Breaking the Family Code of Silence in a Dysfunctional Family

One of the hallmarks of many dysfunctional families is that there is a family code of silence about the family's dysfunctional behavior.  This can include enabling addiction, sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse and other dysfunctional behavior.  Breaking the family code of silence and how psychotherapy can help is the subject of this article (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).

Breaking the Family Code of Silence in a Dysfunctional Family

Children who grow up in dysfunctional families learn relatively quickly that there are certain subjects that the family doesn't discuss, and there are consequences for breaking this code of silence, including being punished, ostracized or identified as "family problem" or scapegoat (see my article: The Role of the Family Scapegoat and Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

Young children have no choice in most circumstances than to go along with the dysfunctional behavior.  After all, they are completely dependent upon the family so that being an outcast is unthinkable.

There are some young children who take the risk of confiding in another adult--like a teacher, mentor or family member outside the immediate family, but this doesn't always lead to positive results, especially since, in most cases the child continues to live in the household and will suffer repercussions for revealing family secrets (see my article: Toxic Family Secrets).

Maintaining a code of silence about dysfunctional family behavior often becomes the norm for these children when they become adults.  Confronting the dysfunction can still feel risky--even if the adult child is no longer part of the household and no longer dependent upon the family.

The inner conflict of wanting to confront dysfunctional behavior vs. the fear of breaking the family code of silence is often a topic for clients in psychotherapy.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Breaking the Family code of Silence in a Dysfunctional Family
After dating for a year, Megan and John began talking about getting married.  They were both in their mid-30s, they both wanted children and since their relationship was going so well, they agreed that they didn't want to have a lengthy engagement.  They agreed that they would rather plan to get married some time in the following year.

When Megan met John's parents for the first time, she was welcomed into their home with warmth and acceptance.  It was evident that they were happy that the couple was talking about getting married.

Megan knew that the next step would be for her to invite John to meet her family, but she dreaded the thought of John meeting her family.  Although no one in her family would admit it, her father had longstanding problems with alcohol that often resulted in unpleasant scenes at the family dinner table and during holidays.

Even though she and her parents lived nearby in New York City, Megan avoided going home, except during holiday time, and even then she sometimes made up excuses not to be around her family's dysfunctional behavior.

As a child, she loved being around her father when he was sober, which was usually early in the day.  But once he began drinking, he became verbally abusive, and no one was immune to his verbal attacks. She became very attuned to recognizing when her father was drunk and tried to stay out of his way.

She also didn't invited friends over to her house when she was a child because she never knew when her father would be drunk, and it would be too humiliating for her if her friends saw her father's behavior.

As a teenager, Megan summoned the courage to talk to her mother and her older siblings about the father's problems, but they tended to minimize the father's drinking.

Her mother told, "This is the way your father is.  There's nothing we can do to change it." And her siblings told Megan that she was "making a big thing out of nothing."  So, being outnumbered, Megan contained her rage and bided her time until she could go away to college (see my article: Being the "Different One" in Your Family).

After she graduated college, Megan moved into an apartment in Manhattan with a few of her college roommates.  She had one serious relationship with a man named Bill, before her relationship with John, when she was in her senior year of college.  She avoided introducing Bill to her family, but after she met Bill's parents and siblings a few times, she felt uncomfortable not introducing Bill to her family.

Before inviting Bill over to meet her parents, she spoke with her parents and told asked them to avoid serving or drinking alcohol when she brought Bill over.  Her parents were incensed that she would even ask this.  Even though Megan tried to be as tactful as possible, both parents objected to her "dictating" their behavior in their own home.

As a result, Megan nervously explained to Bill why she was avoiding introducing him to her parents. Although Bill said he understood, Megan always wondered after their breakup a few months later whether he was skittish about the possibility of becoming part of a family with such dysfunctional behavior.

Now that she was with John, Megan wanted very much for this relationship to work.  She had never revealed her father's alcoholism because she felt so ashamed about it.

