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We help people change unpleasant
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Through the magic of the Internet, you can get the help you need in your own home.
Daddy's Princess - Part 2
Mother's
Boy - Part 1
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Do you know a woman who:
- clings to her father
- acts childishly or immature?
- only attracts immature men?
- forever tries to appear special?
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- seems selfish and manipulative?
- sabotages her father's relationships?
- cannot maintain a healthy partnership?
- sabotages other people's relationships?
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These signs of emotional
incest warn of relationship chaos for these women and for people involved with
them. We help people unblock emotions and untangle relationships.
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Healthy Father - Daughter Relationships
Children of mature, happy parents seem much happier and
better prepared for adult life than children of immature, unhappy parents.
Healthy parents support the emotional development of their children.
Children raised by immature parents in unhappy
families often seem unbalanced for years.
It seems that some of these children must grow up too quickly, perhaps as
substitute partners or even as surrogate parents of their
parents; while others must delay their maturity, and remain childish. Some parents seems to encourage children
to mature physically while remaining immature emotionally.
Fathers are primary male role models in most girl's lives and
influence their daughters profoundly. Later in life, many women seek men who
are much like their fathers (while some seek men as unlike their fathers as
possible). Mature fathers can help their daughter's build self esteem and
personal identity. Immature fathers may try to be their daughter's best
friend ... or worse.
Daughters who feel loved and supported by their parents
generally seem to make more mature relationship decisions. Images of how a
father behaves at home seem to impact a daughter's perceptions throughout
life - especially on the role and responsibilities of a man in a family.
As girls move into adolescence, parenting may become
more complex. Some fathers feel awkward and may distance themselves from their
teenage daughters. But this is when daughters most need their fathers to be a mature
presence in their lives - a presence that they must sometimes push against.
We can help motivated fathers bridge that gap and build healthy father-daughter
relationships.
As children mature, we believe that both parents are
responsible for strengthening their own partnership. Healthy parent-child
relationships appear to provide a strong basis for young adults' maturity and
partnership. Unhealthy parental mentorship can encourage chaotic lives.
Suffering Across Generations
If parents use their children as substitutes for friends,
partners or even parents, their children may suffer. Enmeshed
children have difficulty expressing their own identities and many develop
various forms of
identity loss - e.g. chronic anger or anxiety, learning disabilities,
passive aggression or obsessions.
Later, entangled women often seek relationships with
immature or mother-bonded men and, if they have son, they may enmesh
their sons with covert emotional incest. This cross-generational
pattern is not a parents' fault ... such parents were likely
raised in similar relationship chaos and are repeating what they were taught
themselves. Such family habits may continue
across many generations.
In some countries, these patterns of parent-child
enmeshment seem so normal that the pattern may not be visible
or conscious ... consider the stereotypes of relationship behavior
of people in Mediterranean and African countries, and their descendents in
America, Australia, Canada etc.
Adult Woman or Little Girl?
Women who are entangled with their fathers are often
unable to enjoy stable partnerships - except with substitutes for
fathers or with immature men. Such women may attempt to rescue
immature or addicted men - and avoid or reject mature men. They may
say that healthy relationships are boring.
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I have a wonderful relationship with my
father but my mother won't appreciate what a good man he is ... she is
depressed and it would be better if she left ... my father hates my
boyfriends and says no man is good enough for me ... I love
him so much. Atlanta, GA |
The price of covert incest can be high. Some entangled women
become bisexual or lesbian. Many become depressed. Some suicide.
See Teenage Girl in Trouble and
Mother-Son Entanglements.
Substitute & Fantasy Fathers
If a father is dead, absent or irresponsible, his daughter may
unconsciously adopt a male relative as a substitute father - perhaps a brother,
uncle or grandfather. Or a daughter may create a fantasy father -
a fantasy who can provide the missing love. An entanglement with a
fantasy father may help a fatherless daughter cling to health and sanity;
and later, she may seek a substitute for her fantasy.
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My wife has an adult daughter from a
previous marriage ... she is very immature ... she married an older man
who is like her father ... she is obsessed with her son and
threatens to divorce her husband if he interferes with her parenting.
