Our Drive to Fix the Past

People who grow up in families where their needs, wants and desires were rigidly controlled carry a great deal of baggage with them into their adult relationships. We are creatures of compulsion, and we tend to seek out the familiarity of our original family. We are also trying to work out the unresolved parts of our past as well -- trying to find the solutions that we were unable to find when we were children. Somehow, if we can make our current situation work out well, it will solve and heal some of the hurts of the past as well.

But we go about it in all the wrong ways! Our minds will pull us back to that which is familiar, but without taking an honest inventory of ourselves and our relationships, we are likely to play out the same old problems.

This is my great concern with Botkin Syndrome. I'm concerned that children that grew up in a Botkin or patriocentric home will seek refuge in marriage but will be highly likely to repeat and replay the problems of their past. Even after emerging from the system, they will have a tremendous amount of work to do.



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


From pages 108 - 109:

A woman emerging from an alcoholic family vows to leave that misery behind forever. She marries an alcoholic and may well become an alcoholic herself despite knowing from experience what alcoholism is. A man whose home life was disrupted by several divorces finds himself constantly and repeatedly “unlucky in love.” Claudia Black wrote a landmark book on the problem with the self-explanatory title “It Will Never Happen to Me!” Numerous other sociologists and social workers have recorded the constant phenomenon: adults from dysfunctional families end up with dysfunctional adult relationships, for they have become codependents.

Why? Surely the man or woman who grew up knowing first hand the misery alcoholism or other compulsive behavior causes would know what to avoid. Can’t the sufferer see all those blatant warning signs?

We at the clinic, as well as other counselors, not a sadly intriguing fact: somehow, people who are powerfully codependent literally blind themselves to the red flags other people would flee from. No, they don’t see the warning signs, because they unconsciously choose not to. Unerringly they find themselves attracted to exactly the people they swear they’ll never end up being or joining.

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

Formulaic Thinking

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

From pages 54 - 57:

Donna was trapped in linear thinking. She figured that the way to move Fred in a certain direction was to give him a shove in that direction. If he did not move, then she simply needed to shove harder. What she did not realize was that Fred was shoving back. Every time she pushed him, he resisted. And the harder she pushed, the more stubbornly he resisted.

We pointed out to Donna that her experience reflected a basic reality of linear thinking; that trying harder only gets you more of the same result. We began to look at her relationship with Fred, not just in isolation but as part of a broader family system. She began to grasp that action “A” does not necessarily produce result “B” – that there might be a host of other factors to take into consideration...

By this point Donna could see that her efforts to “help” Fred become more sociable only provoked this well-practiced response, and that “trying harder to help him” was only going to generate more of the same. This realization came as a tremendous relief. If she wasn’t the cause of Fred’s problem, and if she couldn’t “fix” him by working on him, then she felt released to explore some of her own interests.

Interestingly enough, the minute Donna stopped “working on” Fred and began pursuing things she simply liked to do, Fred began to respond. Her nagging kept his reclusiveness in place. Now that she had given up the role of Family Nag, he seemed free to give up the role of Family Hermit. When he saw her doing things she wanted to do, without putting any pressure on him to join in, he started – very tentatively – to come out of hiding...

The value of seeing things this way is that it makes clear that either party can change the situation by changing his or her own behavior. Before, Donna thought nothing could change in her marriage until Fred decided to be different. But she discovered that she could impact their relationship positively by taking certain actions herself...

The case of Donna and Fred is a fairly simplistic one. It involves only two people, and it has a quick, happy ending. Most family systems are far more complex and unpredictable, and the outcomes are not usually so tidy. Still, the story of Donna and Fred really did happen, and the reason it happened the way it did is because Donna learned to see her situation as one component of a system. She learned how to think in interactive terms rather than in straight lines.

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)

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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.