On an intellectual level, she understood that she wasn't doing anything wrong and she didn't have a reason to feel ashamed, but the thought of John seeing her father drunk felt so humiliating.  He came from a relatively healthy family, and she wasn't sure he would understand or want to be around her family's unhealthy behavior.  And, yet, Megan still loved her family and, at that point, she didn't want to completely cut them off.

Breaking the Family Code of Silence in a Dysfunctional Family

So, feeling caught in a dilemma about what to do, she began attending psychotherapy.  Megan provided her psychotherapist with the family history, including the alcoholism, family secrets, the enabling and the family code of silence.

As she spoke to her psychotherapist, Megan began to get clearer that her father's behavior was completely unacceptable to her and, even though she loved him, she didn't want to be around him or have John around him.

Megan decided to try to talk to her mother about it one more time, so she invited her mother to lunch in a nearby restaurant one Saturday.  After the meal, she broached the topic with her mother again.  She told her mother that she loved both her and her father, but her father's drunken behavior was unacceptable to her and she didn't want to be around it.

Megan could see her mother's eyes glaze over as Megan brought up the topic of her father's drinking.  She expected her mother to "check out" during this discussion, but she persevered.  When she saw that her mother was distracting herself by looking at her phone, Megan put her hand over her mother's phone and said, "Mom, do you understand what I'm saying? I won't come over anymore until dad gets sober."

When her mother made a gesture to leave, Megan asked her to stay and to hear her out.  Reluctantly, Megan's mother sat down again and glared at Megan.  Then, her mother's eyes welled up with tears, "I know your father has a little too much to drink sometimes and he says things that he regrets later, but what can I do?"

Megan wanted to tell her mother to stand up to her father, but she didn't want to tell her mother what to do.  So, instead, she focused on herself and told her mother that she couldn't tell her what to do.  She only wanted her mother to know that she was fed up with his behavior, and she would stop coming over if he didn't get help and stop drinking.  She explained that she felt that if she continued to come to the house under the current circumstances, she would be enabling her father's behavior and she no longer wanted to do that.

She also explained that she and John were planning to get married and have children and she didn't want John or her future children to be exposed to her father's drunkeness and the family's enabling of that behavior.  Megan's mother was silent, but Megan could see that her mother was inwardly seething.

A few days later, Megan spoke with her psychotherapist about her lunch with her mother and how frustrated and angry she felt about her mother's reaction.  Despite that it was very difficult for Megan, she also felt freer and lighter after the discussion she had with her mother.  She made a commitment to herself that she would continue to stand up for herself.

Megan also had a talk with John to explain her family's problems.  Although she felt embarrassed, she was relieved that he was so understanding.  She suggested that he could meet her siblings, who were all their own, away from the family home, which he agreed to do.

In the meantime, Megan and her psychotherapist worked on her unresolved childhood trauma related to the effect of the family's dysfunctional behavior using EMDR therapy (see my articles: What is EMDR Therapy? and How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain).

Over time, Megan and her psychotherapist worked through the unresolved childhood trauma with EMDR therapy, but it was neither quick nor easy.

Megan and John planned a small wedding with his family and their friends.  She invited her mother and siblings, but they refused to come because Megan excluded her father.  Although it was very difficult not to have her parents there, Megan knew she made the right decision for herself by not inviting her father.

A couple of years later, Megan was at home when she received a call from her mother that the father was in the emergency room after waking up looking jaundice.  Putting aside her resentment, Megan went to the hospital and stayed with her mother while her father was admitted to the intensive care unit.

The doctors explained to them that it appeared that Megan's father's liver was failing and they would need to do tests.  He explained that this was a very serious medical condition, and they might have to place the father in an induced medical coma.

At that point, Megan's family, including the father, had to confront the seriousness of his alcohol problems and that he might die from liver failure.  The father, who was in a great deal of pain, apologized to the mother, Megan and her siblings for upsetting them.  He held Megan's hand until he was taken away for tests.

