Emotional Incest

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

After this thread got rolling I surfed for some current thinking about 'emotional incest,' or 'covert incest' as its called.

One example said it all: The authority cited a situation where mom is crying and distraught, and her kid see's her. If the child tries to comfort mom the 'authority' wants mom to push the child away and lecture her that mom is an adult, competent woman capable of coping with her emotions, and does not need a kid to rescue her from her feelings.

I thought: What a crock of crap.

Many times we're incapable of rational reason while in the grips of distress. And the dum-ass who wrote the article is oblivious to how a touch or kind word has the power to re-connect us to people. The kid knows, from experience, that words and touch usually cure boo-boos.

 

[tickledkitty]

TK

You'd be amazed how many people read the crap that gets posted here, and takes it as Gospel.

In the last 20 years people are scared shitless to touch a child because the fanatics have everyone convinced that everything is abuse.

I know all that. I have a teaching degree, and one of the things I was taught early on was to keep my hands off the kids. This went against all my instincts. All I'm talking about is a hand on an arm or the top of a head to squelch inappropriate behavior or reign a student back in when their mind is wandering. A hug when someone is hurt. That's not what we're talking about here though.

I went surfing too and found that same article. I don't think one bad example should invalidate the whole thing. I don't like the term incest being applied to it either, but whatever you want to call it, it's emotional abuse by a parent, and, yeah, inappropriate boundaries...whatever.

 

[xssve]

These threads get silly fast when a herd of dilettantes start swapping fables and myths.

Many well meaning people redefine healthy and natural responses and interactions as pathology. This 'pathology' alienates and isolates people from comfort that is usually beneficial.

I was 6 when my grandfather died, and alone with my grandmother when the hospital called with the news. I sensed her pain and comforted her to the best of my 6 year old ability. Had she rejected the comfort and lectured me about 'rescuing' people from their feelings, I believe I would have learned the wrong lesson about expressing love and caring. But this sort of austere and spartan, forced alienation is bullshit.

The key phrase here is "I sensed her pain and comforted her to the best of my 6 year old ability" - i.e., there is a big difference between eliciting sympathy from a child, and leaning on them emotionally to an extent they don't have the experience to step up to.

Strictly speaking, it's asking them to fulfill a role they are not equipped to successfully fulfill - and it's undoubtedly stressfull, although it's easily predictable that you'll respond with some sort of "dysfunction is function" hypothesis in typical social conservative fashion, since anything else would require you to overcome your neurotic emotional dissociation and display empathy, and emotion you are not capable of dealing with openly for fear of being thought "weak", which is of course, the deepest, most terrifying fear of any social conservative.

Nah, it's easier to just blah blah along, contrive to skate by on your outdated credentials and atavistic political paradigms of "human nature". You've gotta be getting close to retirement anyway, no?

 

[xssve]

You're meso aren't you? It's a very typical attitude for your bodytype, you guys spend a great deal of time patting each other on the back.

Anyway, if you wish to criticize theraputic culture, there is a critical framework for that, Lasch for instance. Simply trying to replace maternalistic blather with paternalistic blather does not constitute a valid critique.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

I'll bet no one has used the word 'neurotic' since 1967.

 

[NoJo]

Came across this interesting concept on a pop-shrink site http://www.bharatbhasha.com/parenting.php/67548

I'm posting it here because this kind of thing should have a name.

As long as it's legal, I guess I'm okay with it

 

[jomar]

JOMAR

I'm confident my understanding of the term is correct. Youre speaking of inappropriate relationship boundaries. When the intention is arousal it's emotional incest.

Yes, emotional incest is inappropriate relationship boundaries. So is sexual incest. But emotional incest does not have to be arousing or sexual, unless by arousing you mean anxiety or discomfort. Having said that, emotional incest can be a precursor to and may even be frequently accompanied by sexual incest. But it doesn't have to be.

 

[AllardChardon]

I am going to call this emtional dependence for the time being.

A woman moved to our town several years ago, a divorcee with one son. She relied totally on her son for everything. When he met a woman in his early twenties, a neighbor, the mother tried to stop the relationship to the extent that she was left out in the cold, alone, abandoned.

It was a stange thing to watch happen. I kept saying, leave him alone with his girlfriend and everything will be all right. She could not because she felt she was losing him, like losing her husband again only worse because this was her son. They did not make up and she died of drug overdose, which had been a problem all her life.

There are people in this life that show us how not to parent better than they show us how to parent. But then making babies does not require intelligence or emotional stability.

