost totally “overlapping” with everyone else’s.

Interestingly though, Enmeshed families tend to have remarkably rigid boundaries vis-`a-vis anyone outside the family. Marti said her mother never tired of warning everyone that “family business was family business” never to be discussed with outsiders.

Enmeshed families can look attractive and inviting from the outside. Take George’s family, for example. George had built a successful bakery business in his town. His three grown sons were all very active in the business. Together, George and his sons had established a virtual monopoly on the baking business in their area. They had also established a virtually monopoly on one another’s lives.

Consider Tim, the oldest son, who wanted to get married. He was almost thirty years old, and had cancelled three previous engagements because his family did not think the girl would “fit in.” Finally he found a girl that everyone approved of. She was quiet and docile, and came from a family in which people were aloof and uncaring. “I finally found a real family.” she would say, and Tim’s parents and brother would smile contentedly.

In time, Tim’s two brothers also married. As tieh Tim, their wives came from highly detatched, uninvolved families. Each was quickly absorbed int their new clan and into the bakery business. This is a classic example of a moderately enmeshed family – not quite suffocating enough to cause the kinds of discomfort that Marti experienced, but enough to blur the individual members into what one family researcher calls an “undifferentiated ego mass.” (Quote sites Murray Bowen!)


From pages 89 - 90:

The Attached Family

While the Enmeshed family feels suffocating, and the Disengaged family leaves the individual feeling isolated, the Attached family strikes a healthy balance. There is a sense of individuality without a loss of connectedness. People in an Attached family enjoy being together and doing things together, but are able to relate to people and be active outside of the family as well. When they are away from the family, they do not feel guilty or disloyal. They are able to share outside experiences with the family, knowing other family members will understand and accept their choices.

In the Attached family there is a mutual respect that allows freedom of activity, without any hidden agendas that trigger guilt. There is support for individual uniqueness, coupled with shared appreciation for one another’s accomplishments. Like all delicate balances, it is difficult to find and maintain, but it is well worth the effort.

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)

Multi Generational Faithfulness: The Ultimate Tragedy

“Love is a Choice: The Definitive Book on Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships” by Hemfelt, Minirth and Meier.

In the very first chapter of the book “Love is a Choice,” the authors offer the story, what they would call a case history. They describe a couple with marital difficulties and a little about each of their grown children, using an example that allows us to see a more obvious example of how interconnected a family is, in both function and dysfunction. These books are filled with such little vignettes of people, examples of real life situations and how real people struggled with them.

The authors go on to describe how professionals came to understand this field of study – addictions, obsessive-compulsive disorders, workaholism, etc. – as a WHOLE FAMILY problem. He explains the history of the Christians who came up with the “Twelve Step” program for alcoholics, but how they soon noted that addictions were not just an issue of the person using some substance, as destructive and involved as that is. The problem is also one of the family, family roles and family behaviors, and addictions are just a symptom of a greater cause.

The alcoholic (or any who use a substance or a behavior as a means of coping or as a way of escape) becomes dependent upon either the behavior or the substance, whatever that may be. Because families all work together to help one another and provide balance (keeping all those relationship triangles in some kind of balance), each member of the family develops a role within the family. The addiction itself becomes problematic but is not the primary problem but merely a symptom. The real disease is whatever the addicted person tries to overcome or compensate for through the addiction.


From page 7:

The Ultimate Tragedy

Another tragedy with which we will deal in later chapters is a problem of multigenerational nature. The serious dysfunction in a founding family will be absorbed by the children’s families and then their children’s families, a ripple of misery extending farther and farther down through the years. The dependency or dysfunction may change: an alcoholic father may sire, for instance, a worka holic son who sires a compulsive daughter who spends her way to bankruptcy. But it’s there. It’s almost always there, wreaking it’s damage.

Excerpts from
Robert Hemfelt, Frank Minirth and Paul Meier’s
“Love is a Choice:
The Definitive Book on Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships”
Thomas Nelson, 1989

Drawing a Relationship Triangle

Information based upon Dr. David Stoop's description of charting family dynamics.

