Emotional Incest: Too Close For Comfort
We all love our parents. We look up to our parents, we strive for their love, we want to feel special and we would do anything to be loved by our parents. We seek their blessing, their approval, their validation. Yea well, while that is true and seemingly normal, too much of it that is somewhat icky and a little too close for comfort may check off yet another box of abuse. Abuse? Say what?
It is difficult to identify or even pinpoint unless you are in that family or position itself. A child’s love for their parents is strong but what happens when this natural bond is exploited by a parent unable or unwilling to set appropriate boundaries? From an outside perspective, it is difficult to spot the difference between an emotionally healthy parent-child relationship and one that is affected by emotional incest or enmeshment (this is the abuse we are talking about). Most parents strive to develop a close and loving relationship with their children, and every family has a slightly different set of norms regarding what that close and loving relationship might look like. But for the most part, a parent-child relationship where the caregiver maintains the adult role and seeks emotional support from appropriate sources is likely not characterised by emotional incest or enmeshment.
Emotional incest? Enmeshment? What are we talking about? We are talking about emotional incest which is also known as covert incest abuse or enmeshment. People often think sexual abuse is overt and easy to identify. In truth, covert incest abuse occurs just as often as overt sexual abuse. And it is equally devastating. Overt incest occurs when there is physical sexual contact between two people who share a common ancestor, such as a father and daughter, mother and son, or brother and sister. Covert incest, on the other hand, occurs when there is non-physical sexual behaviour between two relatives. Covert incest is a specific type of emotional abuse in which a parent relies on a child for emotional support, affirmation, and care that should be provided by a spouse.
Covert incest behaviours can include age-inappropriate sex talk from the parent to the child, inappropriate nicknames for a child such as boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, lover, constant demands from the parent for attention, security or emotional needs to be provided by the child, commenting on a child’s developing body, particularly in a sexualised manner and the lack of privacy boundaries, such as engaging in sexual behaviour in front of a child or watching a child undress.
A healthy emotional bond between a parent and child should be close and loving, with children able to rely on and trust their parents for emotional support. However, when the parent relies on the child to fulfill their emotional needs, then that closeness can become suffocating. This then develops into emotional incest. Emotional incest is a type of family dynamic that plays out when a caregiver depends upon a child to get their emotional needs met. It is a bond where a child fulfills the role of partner for their parent. This phenomenon, which is also called covert incest, is similar to emotional enmeshment. In cases of emotional incest, the parent and child may seem close and appear to care for one another in no more than a typical way, but because the caregiver is using the child to get their emotional and sometimes romantic needs met, the relationship is not wholly genuine. The parent’s loving behaviour is at least partially used as a means of obtaining the connection they want and is not necessarily intended to meet the needs of the child or help the child feel loved. The lack of appropriate boundaries in covert incest creates an emotional burden that lasts into adulthood, and can result in a variety of problems with intimacy and relationships.
With covert incest, the emotional boundaries between a parent and child are not blurred, but completely crossed. With emotional incest, the child is used by the adult for emotional fulfillment. Although there is no direct sexual touch, these emotional enmeshment relationships have a sexualised undertone, with the parent expressing overly graphic interest in the child's physical development and sexual characteristics or betraying the child's boundaries through invasions of privacy and sexualised conversations.
How exactly does covert incest happen? Typically, covert incest occurs when a child's parents have distanced themselves from one another physically and emotionally. This distancing causes one of the parents to focus on the child, seeking solace and emotional fulfillment by turning the child into a surrogate spouse. Parents who do this can also be void of boundaries on sexuality such as talking to their child about sex, sharing information about their sex life or cross sexual boundaries that are not age appropriate for the child. Parents who display such abnormal behaviour in their relationships with their children are clearly grappling with other issues. There are several factors that play into this damaging type of parentification of children, which include an adult relationship breakdown such as divorce or separation. The lack of an emotional relationship with another adult may result in a parent inappropriately leaning on their child for emotional connection and affirmation. Other events and relational patterns, even mental health concerns can provide the environment for emotional incest to develop, including grief, loss, or bereavement, domestic violence, abandonment and infidelity issues. Adults who engage in covert incest may have experienced it themselves as children, and therefore expect such emotional entanglement as a “normal” part of a parent-child relationship. This is also known as “generational enmeshment.” Conversely, an adult who has had a distant, neglectful, or absent relationship with family may over-correct with their child, stepping over necessary boundaries and relying on that child to fill in gaps in their own life.
