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This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological
building
family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness]
and
divorce. This intro-duction describes the Web
site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article
is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more
you read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs.
replace, other
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
+ + +
Are there important secrets in your family? In your partner's and/or ex-mate's
family trees? If so, they may signify
or
ancestors, and inherited psychological
This article overviews...
-
What is a "family
secret?"
-
What can
cause them?
-
Secrets about what?
-
What's the
problem with family
secrets?
-
What can co-parents
do about
them?
Perspective
Many divorced and/or re/married co-parents (bioparents and stepparents) come
from
childhoods. So
did their parents and ancestors. In such family trees, secrets
are common - information about family members or events that someone feels should be
withheld from
kids, in-laws, strangers, or everyone.
Family secrets are different than unawareness
of information about ancestors. They're conscious decisions to withhold
details of a shameful, scary, or illegal event (like a crime, abortion,
or deser-tion), a personal trait (like an
or perversion), or some aspect of a relationship that
had great emotional importance in its day. Some family secrets stand alone.
Others are part of an inherited family
-policy that says "We don't tell
outsiders our family's business. What goes on among us stays with
us."
Individual secrets and/or a "none of their business" (secrecy)
can cause anxieties (worries) and
which stress
and stepfamily relationships. Before reading
further, pause and reflect: are there things your parents or relatives made
clear they didn't want disclosed to you, certain other people, or anyone?
Are you promoting
selective or general secrecy among family members about something?
Is your partner?
The Roots
of a Secret
Premise: you're a liar! I'll bet there have been times you've chosen to hide
the truth from someone about something. (Notice how different "lying"
feels compared to "keeping a secret.") At the least, most people
prefer to keep their sex lives, some fantasies, and (some) financial
information secret
from most others. I suspect you've (probably) chosen to lie because you
feared...
-
shame, loss, embarrassment, or guilt; and/or...
-
upsetting or harming someone
you cared about; and/or...
-
you wanted to cause someone discomfort (revenge); or...
-
to gain an advantage over a
competitor; or...
-
honor a pledge
of secrecy (avoid the shame of betrayal), or...
-
preserve intimacy or to keep something "special" ("Only
you and I know this."); or to...
-
gain someone's interest, respect, or
admiration.
Can you think of other reasons we all "keep
secrets"?
Starting in early childhood,
we learn to lie to ourselves (e.g.
and others when telling the full truth feels too unsafe.
Do you agree? Would you rather be called "a liar" or "too scared to
tell the truth"? Did your ancestors respect and empathize with each
others'
or were they sources of ridicule and scorn? ("Nick's too
wimpy to face the music.")
Secrets
About What?
Think of your favorite private information, and imagine what would happen if
you were honest about it with people who matter to you. See if your withholding fits
either of these groups of secret things: you withhold...
events, actions, or personal
traits that your busy
(or someone
else's Critic) says are shameful (typical adjectives: immoral,
perverse, disgusting, horrifying, unethical,
dishonest, sinful, atrocious, heinous, unspeakable,
criminal, depraved...).
Example: our culture is relaxing the
ancestral view that divorce was a sin, and deserved personal shame and
public disdain, scorn, and pity. We're slower to release the ancestral
condemnation
that
is caused by a
shameful "weak will" - hence the "Anonymous" in current
12-step groups, which paradoxically
promotes shame.
And adults and kids often withhold...
information that could cause the
loss of something valuable to
someone, like approval, acceptance, assets, physical comfort, a job
(i.e. security), opportunity, freedom, dignity, trust, hope, or respect.
Both groups of secrets exist because someone feared discomfort,
and saw no better way to avoid it than to withhold or distort the truth.
Paradoxically, that often causes discomfort:
and anxiety
("What if 'they' find out?).
The Christian Bible
has been a solace and inspiration to millions of people around the world for
almost two thousand years. Church leaders who have used 10 commandments and
"original sin" rigidly and without compassion "in the name of God" modeled
moral judgment of each other (shaming) and fearing "eternal damnation" as
great social virtues.