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

[Note: Dr. Stoop uses a wavy line in his book, but I use dashed lines.]

Drawing a Triangle Diagram of Relationships

A balanced relationship between three people is represented by a triangle diagram. Each point on the triangle represents a person in the relationship, each point connected to the other by STRAIGHT lines. Each point and line is equally supportive and solidly connected to the other point (person) through healthy communication and appropriate intimacy for that relationship.

Unhealthy, Unbalanced Relationships

Within an unhealthy set of relationships, a RED, DASHED line between two points represents an unhealthy, unstable or inappropriate relationship between those two people within the group. This opens up three possible types of systems.

The first would depict a system where each individual in the system has a distorted/unhealthy relationship with every other person in the system. This is represented by a triangle with each three points (individuals) connected by RED, DASHED lines (unbalanced, unhealthy relationships).

Within the second dysfunctional system, two individuals have a healthy, stable and balanced relationship with one another, so one boundary of the triangle is represented by a STRAIGHT line between those two points. However, each of those two people (or points in the triangle) each have a troubled relationship with the third party in the system. So the two solidly connected people each have a RED, DASHED line connecting them to the third person in the triangle. The third person has no stable and healthy connections with anyone. That person is the “trouble maker” or the “odd man (or woman) out.”

This system is a bit more stable than the first example where all the relationships are rocky, as that one stable relationship between the two points (connected by a STRAIGHT line) acts like a base for the triangle. They are balanced and help to maintain more balance within the system as they can share and distribute the difficulties of the third party. They can work together, strengthening one another to ground the system. Stoop says that though it doesn't represent an ideal situation, it is capable of lasting much longer than the first system (with RED, DASHED lines between all parties). He goes on to say that the two people “aligned” against the third often “draw much strength from their mutual distaste for the third person” (pg. 138).

The third example of an unbalanced relationship is a bit more complicated, wherein one party has a strong and healthy relationship with the two other parties, so we see one point with two STRAIGHT lines connecting them to both of the other people in the system of three. This might seem like it is actually more balanced, because there is more healthy communication and better relationships overall. However, the one stable and more healthy person becomes a fulcrum that supports and balances the unhealthy relationship between the other parties (connected by a RED, DASHED line) who don't communicate well. The one with the two healthy relationships bears the brunt of the pressure, as this more stable person will be relied upon to support the system. They are the obligatory peace maker and the one who sacrifices most to support the others.

Before we venture any further into the discussion of Botkin Syndrome and what these dysfunctional relationships might look like, we should learn just a little more about how family relationships effect one another. In the next few posts, we will examine what Dr. Stoop has to share about what tends to happen in families and different ways families pull themselves into a functional balance, whether healthy or unhealthy. Another little taste from his book looks at relationships from the Old Testament patriarchs as an example of how families tend to develop and relate follows in future posts. He also gives pointers on how to diagram the relationships within your own family and significant relationships.

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)

Yet Another Case History of the Sexualizing Parent

I received some feedback about the offensive nature of the terms that I use on this blog. It was just one person's observation who didn't particularly like the language. I don't think that I really like it any better than they do! Imagine how offended I first felt when I read them, also realizing that I'd lived out the dynamics of them. I defer to those who described my life on the pages of their books, too eerie and accurate for me to ignore.

I've yet to mention the Covert Incest website here, as it offers some general information about the disturbing phenomenon.

Here is a more disturbing account of a daughter who was "sexualixed" by her father, something that I believe there is great risk for within the whole Botkin Syndrome paradigm. Women and daughters in particular are not taught appropriate relationship boundaries as part of the patriocentric/so-called "Biblical patriarchy" movement, and I believe strongly that the dynamics predispose those who come from difficult families of origin to these types of abuse.

I have two dear grown friends who were molested by brothers in their families when they were growing up and told their mothers who denied the sexual incest. These were Christian homes and the abuse occured in the 1960s and the 1970s, without the subtle effects of the teachings that women are derivative images of God (that which is made in the image of man directly and not God) and created for the sole purpose of the support and use of men. I'm also concerned that the social isolation experienced in many homeschooling families and Family Integrated Churches will limit the resources and perspectives of young women so that they will not be able to readily find help, should they experience sexual abuse in addition to the covert incest that is so characteristic of the patriocentric paradigm.