It turned out that a medically induced coma was unnecessary, but the father needed surgery and he was warned by the doctors that if he continued to drink, he could die.

After the father recuperated from his medical problems, he agreed to go to an inpatient rehabilitation program for people who abused substances.  After he was in the program for a couple of weeks, Megan, John, her mother and siblings visited the rehab on family day.

They participated in a family education program and then they met with Megan's father and his primary counselor.  During that family session, Megan's father apologized again and made a commitment that he would do a six month outpatient chemical dependency program, attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and get a sponsor so he could work on being sober.

It was an emotional meeting for everyone.  The counselor encouraged the family members to attend Al-Anon, a 12 Step anonymous program for family members who are part of an alcoholic and codependent family (see my article: Al-Anon: Beyond Reciting Slogans).

As time went on and Megan saw that her father was really serious about recovery and staying sober, she and John began attending occasional family dinners.  After many years of experiencing her father's alcoholism, it took Megan a while before she could trust that her father was serious about his recovery.

Breaking the Family Code of Silence in a Dysfunctional Family

But throughout it all, Megan felt confident that she knew what was acceptable and unacceptable behavior to her and that if her father relapsed, she knew what she needed to do to take care of herself (see my article: Is Self Care Selfish?).

Conclusion
Breaking the family code of silence can be a daunting endeavor, especially if you're the only one in your family who is willing to do it.

Years of going along with enabling behavior can numb you emotionally to dysfunctional behavior and cause you to be in denial about it.  But once you've made up your mind to place your own sense of well-being ahead of the family code of silence, you can take the necessary steps to take care of yourself, and psychotherapy can help you.

Getting Help in Therapy
It takes courage to confront longstanding family problems and how these problems affect you (see my article: Developing the Courage to Change).

If you have been struggling with the effects of dysfunctional family behavior and a code of silence around it, you could benefit from attending psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to identify the problems, take steps to take care of yourself, and work through the unresolved problems in therapy (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

My experience as a psychotherapist of 20 years has been that experiential psychotherapy usually works best to overcome unresolved trauma (see my articles: Why Experiential Psychotherapy is More Effective to Overcome Trauma Than Talk Therapy Alone and  Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome unresolved trauma.

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.

Are You Enabling Your Adult Children?

In prior articles, I've discussed the concepts of enabling and codependency: 

Relationships: Overcoming Codependency

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Being Enabling 

Avoiding Codependency Between You and Your Children).  

In this article, I'm focusing on parents who enable their adult children.

Are You Enabling Your Adult Children?

Before I discuss parents enabling adult children, I want to stress that, of course, most parents want the best for their children and would never do anything intentionally that was harmful to them.

At the same time, good intentions can sometimes lead to bad outcomes.  With regard to enabling adult children, this often means that these children don't learn the necessary skills to develop and grow psychologically.

What Does "Enabling" Mean?
Let's start by providing the negative definition of "enabling," which is how I'm using it in this article.

Basically, the concept of enabling developed in the recovery community to describe spouses, family members and others who intend to "help" someone with an addiction but who make the problems worse with their "help."

Common examples of enabling in this sense is the wife (or husband) who calls the spouse's employer to make an excuse for an absence when, in fact, the spouse is too drunk to go to work.

In this case, the intention is for the spouse with the drinking problem to keep his job.  However, the unintended consequence is that the spouse with the drinking problem learns that he can continue to drink and his spouse will make sure that everything is taken care of with the boss.

Anyone with an ounce of compassion for the wife in this situation can understand why she's doing this.  If her husband loses his job, she and the children will also suffer terrible consequences.  But, at the same time, she is unknowingly and unintentionally making the situation worse because there are no consequences for the husband at home or at work--at least for a while.

Presumably, these excuses can't go on forever.  In the meantime, since alcohol problems tend to be progressive, without help, the husband's drinking problem will get worse and can lead to serious health problems or death.

The same scenario often occurs when parents make excuses for their adult children to shield them from experiencing negative consequences.