On the other hand, my father was overtly incestuous. He wanted me sexually and I knew it. I would not go into my house when he was the only one home. When he was laid off during the aerospace cutbacks, it was very difficult. My mom usually got home around five, so I went to friends' homes to wait, without telling them why. Yes, my mother knew, but was in denial. I used her denial to protect myself by staying close to her when necessary. He tried on several occassions to convince me that I was trying to arouse him with my sexual behavior. I was 14 and I was trying to be invisible at that point.

I have a sister, 11 years younger. When our father started in on her, I stopped him in his tracks. I threatened to call the police and he believed me. My mother left him shortly afterwards, sold our home and moved away.

To end this tale correctly, my father and I were able to forgive each other for the strangeness of our relationship and I was close to him when he died.

 

[jomar]

On the other hand, my father was overtly incestuous. He wanted me sexually and I knew it. I would not go into my house when he was the only one home. When he was laid off during the aerospace cutbacks, it was very difficult. My mom usually got home around five, so I went to friends' homes to wait, without telling them why. Yes, my mother knew, but was in denial. I used her denial to protect myself by staying close to her when necessary. He tried on several occassions to convince me that I was trying to arouse him with my sexual behavior. I was 14 and I was trying to be invisible at that point.

I have a sister, 11 years younger. When our father started in on her, I stopped him in his tracks. I threatened to call the police and he believed me. My mother left him shortly afterwards, sold our home and moved away.

To end this tale correctly, my father and I were able to forgive each other for the strangeness of our relationship and I was close to him when he died.

Sorry you had to got through that. But sounds like you had strength and did a great job on many fronts.

 

[KarennaC]

Delete

 

[rgraham666]

My ex's father abused her when she was a teenager. He absolutely reveled in the power he had over her. Before we were married he would have her in tears within ten minutes after we arrived.

The first time we visited after I proposed he did this. She fled the room in tears. I turned to him and said "If you ever do that again I'm going to take your other limbs off." (He'd lost a leg due to his alcoholism.) He didn't because he knew I was serious. And I was.

I didn't figure out the clues she'd dropped about what her father had done to her until after we split. No wonder she didn't like sex. And too bad I hadn't realized this before we were married. It would have saved us both a lot of pain.

 

[NoJo]

I am going to call this emtional dependence for the time being.

A woman moved to our town several years ago, a divorcee with one son. She relied totally on her son for everything. When he met a woman in his early twenties, a neighbor, the mother tried to stop the relationship to the extent that she was left out in the cold, alone, abandoned.

It was a stange thing to watch happen. I kept saying, leave him alone with his girlfriend and everything will be all right. She could not because she felt she was losing him, like losing her husband again only worse because this was her son. They did not make up and she died of drug overdose, which had been a problem all her life.

There are people in this life that show us how not to parent better than they show us how to parent. But then making babies does not require intelligence or emotional stability.

On the other hand, my father was overtly incestuous. He wanted me sexually and I knew it. I would not go into my house when he was the only one home. When he was laid off during the aerospace cutbacks, it was very difficult. My mom usually got home around five, so I went to friends' homes to wait, without telling them why. Yes, my mother knew, but was in denial. I used her denial to protect myself by staying close to her when necessary. He tried on several occassions to convince me that I was trying to arouse him with my sexual behavior. I was 14 and I was trying to be invisible at that point.

I have a sister, 11 years younger. When our father started in on her, I stopped him in his tracks. I threatened to call the police and he believed me. My mother left him shortly afterwards, sold our home and moved away.

To end this tale correctly, my father and I were able to forgive each other for the strangeness of our relationship and I was close to him when he died.

How did you manage to get to this stage, where you're able to speak so candidly about it? Did it take a long time?

 

[AllardChardon]

I am 56 and this all happened a long time ago now. I have resoved this issue, and my father agreed when he was alive, that in a past life we were happily married. My father, the bohemian pot-smoking jazz musician, was a reincarnationist and he raised me that way. I follow in his footsteps, although I am a dancer not a musician.

I do not regret anything that has happened to me. I am the only woman I know of that told my father "NO" and made it stick. He was a very sexual man and had many mistresses on the side with my mother's knowledge. It was the 60s, what can I tell you? Things were very different then.

So back to the thread of emotional incest. My husband does not love himself and looks to our children for the love he lacks in himself. Since I am the complete opposite, as well as a Capricorn Sun opposite to his Cancer Sun, my children have had the advantage or disadvantage, to witness the difference in their own home.

Mother does not need love, she gives it willingly like an overflowing fountain that springs deep inside her. Father is very needy and grasps at any wisp of love he can get his hands on, often missing. Our children prefer the way I handle myself as it takes the responsibility of my self-worth off of their shoulders and onto mine, where it belongs.

No matter what you want to call it, some parents do not have the sense of self-worth that is required to raise another human being and they tend to latch onto their offspring, often wringing them dry of love in the process.