This article contains some references to sexual boundaries and the disturbing paper thin boundaries that can characterize a relationship of emotional enmeshment between fathers and daughters. I pray that this is occurance is rare within family integrated church families, but I know that there is some potential for it as I have knowledge of sexual sins in some of these families. If you link to the full account offered by a reader of the Covert Incest website, be aware that there are references to sexual material.


From "Why Do I Feel Like He Is Making Me into His Wife?" featured on "CovertIncest.org":

I have known for a few years now that my father as a child emotionally abused me.  I knew that his actions were inappropriate and yucky, but I was not sure what to call. it. My psychologist helped me through confronting the abuse, but  I still never put a. name on the form of the abuse, nor was I ever able to feel fully validated in saying I was a survivor of abuse. No one ever touched me, so I did not feel like I had any. right to complain...

He thinks women are taking over the world, and that we are all man-haters...

I couldn’t insult, offend, or question my father...

My mother is a terrible housekeeper, one of the breaking points in my parents’
marriage. She would leave for church Sunday mornings, leaving my sister and me. alone with him. My sister would hide in her room. I knew what was coming but.couldn’t run away because that wouldn’t be “right.” My father would fly into a rage and start yelling and complaining about how the house was a mess and we would start cleaning. I would keep quiet, not letting myself cry or show emotion, be a good girl and do whatever he said. I once scrubbed the bathroom floor with a sponge on my hands and knees, working furiously so that he wouldn’t yell any more. I just wanted him to stop yelling. I hated church so I wouldn’t go. I had no escape from his anger. I think I was afraid of him hitting me, or worse. I knew he would never touch me and yet I always felt that he might. And I was so angry for my mother for not knowing what was going on, for not staying and protecting me...

The amount of fear I feel when I am attracted to someone is horrible. Having a crush is never, ever pleasant.

So that is what brought me here. I feel like I need to understand what did happenso that I can move on with my life.

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

Sex and Relationships Problems ~~The Effects of Enmeshment

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

NOTE: SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTER concerning sexual problems that stem from enmeshment with a parent. Please make note of it. For mature readers only.

The Relationship Problems of the Chosen Child

(The child within a relationship of enmeshment with a parent.)

From pages 51 – 55:

(BUY THE BOOK if you find this relevant to you!

This is a gross condensing of the main points of the text!)

Fear of Commitment

“I do just fine with women right up to the point where the word 'commitment' is mentioned. Then I feel like turning and running away. The thought of living with just one woman for the rest of my life sends me into a cold sweat.”

Problems with love relationships are the rule rather than the exception for the adult Chosen Child, and one of the most common problems is a fear of intimacy and commitment. To a person who was bound up with an engulfing parent, any close relationship can feel like an invasion. I see this trait quite frequently in men who were the favorite sons of aggressive, domineering mothers.

Lack of Romantic Attraction

Woman: “I am married to a wonderful man. He goes out of his way to please me. I couldn't ask for anything more. Yet, I'm always dissatisfied. I keep wondering, 'Where's the magic? Isn't there more to love than this?'”

Man: “I've been married three times, and I'm about to sign up for number four. I've never found what I'm looking for in a woman. All my wives have disappointed me.

The normal parent-child bond is powerful in and of itself; when it is amplified by enmeshment, it becomes all-encompassing. Unwittingly, some Chosen Children go through life trying to recapture this intensity...

Paying the Emotional Toll for Enmeshment ~~ The Problematic Life of the Chosen Child

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

Please take time to read the previous post if you have not already done so. I will expand a bit upon each one of these issues in subsequent posts.

Consider these questions until for a day or so until the posts describing these characteristics in depth, and ask yourself in your heart of hearts, “Could this possibly apply to me and my life?” If it doesn't fit, for you and your experience, that's fine. But I ask all here would read this and sleep on it, being honest with yourself. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth, anointing your eyes and your ears and your heart so that you would know truth from error in a powerful way. Prepare your heart as you prepare to read the next post. May you hear only the sound of the Lord in your heart, the voice of the Good Shepherd, for the voice of another you will not follow.