Medieval traditions of "royalty," "nobility," and
"classes," and mainline religions proclaiming that people of different
faiths are inferior and damned have fostered millions of people believing that
"some people are inherently better (more worthy and deserving of
respect) than others" because of "blood" (genetic heritage), religious
beliefs, occupation, education, gender, skin color, sexual preference, and
politically-created titles.
In many cultures,
questioning or disobeying prevailing social or religious beliefs was and is heresy,
treason, and scandalous. Public or proclaimed
disagreement caused righteous social ridicule and rejection, religious
excommunication, and even death.
I suspect one reason for the wide appeal of
the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" was audience's identifying with the pious parents' agony
and confusion as their children rejected traditional values and beliefs, and
"dishonored" their ancestors' authority, rectitude, and wisdom.
Are there any
"black sheep" in your family tree?
Religious, political, and ethnic beliefs about
(a) personal superiority
and (b) the value of judging each other's worth are psychologically and
socially
Nourished by ignorance and unawareness, such beliefs have
fostered bequests of ancestral blame and shame, fear of truth-telling, and
related family secrets to many people living today. Has socially-decreed
"inferiority" and related shame, guilt, and fear significantly burdened
your relatives and/or
ancestors?
Take a moment to
think of social behaviors and traits that you and your peers regard with
contempt and/or pity, vs. compassion. How about rape; abortion; homelessness; marital affairs; child
abduction, and desertion; murder; bigamy; "graft and
corruption;" being fired, dishonorably discharged, or expelled; torture,
occult practices and beliefs; bigotry; slavery; lying; communism;
imprisonment; "mental illness;" addiction; having a "blue collar;" and
"selfishness." How about divorce? Redivorce? Remarriage? Belonging to a
stepfamily? Rudeness? Obesity? Laziness?
Though most
"developed societies" are genuinely freer of many ancestral moral judgments
and sanctions, you and your kids still have many possible causes
for shame, guilt, fear, and family secrets.
Inheriting
Secrets
Family secrets and the beliefs and ignorances that spawn them may pass to the next generation
in several ways...
omission and example - "Mom
never talked about her childhood - specially her mother's father."; and...
intention - "I prefer
that you don't tell your friends / children / spouse... (because it might
embarrass or hurt me or someone else)"; and...
tradition - e.g. children
being taught to not ask questions in general, or about certain things or
family members - "Jackie, asking Aunt Maria questions about why she never
married makes her uncomfortable (so don't ask, or you're bad)."
Seeking approval, a naive child without adult guidance can generalize that
into "I'm bad if I ask older people personal questions."; and...
unawareness - parents and
"experts" not valuing or "seeing" secrets and their impacts on people
and relationships. Paradoxically, dispelling or avoiding toxic family secrets
requires your awareness of your
and its effects. Do you know what you don't know about ancestral
shames and fears?
In her useful book
It Will Never Happen To Me, recovery pioneer Claudia Black observes that
kids from
("dysfunctional") families are often taught in/directly "don't
feel, don't talk, and don't trust" - or you'll get
shamed and hurt. Were you raised in a family that inherited the belief that
"children should be seen and not heard"?
and
family rules like these often add a fourth
prohibition: "...and don't ask."
The folk tale The Emperor's New
Clothes probably endures and delights each generation because it pokes fun at
our human foible of covertly agreeing to "not see"
and publicly discuss something shocking, shameful, or titillating, and an
innocent child's question shattering a mass deception.
As memories fade and social values evolve, the original reasons for secrecy
can get lost or distorted over several generations. Talking now about your
great-grandmother's "shocking" (shameful) illegitimate child is only taboo from habit,
tradition, and unawareness.
So what?
What's Wrong with
Family Secrets?
Depending on many factors, sacred ancestral lies and withholdings can range
from hilarious and silly to tragic. In
families, secrets and the beliefs and values that sustain them promote
formation and
psychological
These hinder personal
serenity,
and healthy
with others. These lower family-nurturance levels, which
has many harmful personal and social effects now and in the next generations.