Let's take a look at a fictionalized scenario to understand these consequences better:

Sandy and Ann:
Sandy's daughter, Ann, moved out with roommates when she was 25.

Initially, when Ann moved out, she wasn't making much money, so Sandy paid most of Ann's portion of the rent and helped to pay for Ann's phone.

As time went on, Ann got a promotion to a managerial position at her bank, and she was doing well enough so that she could afford her own apartment in Brooklyn.  But she asked Sandy to continue to pay her rent for the next six months until she was settled in.

Sandy was happy to help her and continued to pay Ann's rent for the next six months--even though it came at a financial sacrifice.  Sandy cancelled a vacation she planned to take.  She also became a lot more careful about other everyday expenses so that she could continue to help Ann financially.

A few months later Ann approached Sandy for more money because she maxed out her credit cards and the balances were so high that she could no longer make minimum payments.

When Ann told Sandy what happened, Ann was shocked.  She had no idea that Ann was running up her credit cards.  She told Ann that she would pay off her credit cards, but she needed to be more careful in the future about how she spent money.

Are You Enabling Your Adult Children

Ann agreed to be more responsible, but this pattern continued for the next few years with Ann living above her means to have whatever she wanted and Sandy cutting back more and more on her own expenses to bail out Ann.

By the time Ann turned 30, she had a high paying executive position at her bank, but she continued to get deeper and deeper in debt.

As a single parent of an only child, Sandy was getting increasingly concerned about Ann's financial problems.

On some level, she knew that she had enabled this problem by constantly bailing Ann out, but she felt too guilty to refuse to help her.

Sandy offered to pay for Ann to see a financial advisor to help Ann develop better financial skills, but Ann wasn't interested.

Then, one day, Sandy came to visit Ann and told her that she had run up a new credit card and she couldn't pay it.  When Ann told Sandy that the balance owed was $25,000, Sandy was shocked.  At first, Sandy refused to help her.

At that point, Ann got enraged and said in a desperate tone, "What am I going to do!?!  If the credit card company contacts my employer, I'll be so embarrassed!  I'll lose my job! You have to help me."

Sandy wasn't sure what to do.  She agonized about it for days.  Then, she confided in her best friend, Meg, who was already familiar with this dynamic between Sandy and Ann.

Meg listened patiently, as she always did, and then she told Sandy that Ann was in deep trouble with her overspending habit.  Then, she took a deep breath and told Sandy that Sandy was also in trouble for enabling Ann.

Sandy knew that Meg was right, but she felt too guilty and afraid not to help her daughter, so she took money from her savings account, gave it to Ann and told her that it was a loan and she had to pay her back.

Ann was taken aback when Sandy told her that she had to pay the money back, but she was feeling desperate, so she agreed to pay Ann back within the next two years.

After Sandy gave Ann the money, they each felt momentarily relieved and didn't talk about it again for a while.  But as time went on and Ann didn't give Sandy any money to pay back the loan, Sandy got concerned.

Whenever Sandy brought up the loan, Ann got annoyed and reminded Ann that she had agreed to pay her back.  Ann didn't like being "badgered" for the money and she said she would start paying back Sandy soon--as soon as she had the extra cash.

But time went on and Ann never brought up the loan and never gave Sandy any money.  Instead, she got herself deep into debt again.

When Ann approached Sandy for more money, Sandy had run out of all options and, even though she felt very guilty, she told Ann that she would have to deal with this new debt on her own because she couldn't help her.

Ann panicked and approached her close friends for loans, but she had already borrowed money from all of them and still owed them so they told her they couldn't lend her any more money.  Having no money to pay, Ann had to file for bankruptcy, which ruined her credit and caused her to lose her position with her bank.

Ann had no choice but to give up her apartment and move back home, which she resented.  Then, instead of looking for another job, she spent all day sleeping in her former childhood room. She refused to speak to Sandy because she was unable to help her.

Faced with this increasingly difficult situation, Sandy began therapy because the situation was overwhelming to her.