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The posts to follow list of the emotional problems that Love identifies as common issues for adult children who experienced enmeshment with a parent or caretaker. If you experience cognitive dissonance (that feeling of confusion and discomfort because you feel challenged or are considering a contradictory idea), consider that God promises to lead and guide us into all truth through the Power of the Holy Spirit. I know, because I was challenged by this material when I read about these things for the first time, now nearly 20 years ago. It was uncomfortable, but I also could not deny the truth of the words on the page that pierced me like a compassionate surgeon's scalpel in order to bring healing.

Answering these types of questions concerning the truth about the many unmet needs that I experienced as a child is still very difficult for me and has been my greatest setback. I try to mitigate and downplay the injustice of it all by making excuses or by rationalizing things away. “I was depressed as a child, but so did my parents, so what happened to me can be dismissed because it was not intentional.” 

I can attest personally how difficult and terrifying it has been for me to admit the truth about my own family myths and to face the emotions that accompany that truth. Avoidance sometimes seems to be the actual function and great work of my life because this process is so intimidating. So I will ask you to pray about what you've read thus far and sleep peacefully tonight. Read the next installment tomorrow. Make sure your feet are shed with the Gospel of the preparation of peace, and prepare your heart with prayer.

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From page 33 - 55:

As you read the following material on emotional problems of the Chosen Child, be alert for the possibility of denial. And remember that you may be experiencing denial on two separate levels:

1. You may be blocking out some painful aspects of your childhood.
2. You may be blind to some of the coping mechanisms you developed to diminish your pain.

While reading one section you may be blocking how it relates to your past. For example, you may read the section on low self-esteem and find yourself thinking, “Yes, I often have low self-esteem, but unlike this example, it's not because my parents criticized or abused me. They were always nice to me.” Consider the fact that you may be unwittingly perpetuating a family mythology. Ask yourself: “Could it be possible that my parents were more abusive or neglectful that I would like to believe? Was there a subtle way they put me down? Did they praise me, but five me the hidden message that I didn't measure up? Did they say they loved me but paid little attention to my needs?”

Later, you may identify with a particular description of family life, but not the attending emotional difficulties. For example, you may read the section on grandiosity and say to yourself “My father may have openly preferred me to both my brothers, but that didn't make me grandiose. I'm always humble and level-headed.” In this case, test the validity of your self-perception. Ask yourself: “Do people ever accuse me of being arrogant? Has a friend indicated that I'm a bit full of myself? Have I ever had problems at work that might be attributed to grandiosity?” If you keep an open mind as you venture into this chapter, you may make considerable progress on your road to recovery.

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Emotional Challenges of the Adult Child of Enmeshment

Guilt and Anxiety

• Guilt
• Chronic Low-Level Anxiety

Self-Image Problems

• Fluctuating Self-esteem
• Fear of Rejection
• Social Isolation
• Feelings of Inferiority

Perfectionism

• Denial of Needs
• A Compulsive Need to Succeed

Identity Problems

• A Diffuse Sense of Identity
• An Inability to Separate from the Parent
• Personal Boundary Problems

Relationship Problems

• Fear of Commitment
• Lack of Romantic Attraction
• Conflicts Between the Spouse and the Parent
• Attraction to Self-Centered Partners
• Sexual Problems

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

Fathers, Weddings and the Sexualization of Daughters in the Family Integrated Church

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“My Daddy bought my

honeymoon nightgown,

so it's okay to be intimate

with my new husband.”

???????????

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The following is a post from the "thatmom: real encouragement for real homeschooling moms" blog. It followed after a long discussion of enmeshment and inappropriate fixations on gender within the patriarchy movement. It is nearly all the way at the bottom of the thread entitled: The Great Divide: Patriocentrists on One Side, Thinking Women on the Other.

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The blog does not allow linking to specific comments, but at this time, this comment appears at the very end of the list of comments on this thread. I draw attention to it because it sounds very much like the passage that I quoted from Adams in the previous post discussing "Daddy's Little Girl."