Portland, Maine |
Covert Emotional Incest
Parents, with good intentions, can love children in
ways that cause them to become entangled, depressed or or codependent. This
enmeshment seems to be more likely if:
- A parent is an addict, obsessed, depressed,
psychotic or suicidal
- A parent is irresponsible or immature and cannot
provide mature guidance
- A parent is absent or dead - and the other parent
is immature, lost or lonely
- A parent is displaced or controlled by another
family member (behaves like a victim)
Or a parent can over-bond to an opposite sex child -
covert emotional incest
is common. We help motivated adults resolve such
intra-family habits,
by dissolving toxic bonds and entanglements.
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Your "Daddy's Girl" article matches the personality of my mother-in-law, who loves my husband
dearly. She has sabotaged our good relationship ... they have cut off the
rest of the world ... they have hardly any close friends or relatives. They
don't want or need anyone else! Mumbai, India
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Talk to people about love at first sight and you will
find plenty of examples of entanglements and transferences. I have described
more consequences of immature parenting at
Learning Disabilities.
Betrayed Mothers
When a daughter bonds to her father, her mother may may react with
irritation or anger. Mother may punish her husband and daughter for their
betrayal, or she may retreat into depression, or leave. Whether Mother fights
or rejects or ignores her husband and daughter, the situation will likely worsen.
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My wife always compares me to her
father. She doesn't seem to see me otherwise. He's OK I guess, but she tries
to make me a copy of him. It's depressing ... I drink more and more to
deal with being a nonentity ... if we stay together, I may become alcoholic
... Idaho, USA |
Some helping professionals focus on involving mothers with
family problems, and give less attention to fathers. Instead of treating
fathers as an equal parents whose involvement is needed by their families,
helping professionals may demean them, and may devalue the father’s
importance to his family.
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My ex-wife worships her father, and she hated her mother for criticizing
her father. After six years of criticisms and insults ... I left her to get away from her
continual pressure to be more like her father ...
Montreal, Canada |
A young Little Princess is often charming - cute, warm
and funny. She attracts immature men unless she unconsciously sabotages
her attractiveness ... perhaps with obesity, skin complaints or body odor. However, her male partners
are unlikely to enjoy their princess for long - their princesses may have sexual
affairs, lose themselves in depression or anxiety, or 'fall in love'
with their own sons.
Consequences for Children
When parents depend on their children for their sense of
life, their children cannot be children. Children carrying the
emotional baggage of their parents'
obsessions may delay their emotional maturity, and remain adult children
for decades ... or grow up prematurely with little sense of having had
a childhood.
Other consequences on the lives of girl and women with
fixations on their fathers include:
- partnership chaos
- physical and mental disease
- sick and depressed children
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- work and money problems
- anxiety and stress disorders
- miscarriages and crib deaths
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Parents who sabotage their children's independence may be avoiding
their own crisis. If they have no other reason to stay together, the
independence of their last child may expose an empty partnership.
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I married a man with a teenage daughter. She was hostile,
and she did not want me in her life or his life. My husband
kept saying that I was like his daughter. When my opinions were different than his
daughter's, he found fault with me. I tried to make our marriage work, but
his love for me evaporated into a list of faults that echoed his daughter's
complaints. Chicago, USA |
Mother-Son covert incest
is equally common, predictable and toxic. When father-daughter and
mother-son enmeshments occur simultaneously – you can predict generations of suffering.
Daddy's Princess
- Part 2
Online Help for Emotional Incest
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Letter from a Teenage Girl (USA)
... if a father is over-loving a daughter and the mother feels
rejected or left out thats her problem!!! its not her child or her husbands
fault that they love each other. she has to deal with it. if she cant she can
leave as far as a kids point of you ... we dont care. one loving parent is more
than enough. if a mother doesnt know her place.. thats too bad. some kids love
both and all are happy. if kids choose a parent. the other parent has got to
deal with it. |
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2001-2012
All rights reserved. insest,dauter,dauhter,prinncess,dorter
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