In therapy, Sandy learned about the concept of enabling and how she had unwittingly contributed to her daughter's problems by constantly bailing her out.

Sandy knew that she had to make changes, but it was extremely difficult for her to say "no" to her daughter.  But she took responsibility for her part in Ann's problems, and she began to deal with the underlying reasons that caused her to enable her daughter.

Sandy discussed in therapy that she had always felt guilty about separating from Ann's father, who was a gambler who gambled away their savings when Ann was a child.

After they separated, Ann's father disappeared from Ann's life and Ann blamed Sandy for this.  As a child, Ann was too young to understand her father's gambling problems and Sandy never explained it to Ann--even when Ann became an adult.  In fact, they never discussed it.

Ann realized in therapy that, due to her guilty feelings about the marital separation and Ann's father's abandoning Ann, Sandy felt she could never say "no" to Ann.

Ann had to work through her guilt in therapy before she could accept that she did what was best for herself and Ann when she left Ann's father, and it was time for her to stop trying to overcompensate for it by constantly bailing out Ann.

She also knew that she needed to speak with Ann about it and set limits with her, including how long she could continue to live with her and expect that Sandy would support her.

It was one of the most difficult conversations that Sandy had ever had in her life, but by the end of their conversation, Sandy explained why she separated from Ann's father.  She also gave Ann six months to find a job or she would have to move out.

It took a few days before Ann came back to Sandy and apologized for her behavior.

She told Ann that after her father left, she blamed Sandy, but she also blamed herself.  She felt that she must have been unlovable and that the only thing that made her feel good about herself was spending money (see my article:  Learn to Stop Overspending as a Way to Avoid Uncomfortable Feelings).

She understood now that she had placed herself in an untenable situation and it was always headed for disaster, but she couldn't face it until now.

Ann began attending Debtor's Anonymous 12 Step meetings to deal with her overspending habit and she started putting her life together again.

Although it was very hard for Sandy to set limits with her daughter, she realized that neither she nor her daughter would have made any changes if she had not confronted her own underlying reasons for enabling Sandy.  This, in turn, led to Ann facing her own problems.

Conclusion
Confronting your enabling behavior toward an adult child can be one of the most difficult things you do in your life.

You can find many rationalizations and excuses for your behavior, but until you face it and make a commitment to overcome it, neither you nor your child will be able to change this dysfunctional behavior.

In the scenario above, the enabling behavior was about giving an adult child money, but it can be about anything--enabling substance abuse, enabling overeating, enabling workaholism, and so on.

Getting Help in Therapy
Parents often find it increasingly difficult to stop enabling their children on their own.

It's easy to continue to bargain with yourself, "I'll just do it this one time and then I'll stop," in much the same way that your adult child can bargain with him or herself to continue to engage in dysfunctional behavior.

Getting help in therapy can provide you with the tools you need to take yourself out of the cycle of ongoing enabling.

Parents are often surprised that once they take a stand and stop enabling their adult children's dysfunctional behavior, their children will have no choice but to confront their own behavior and make changes.

The first step, picking up the phone and setting up an appointment with a therapist for a consultation, can be the hardest step, but it's often the first step to making positive changes.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to overcome negative enabling behavior so they could lead more fulfilling lives.

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.

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Enabling

Compassion for oneself and for others is an admirable quality that many of us strive to cultivate in ourselves.  Learning to be compassionate can help us to experience peace of mind within ourselves and with others.  Unfortunately, there are times when you might think you're being compassionate, but you're actually enabling other people's destructive behavior and creating a self destructive situation for yourself. 

It's not always so easy to distinguish compassion from enabling, especially when the situation involves people that you love.

Let's take a look at the following vignette, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed:

Ann
When Ann was in her early 30s, her father died unexpectedly from a heart attack.  It was a terrible shock to Ann, her mother, and Ann's siblings.

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Enabling

A couple of months after Ann's father's death, Ann's mother, Laura, asked Ann to have brunch with her to talk about Laura's finances.