Thanks to "Anne2" who was so kind to find this for me, pointing it out to me on the True Womanhood website. It is another example of "covert" or non-sexual but gender related incest between a father and daughter in the "Family Integrated Church" movement.

Anne wrote @ June 2, 2008 at 5:25 pm:

...About 15 years ago I was at a wedding with patrios leanings. I felt embarrassed when during the ceremony the father made a big deal about how his daughter was a virgin and blah, blah, blah. She was a blushing bride, for all the wrong reasons.

In the previous week the bride’s mother had pulled out some lingerie to show me, that the father gave the daughter. It had been purchased by the father and was a gift for the wedding night. I remember thinking, “How tacky is this?” The mother then said, “you know, it shows that her father, thinks this is ok, that she can have sex with her new husband.” I just got the willies and thought where the heck was this family’s sense of propriety?

I have the same assessment when viewing you tube videos of patriarch weddings and reading some of the vows some have taken, and their constant display of look at us doing this here biblical stuff.

It becomes a display of poor taste and bad manners with their incessant pushing of this new righteousness. Interestingly, in their desire to be seen as so biblical, they fall into appearing to have as bad as taste as the ungodly. At this same girl’s bridal shower, an unsaved woman gave her a teapot. The woman then shouted, “Open the pot, open the pot!” Upon which the bride-to-be pulled out a pair of lacy panties, another woman then reached for them and slingshot them through the air into the room full of besmirched and hysterical women.

Who is tackier?

And who says these guys have the market cornered on how to be a “biblical” family or “biblical” anything for that matter?

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Anne adds to this on True Womanhood after I inquired about whether anyone remembered where I could find the post:

I also want to add not only did the father of the bride go on and on about his daughter being a virgin and how the couple had never kissed, the pastor who took the wedding, also belaboured the point in his wedding charge. To date, it has been the most embarrassing public event I have ever witnessed. At the reception the bride’s parents got up in front of everyone and embarrassed her again when dad literally swept his wife off her feet bent over backwards kissing, while someone shouted, “Show ‘em how it’s done!” Poor girl.

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

Understanding the Abuse of Victimhood While Showing Compassion to the Abused

Is there any way to measure the significance of the "ripple effect" of those things published on the internet? When Pastor Wade Burleson first posted an article on his blog about the SBC indirectly slapping my hands for associating their professors with the more extreme followers of patriarchy/patriocentricity (of which Botkin Syndrome is a peripheral tangent), I had no idea how far the ripples would flow across the surface of the internet. Bob Allen wrote an article on Ethics Daily.com and then followed with another, noting my criticisms of Ware's teaching. And the ripples keep moving right along.

Then Dear Dr. Ware spoke in Denton, Texas, stating that women who do not submit properly to their husbands (a concept that could be interpreted thousands of ways) bear some culpability in their husbands actions if they are subjected to domestic violence. Ethics Daily.com published several articles/ responses to this latest teaching. I expect Christian ministers to say that there is a ZERO TOLERANCE policy concerning spousal abuse, in our society but particularly within Christian marriages. Hurting one's spouse physically out of anger should never be tolerated, particularly in light of the popular Ephesians chapter 5. But Ware did something quite subtle but powerful here: he not only opened a door of tolerance for such behavior in Christian marriage but also for Biblical justification of that behavior.

More ripples ensue. Lyn Harris hosts a blog on the Seattle Post Intelligencer website and took note of Bruce Ware's statements in Denton. She noted me in a blog post in association with this issue and offered me an opportunity to post some blog pieces there as she explores the topic of Domestic Violence. The responses have been very encouraging overall, but someone who appears to have had a bitter divorce began to protest in response to this blog item. I mentioned a particular quote (one that appears somewhere on this blog) from Patricia Love, noting her book on the site. This individual offered his response to the title of Love's book:

Posted by Anti DV at 7/18/08 5:05 p.m.