 

[AllardChardon]

Sub Joe,

I was posting while you were posting. How did I get to this stage?

I never have been able to contain my emotions. I have a moon sign of cancer and with the capricorn sun they are in total opposition. All Full Moon babies suffer this solar/lunar opposition.

Onward, since I cannot function until I spill my guts, so to speak, I HAD to talk about my problems with my friends. Once I did, I got the support I was seeking, given the power to call the police if needed and be backed up and felt like I could succeed at protecting myself. My father would not overpower me to have me and that was an advantage as well.

Adversity is not pleasant but it is empowering if you face it squarely and meet it head on with truth and good will for all as your basis of operation. I am a stong woman naturally and life's adversities has made me stronger. I expect I might get stronger still, but in a much quieter way now that my hormones have stopped running my brain. Translation - no more menstruating. Hooray!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

JOMAR

What you post simply isnt so. Its another example of people cobbling things together into a nifty thesis that fits their bias.

Incest is carnal sexual activity between close kin. If therefore follows that emotional incest is sexual arousal between blood kin.

 

[NoJo]

All this is, is parents abusing their power over children. Let lawyers get hung up on names.

 

[AllardChardon]

JBJ,

Who the hell cares what they call it? You are being redundant here. This in not a test, I repeat there will be no pop-quiz!

I simply stated what I thought was an example of a parent needing, wanting and asking for something from their child that they do not have the right to ask for, emotional security. It is the parent's job to provide emotional security along with warmth, food, clothing and the rest of it.

I also talked about how my relationship with my father was almost incest and might have been if I hadn't spoken to my friends and gotten help.

You could post something worthwhile to the thread instead of telling us that we are using the wrong words. Why don't you supply the words here, oh knowlegeable one?

Attempted incest and emotional dependence of some parents on their children work for me, by the way.

And one last thing, you said incest invloves sexual arousal. Okay, but let's be straight, here, sexual arousal for the predator, not the prey. One sided arousal. Unwilling recipient. Slave status. No alternative for the child. Not pleasant and probably life altering in a bad way like rg66's post.

 

[_blushy_bottom_]

I am 56 and this all happened a long time ago now. I have resoved this issue, and my father agreed when he was alive, that in a past life we were happily married. My father, the bohemian pot-smoking jazz musician, was a reincarnationist and he raised me that way. I follow in his footsteps, although I am a dancer not a musician.

I do not regret anything that has happened to me. I am the only woman I know of that told my father "NO" and made it stick. He was a very sexual man and had many mistresses on the side with my mother's knowledge. It was the 60s, what can I tell you? Things were very different then.

So back to the thread of emotional incest. My husband does not love himself and looks to our children for the love he lacks in himself. Since I am the complete opposite, as well as a Capricorn Sun opposite to his Cancer Sun, my children have had the advantage or disadvantage, to witness the difference in their own home.

Mother does not need love, she gives it willingly like an overflowing fountain that springs deep inside her. Father is very needy and grasps at any wisp of love he can get his hands on, often missing. Our children prefer the way I handle myself as it takes the responsibility of my self-worth off of their shoulders and onto mine, where it belongs.

No matter what you want to call it, some parents do not have the sense of self-worth that is required to raise another human being and they tend to latch onto their offspring, often wringing them dry of love in the process.

I have experienced this. I believe incest is an appropriate term. For some, this type of behavior can cause physiological reactions that do resemble arousal.

 

[AllardChardon]

Yes, for some, feelings of arousal may happen. I have heard of this. Mostly older kids. I was repulsed by my father doing this and fortunately enough he did not overpower me, against my will. That is the key, "against my will" in my case.

 

[jomar]

JOMAR

What you post simply isnt so. Its another example of people cobbling things together into a nifty thesis that fits their bias.

Incest is carnal sexual activity between close kin. If therefore follows that emotional incest is sexual arousal between blood kin.

Sub Joe and other make a good point.

Having said that, I did see the Wikipedia link that equated Covert incest, emotional incest, and psychic incest as "terms used to describe situations between relatives in which there is an inappropriate emotional relationship with sexual undertones or a parent-child interaction reminiscent of a sexual partnership, but no actual incest."

That's the only site I saw emotional incest equated with sexualization. I could more easily see covert incest meeting that definition, though. I think the term emotional incest is used, as others have mentioned, to highlight the devastating impact in appropriate emotional intimacy.

You are right that it is not a literal definition of incest, but I don't see it as an "example of people cobbling things together into a nifty thesis that fits their bias." If anything, it's people labeling a particular type/level of parent-child enmeshment. That helps with of communicating and discussing it. Which is a good thing.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I posted this because I'd never heard of the concept before and I know of quite a few parents who are reliving their lives through their kids and probably fucking them up pretty good by doing so.