It turned out that, even though Ann's father had left the mother well provided for, she was no longer able to live in the manner that she was accustomed to, and she asked Ann if she could help her for a few months until she could sell the house, move into a smaller house, and pare down her expenses.

Ann earned a very good living, and she felt a lot of compassion for her mother, so she agreed immediately to help her--with the understanding that Laura would pare down her extravagant spending and sell the large family home.

Even though Ann earned a very salary, after a while, contributing to her mother's expenses created a financial hardship for her.  So, a few months later, Ann asked Laura if she had any potential buyers for the house.

At first, Laura gave Ann a strange look, as if she didn't know what Ann was talking about.  Then, as if coming to herself, she brushed off Ann's question by changing the subject.

Ann knew that her mother had a strong emotional attachment to the family home, so she didn't press her, especially since she also knew that her mother was grieving.  She allowed a few more months  to go by before she asked about the sale of the home again.  But, by that point, Laura seemed annoyed and she told Ann that she had no intention of selling the family home.  It was as if she and Ann had never had their talk over brunch.

Ann wasn't sure what to do.  On the one hand, she knew that her mother was accustomed to being maintained in a certain way, and Ann felt sad for her mother.  But, on the other hand, she also knew that she couldn't afford to keep giving her money, and she felt very guilty about this.  When she spoke to her siblings, they wanted nothing to do with their mother's finances, and they refused to help.  So, Ann felt the burden completely on her shoulders.

At that point, Ann was having many sleepless nights and she came to therapy to deal with this thorny problem.  She told me that she had always considered herself to be a compassionate person, and she cared about her mother very much.  She felt this problem was such an emotional dilemma for her that she didn't know what to do.

As we explored this issue, Ann began to see how self destructive it was for her to keep supporting her mother, especially since it meant that Ann was making certain financial sacrifices to do it and her mother wasn't willing to curb her spending or change her lifestyle at all.

Over time, Ann realized that her mother was caught in a vicious cycle of overspending, and she was in denial about the changes she needed to make.  These were changes that would still allow her to take a few vacations a year and have most of what she wanted.  But she would have to pare down her extravagant living and sell her expensive home.

Ann also realized that she had crossed the line from being compassionate to enabling, and she wasn't helping her mother.

Gradually, Ann summoned the courage to have a serious talk with her mother and to set boundaries with her.  She gave her a reasonable amount of time to sell the house and to make other changes in her spending habits.  Initially, Laura was angry and hurt.  This made Ann feel guilty at first, but she knew in her gut that the current situation was untenable, and she was doing the right thing for both of them.  Eventually, Laura accepted the situation and began making changes.

For a while, Laura was cool towards Ann.  But, over time, they reconciled their relationship.  During that time, Ann also allowed herself to see that her mother had a long history of being self centered, which Ann's siblings were able to see before Ann could admit this to herself.

Crossing the Line From Being Compassionate to Enabling is a Common Experience
The fictionalized vignette above, where compassion turned into enabling is a common experience.  Very often, the person, who starts out feeling love and compassion, has his or her heart in the right place, but their judgment becomes skewed.

In the vignette above, the original agreement for Ann to help her mother was reasonable, but Laura didn't abide by her end of the agreement.  At that point, when Ann continued to go along with her mother, Ann crossed the line to enabling.  This is so easy to do, especially when there's a loss or a crisis.

The important thing to remember is that enabling a loved one in destructive behavior is not good for either one of you.  So, even though you might feel like you're helping him or her, your enabling is doing more harm than good, even if your loved one can't see it.

Getting Help in Therapy
If  this vignette above resonates with you and you find yourself stuck in a similar situation, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed therapist who can help you to untangle all the emotional threads that make you feel stuck.  

A therapist, who has expertise in helping therapy clients with this type of issue, can often be more objective and see certain enabling dynamics that you're unable to see and help you to work through them.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.  

I have helped many clients to distinguish between being compassionate and enabling so they could make positive changes in their lives.

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.