Children who have experienced covert abuse can struggle in their adult relationships. They grow up having difficulty setting boundaries or developing healthy relationships, and they may display a lack of genuineness, passive aggression, or fall into patterns of triangulation. Their future relationships might be affected by intimacy issues, power struggles, or anger. They can struggle to get close with another person. Fears of connection and vulnerability are common as well. This is because that person has already been taken advantage of. Emotional incest from one or both parents, makes it impossible for children of such abuse to set healthy boundaries and to get their own needs met. It is highly probably that these children will go on to have adult relationships that might well be abusive in the same way, where the adult child always puts the needs of others before their own. Children who have been covertly abused were used by their parents. As adults, sometimes this can lead to relationships where you’re used again. Other times it can be avoidance of relationships to avoid ever being used in this way again. Their boundary systems can go awry when they’ve dealt with these types of relationships with their parents. It can be hard to know how close you can safely get with a partner or even a friend. The psychological ramifications of covert incest are numerous and pervasive. Covert incest that occurs during childhood or adolescence may lead to sexual addiction, intimacy disorders, relationship problems and emotional distancing. In adulthood, the drive to engage in sexual activity is heightened and becomes the answer for dealing with any form of stress, which can lead to sexual addiction. Victims of covert incest often develop problems with intimacy, relationships, trust or closeness. Covert incest also damages the adult child’s ability to trust thus creating confusion about proper human to human interpersonal relations and communication. Covert incest is an extremely damaging and unhealthy experience which can cause feelings of shame, disassociation, co-dependency, addiction, absence of self-care, and low self-esteem in adulthood. It disrupts the child’s ability to develop at a natural pace and in some situations, causes the child to grow up too quickly. Children who are victims of covert incest may believe that the best way to engage in close relationships is to ensure they are overachievers, in terms of their abilities, and that they are viewed as superior and special. Misconceptions about relationships can lead to perfectionism and low self-esteem, since the child is not equipped to withstand or understand the nature of adulthood. They will also have difficulties navigating relationships and boundary issues. They might view healthy boundaries as negative and therefore perceive the boundaries of others as rigid rejection. They may even seek relationships that mimic the enmeshment from their childhood and repeat the cycle. There is also the risk of a skewed power differential in their adult relationships, since they have been taught to think that one person holds all the power over the other. When a child is tasked with meeting the needs of their adult parent, their own needs often go unmet. As they grow older, they are likely to have difficulty advocating for their own needs because they may not have had enough opportunities to practice assertiveness skills. Additionally, children affected by emotional incest may learn to associate assertiveness with selfishness or another similar trait. A pattern of emotional incest can make it difficult for children to develop their own sense of self and learn how to get their needs met. It is often the “my needs don’t matter, what you want matters” connotation. Because they spend much of their time focused on meeting the needs of their parent, they have less opportunity to develop the skills necessary to meet developmental milestones and to learn how to approach life’s challenges. As a result, they are more likely to experience conflict in relationships and in life.
Although it may not be as blatant as physical or sexual abuse, emotional incest can be a form of abuse, albeit unintentional and unrealised abuse. This pattern of invasive behaviour can go on for years without outside intervention because it is disguised with an appearance of loving closeness and attentiveness. For some, this dysfunctional family dynamic can have damaging, long-term effects, both on the parent, who never receives help for the issues or conditions they are dealing with, and on the child. Nevertheless, these relationships are without a doubt sexualised.
If you are a victim of covert incest, it is important for you to start identifying the causes and symptoms. So how do you fix this? The first step to fixing anything, like said, is identifying it for what it was. In order to change boundary systems, you have to be able to identify where lines were crossed. This will help you become more mindful about what you’re experiencing in your current relationships. Take a step back and slow down the pace in your current relationship. Take some personal space to evaluate and learn to offer yourself the care-taking that you missed out on as a child. Self-care and self-love are important, learn to support yourself emotionally, and validate your right to boundaries. Yes, it takes time and a lot of practice but there is a need for it in order to heal from that childhood trauma so you can better navigate through your life. Speaking and relying on professional help can also assist in the healing process. The therapy environment can offer a safe place free of judgment from which you can begin to heal, however, it can be difficult for many of those affected to reach out for help. Although emotional incest can be difficult to spot in others, let alone recognise in one’s own situation, going to therapy can help identify the source of these issues and then provide a supportive environment to address the particular impact of the concern, whether that source is emotional incest or otherwise.