Wow. Another "syndrome" enabling women to further their careers as "victims". What ever happened to taking control of your own life? I'm not saying that it's easy, but life isn't easy, nor is it fair to both men and women. The difference is that men do something about bad situations without making "victims" out of themselves and creating yet another syndrome where the courts and their appointed "professionals" all make their money and extract their blood under the guise of being "legal". Other options? Try getting yourself out of the situation through already provided resources.

This is a total crock.

If you are interested, you can read his other entries that speak of what sounds very much like a bitter divorce wherein he was not satisfied with the process or the outcome. I would like to post my response to him here, as it addresses many problems that people have with the terminology if not the topic in general. It echos the comment to which I responded in an earlier post HERE. I don't particularly like the terminology or the topic either.

My Response:

"Emotional Incest" is not anything "new" but a specific aspect of less than ideal families characterized by bad circumstances, secret keeping to maintain an outward appearance of perfection, very disproportionate balances of power requiring that family members suffer in an attempt to keep the system going in order to survive, etc. It is a core experience that results in a host of family problems including physical and/or sexual abuse (an outworking of emotional patterns), any addictions, eating disorders, cutting (self-injury), etc. I picked up this literature, posting excerpts from authors on this subject, because of the religious group that gleans from the writings of Bruce Ware and his associates.

I've been overwhelmed by the response from a group for grown children who were homeschooled under some of these beliefs, from those associated with an "underground railroad" of sorts who helps get young women out of these Christian homes (where girls in their 20s are not permitted to leave their homes, drive cars, etc.), and from a newer group of homeschooled girls where they are required to be the "helpmeets" of their fathers. They have no viable means of supporting themselves if they leave and are raised much like the FLDS women. They have been taught from the cradle that leaving these families will destroy them because they will be welcoming God's wrath against them and are eternally damned. They have little perspective or standard of comparison to challenge what they have been taught. If you have no personal knowledge of anything such as this, FANTASTIC! You've been blessed with a life that is free of these terrible experiences, but I don't believe that it gives you licence to dismiss those who have suffered these varying degrees of abuse.

I agree with you that there are abuses of the term "victim." Part of the problem rests with the courts that allow such things to be very wrongfully exploited. This is very much its own type of abuse and can be just as deplorable as the abuse raked upon the many women I've worked with, sitting with them in emergency rooms, courts and their otherwise idyllic appearing homes. Your experience bears significance and should not go unaddressed and unmentioned, but not at the expense of all those who have suffered legitimate physical and sexual abuse, let alone at the hands of their husbands or partners.

Both the example of domestic violence and the unjustified exploitation of "victimhood" is a gross miscarriage of justice, but I don't believe it is an either/or issue. Addressing the problem of Christian ministers remotely legitimizing spousal abuse, however remote his listeners may find his message, does not and should not in any way diminish you because of what you experienced.

May you find your own healing. I also hope that in so doing, you also come to realize that you are not so different from those whom you have targeted here, holding them responsible for injustices that have nothing to do with them. You have more in common with them than you realize. If you are speaking of yourself regarding someone "playing the victim" in court, then consider that you were as helpless in that courtroom and without any recourse as was the woman who I spoke with yesterday who was molested by her father and two brothers when she was 13 - 15 years of age. She was able to seek help outside of her home through the help of a Christian ministry called "New Life for Girls." I'm sorry that you were not able to find the resources that would help you at the time (provided that you are speaking of yourself). There are people who can help you if you are willing to look for them and find them. And I pray that you do. [Read the blog and additional responses HERE.]

As disturbing as this topic of spousal abuse proves, I am also bothered by something else here. Lyn Harris who afforded me the opportunity to write on her blog is not a believer. She actually professes to be a feminist. She studies and writes on this topic as well as on the subject of grief and loss (and she has a New Zealand travel blog as well, so please visit if you are interested). When she first contacted me she noted that she has Christian friends who have left their churches because of the effects of these extreme views about women.

It saddens me, almost as much as this topic, to realize that someone who is not a Christian and a feminist to boot has more compassion to offer abused women in Christian marriages than these "culture warriors" in the SBC. I never dreamed that I'd live to see such a day. How my heart breaks!