Coping with resentment towards a passive parent for their role in childhood abuse or neglect is usually a difficult process (see my article: Letting Go of Resentment).
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| Coping With Resentment For a Passive Parent |
When you were younger, you might have seen this parent as the "safer parent" or the "nice parent" as compared to the parent who was mistreating you. However, as an adult, you might come to the realization that the parent you thought was safer or nicer didn't protect you from the parent who mistreated you.
Coping With Resentment For the Parent Who Didn't Protect You
Resentment is often a signal that your boundaries were violated and your need for safety was ignored.
Shifting from a child's view to an adult view often includes:
- Allowing the Pedestal to Fall: Shifting from idealizing the passive parent to a realistic understanding of their complex role is a first step in recognizing and coping with your anger and resentment. While it's understandable that, as a child, you might have seen the passive parent as the "good one" compared to the abusive parent, now that you're an adult, you can develop a more mature understanding of why they prioritized the abusive parent's comfort over your well-being. There can be many complex reasons for their passivity, but being aware of this parent's role in your mistreatment is essential to your healing.
- Understanding Responsibility vs Blame: There is a difference between blaming versus responsibility. The passive parent had a responsibility for your safety and well-being when you were a child. This is often a trap that many traumatized individuals get stuck in because they want to be empathetic towards the passive parent and yet they feel resentment towards them.
- Considering the Passive Parent's Humanity: At some point, as an adult, when you have worked through some of your resentment, as part of your healing, you can consider that your passive parent wasn't infallible. Acknowledging your passive parent's flaws, including their own fear, conditioning and their possible unresolved trauma, can help you to see them as a flawed peer.
What Steps Can You Take As An Adult to Deal With Your Resentment?
- Validate Your Reality: Your feelings of resentment and betrayal are real and valid. In many instances, the passive parent tends to minimize your experience in order to keep the peace with the mistreating parent. This might involve the passive parent telling you as an adult, "This happened a long time ago. Why don't you let it go?" or "You turned out alright so why are you still resentful about this?" Rather than allowing the passive parent to minimize your experience, you don't have to participate in the gaslighting as you reclaim your power (see my article: Self Validation).
- Set Firm Boundaries: Boundaries are for your own well-being. They are not meant to hurt your parents. Start by affirming your right to be treated with respect and prioritize your healing and personal growth (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Guilt).
- Learn to Stop Self Abandoning: In situations like these, many adult children learn to abandon their own needs to placate the passive parent, so it's important not to self abandon (see my article: What is Self Abandonment?).
- Expect the Possibility of Resistance: If you have changed your role with the passive parent, you might encounter resistance in terms of being described as someone who has been "brainwashed" or, from their point of view, they might say you are unnecessarily resentful. Try to remain calm and firm in your stance.
- Consider Their Limitations: You cannot force the passive parent to change or leave their situation. Each of you must make your own decisions. You also need to prioritize your well-being.
- Get Help in Trauma Therapy: Untangling these complex situations can be difficult to do on your own. You could benefit from working with a trauma therapist who can help you to heal and grow (see my article: How Trauma Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Unresolved Trauma).
Clinical Vignette
The following clinical vignette illustrates the complexities involved in terms of coping with resentment towards a passive parent and how trauma therapy can help with unresolved trauma:
Ann
As an adult, Ann revealed to her mother that had her father touched her inappropriately multiple times when Ann was 10 years old. In response, her mother remained silent for a long time. Then she said, "You're 25 years old. These things happened a long time ago. Why can't you just let it go?"
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| Coping With Resentment For a Passive Parent |
Ann was stunned. When she could find her voice, she told her mother that the of sexual abuse by her father was traumatic and, as an adult, it impacted her sexual relationship with her boyfriend as well as her prior relationships with other men.
Ann's mother looked uncomfortable, "You know your father was drinking at the time. He probably didn't even know what he was doing. Now that he's dead, let him rest in peace."
Suddenly it dawned on Ann that her mother might have known about the sexual abuse when Ann was a child and her mother didn't stop it, "Did you know what he was doing to me?"
Her mother left the room quickly and Ann realized that her mother did know and she didn't protect her. Ann felt enraged and followed her mother into the living room, "You knew, didn't you?"
Her mother looked upset, "You don't understand what it was like. When your father got drunk, he would threaten me. I was terrified that if I confronted him, he would hit me. And I wasn't working so I had no money. What was I supposed to do? Where was I supposed to go?"
"So you didn't do anything!" Ann shouted at her, "You just let him do it!"
"You were so young. I thought you wouldn't remember what happened when you got older" her mother responded.
Ann was speechless and she froze in the moment. But when she reconnected with her body, she left her mother's home and drove back to her apartment (see my article: Understanding the Freeze Response Related to Trauma).
On the way home, Ann was in tears. She recalled, as a child, hearing her parents arguing when he was drunk. At the time, she thought of her mother as an angel and her father as a devil.
Now she realized that, as a child, she had idealized her mother. But, as an adult, she now realized that her mother didn't protect her or try to get help to make the abuse stop--even though she knew about the abuse.
After several months of trauma therapy, Ann became aware that of just how angry she was that her mother didn't take responsibility to protect her from her father.
She told her therapist that, when she was 15, a few months prior to her father's death, she confronted her father about the abuse. Her father told her he couldn't remember what he did when he got drunk and said, "Let's just put this behind us."
Her therapist used a combination of EMDR Therapy and Parts Work Therapy (IFS) to help Ann work through the unresolved trauma including Ann's feelings of resentment and betrayal towards each of her parents.
She and her boyfriend, Mike, also attended sex therapy to work on their relationship. Initially, when they first met, their sex life was good, but as their relationship became more emotionally intimate and Ann felt more emotionally vulnerable, Ann would freeze whenever Mike touched her.
During her treatment, Ann's trauma therapist and her sex therapist collaborated for the benefit of Ann and Mike's therapy.
Eventually, Ann's mother began her own individual therapy to deal with her role as the passive parent.
After a year in her own therapy, Ann's mother told her that she was ashamed that she didn't try to protect Ann and she apologized. She realized she needed to take responsibility for not doing her part to stop the abuse. She had profound regret and shame and she wanted to work towards reconciling her relationship with Ann (see my article: Understanding the Barriers to Reconciliation in Families).
Her mother also revealed to Ann that she had also been sexually abused as a child by her father and, in hindsight, she realized that her own experience complicated her feelings about her husband abusing Ann. She said she didn't want to make excuses. She just wanted Ann to understand.
Ann had a lot of mixed feelings towards her mother, but she wanted to forgive her. She also had mixed feelings about father because there were times when he was sober when Ann was a child that he was mostly a kind and loving father.
She continued to work in trauma therapy to reconcile her feelings towards each of her parents. Since her father died, Ann had no way to reconcile with him directly, but she realized that adult children continue to have an internal relationship with their parents even after they are gone.
In the meantime, Ann and Mike continued to work on their relationship in sex therapy so that Ann could separate her traumatic experiences with her father from her sexual experiences with Mike.
Conclusion
The first step in these situations is to look at your childhood history with adult eyes.
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| Get Help in Trauma Therapy |
Each person has to decide whether they are willing to reconcile with their parents or not.
Some people decide that what happened when they were a child was unforgivable and others try to reconcile with one or both parents.
Others decide to maintain a superficial relationship as opposed to being completely estranged (see my article: Family Estrangements: Understanding the Barriers to Reconcilation).
There is no right or wrong decision. There is only the decision that is right for you as an individual.
Trauma therapy can help you to free yourself from your traumatic history so you can live a meaningful life.
About Me
I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.
As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.
To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.
To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.