From searching their rooms for dope to ransacking their emotions like their underwear drawers, parents should pull back. Kids need a lot more privacy and space then a lot of parents allow them.

 

[NoJo]

I posted this because I'd never heard of the concept before and I know of quite a few parents who are reliving their lives through their kids and probably fucking them up pretty good by doing so.

From searching their rooms for dope to ransacking their emotions like their underwear drawers, parents should pull back. Kids need a lot more privacy and space then a lot of parents allow them.

I think of them as kites when it comes to giving them freedom as they grow -- too much slack and they crash and flop to the ground, too much hauling them in and they never fly

Its basically getting them to equate freedom and responsibility, privacy and trust

 

[impressive]

Kids need a lot more privacy and space then a lot of parents allow them.

Now THAT makes me feel like I'm doing something right as a parent. I soooooooo don't wanna fuck up my kids.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

After this thread got rolling I surfed for some current thinking about 'emotional incest,' or 'covert incest' as its called.

One example said it all: The authority cited a situation where mom is crying and distraught, and her kid see's her. If the child tries to comfort mom the 'authority' wants mom to push the child away and lecture her that mom is an adult, competent woman capable of coping with her emotions, and does not need a kid to rescue her from her feelings.

I thought: What a crock of crap.

Many times we're incapable of rational reason while in the grips of distress. And the dum-ass who wrote the article is oblivious to how a touch or kind word has the power to re-connect us to people. The kid knows, from experience, that words and touch usually cure boo-boos.

Well, anyone who stops and consults experts deserves what he or she gets.

Back in the fifties the American Psychological Association recommended that parents not hug their children more than once or twice a year, less they grow up dependent and soft on communism. It's true.

 

[xssve]

Sex is about emotional arousal as much as it is physical arousal, being needed, etc.

I do get a lot of emotional fullfillment from my children, but I'd have to say it falls fairly short of emotional incest - my parents were not overly demonstrative, although I have borne the brunt of a few of my mothers psychotic episodes.

And the real critique here is linguistic, i.e., "emotional incest" does sound like a typical fishing expidition for any sort of emotional drama to form an encounter group around - i.e., it could be argued that it's the product of theraputinc culture to begin with; i.e., parents are urged to "comunicate" with their children and end up leaning on them emotionally, which is every bit as unfair as sexual incest, i.e., trying to elicit adult behavior to satisfy neurotic adult needs from a child.

In any case, I'd have to say the worst offender are probobly those parents that live through their children, or are overprotective, etc., often due to their own social ambitions, i.e., using the child as a vehicle for their ambitions. I've seen these types of relationships get very weird.

This is less incest like, but related, and I think I'd avoid the term "emotional incest", it's more a form of transference, and in fact the term occurs in the Wikipedia definition of transference:

It is common for people to transfer feelings from their parents to their partners (emotional incest) or to children (cross-generational entanglements). For instance, one could mistrust somebody who resembles an ex-spouse in manners, voice, or external appearance; or be overly compliant to someone who resembles a childhood friend.

In both cases, sexual or emotional, the adult is transferring neurotic attachments from an appropriate object to an inappropriate one, i.e., a child, their own child specifically, who is not equipped or prepared experientially, emotionally or physically, to deal with it, and psychobabble aside, it's a real thing and it can have effects every bit as profound as sexual incest, i.e., present obstacles to a victim from being able to form mature adult relationships - assuming of course, that such relationships theoretically exist.

In fact, I'd say that anecdotally speaking, victims of sexual incest generally go on to form reasonalbly healthy adult relationships, while victims of emotional incest end up utterly miserable 40 year old virgins - sex is just an act, emotions are the very engine of the psyche.

For the child themselves, the main problem is in that it's premature - i.e., it will tend to create and experiential gap between them and their peer group, which can lead to alienation and other problems socializing with their naive and blithly oblivious peers - it's a form of accelerated emotional aging - you throw in the desire to please, fear of making the parent jealous, etc., and it can get very painful and ugly.

Doesn't help however, when panicky projectionists sieze these people, particularly victims of sexual abuse, and use them like poster children to advance their own political and social adgendas: this is just adding a sort of emotional vampirism on top of the sexual abuse, and the latter can cause far greater and more lasting damage.

As far as the victim of sexual abuse is concerned, sweeping it under the rug is usually very much the right thing to do, i.e., let them get on with their lives (naturally taking steps to prevent further incidents) - not sure about the victims of emotional incest, but I suspect talking about it can't hurt, which may or may not include touchy feely encounter groups which can be very good place to social network with people who have had similar experiences.

You do know what projection is don't you JBJ?