These all contribute to psychological and legal re/divorce.
|
Premise: "significant" family
secrets held by any adult suggests inherited false-self wounds, toxic (health-hindering) values,
and low family nurturance. |
Major secrets add justification to your
co-parents doing
-
for such wounds, and guarding
your descendents by committing to recover from any you find. Reflect: would you be
uneasy or reluctant (fearful) to show this article to any blood or legal
relative and/or discuss it with them? If so - why? Is your
answering?
Options
for Co-parents
Notice
your
to these
questions...
how can I / we tell if
our family has inherited any major family secrets?
are our family adults promoting
major secrets now?
if either of these are
true, who should do what about them?
Research Your Families
One
practical and interesting way to help answer the first two questions is to
invite each of your co-parents and co-grandparents to draw a
multi-generation
If you're in a
stepfamily, include all
co-parents' family trees.
Then use it to fill out this
family-tree checklist from
If you do,
help each other
stay clear that your aim is not to blame or "expose" anyone. You're trying to
discover if any of your (or someone's) ancestors had to protect their safety and dignity by
camouflaging or hiding some "awful" (shameful) event or person from their
society and descendents.
Note
the paradox: You're hunting for some family history or information that few or
none of your generation may have been told about. This implies that if you
fill out the worksheet and conclude "No, none of these items is true of my
(or your, or an ex mate's) family tree," that's not "proof" that the items
didn't exist.
Another
option is for your adults to study your genogram/s together and
discuss whether you were told, or you
have concluded, that some ancestor/s were "bad" people in some way.
You may want to ask other relatives or older family friends to add their
memories and perspective.
A variation is to notice with interest if one or
more relatives are "ghosts" - i.e. little is known about them. That's not
proof of secrets, but it is cause to wonder why no one passed on mementos
and memories about them.
Another
option is to assemble your co-parents and key relatives and read
this article (or email it), and discuss it as a group and see
what "comes up." If you do, consider asking everyone to bring any family
photos, archives, and letters and pass them around. If any relatives are
notably resistant to this, consider what that may mean...
Another
interesting way to do some ancestral "research" is to gather (step)family
members and invite them to play The
Ungame or
LifeStories. These safe, non-competitive Retired Board games en-courage
people of any age to think and talk about themselves in ways they may not have
before. They provide a unique way for adults and kids in new stepfamilies to
"get to know each other." Biological relatives may also discover things they
never knew about each other or themselves!
The
Internet is bringing us a powerful new way of unearthing information about our
roots and ancestors. To expand the options above, type "ancestors," "family
tree," or "genealogy" into your favorite Web search engine (like
yahoo.com, go.com,
or google.com), and watch what happens! A
related option is to type in someone's last name or a specific ancestor's
full name.
Whatever research options you choose,
help each other notice the process you create as you
investigate and discuss your ancestries. Is anyone "embarrassed" or "uneasy"
about focusing on ancestors' or current secrecy? Note that embarrassment
and humiliation are normal human reactions to having personal
shame made public.
In any (step)family gathering, note
your option to ask questions like...
"Do we have any major family secrets or secret
keepers?"
"If so,
who originated the secrets, and
why
- what were they guarding against?"
"Are we teaching our kids to hold any
family secrets?"
"If so,
what are they,
who originated them,
and why?"
"What is our family's unspoken "policy" about
disclosing family affairs to 'outsiders'? Who made this policy, when, and why?
Is it outdated, or relevant to us all now?"
"Is anyone among us promoting the 'don't
talk, don't trust, don't feel, and don't ask' rules?
If so, who and
why?"
"In your childhood home, what was the rule
about revealing family problems to other people? Who
made and
enforced the
rules, and how - what happened to people who broke them?"
"How does it feel to discuss these questions
together?"
Act on Your Findings
The
ideas above all aim to help you honestly assess whether
you've inherited - and/or are generating - significant family secrets. Any such
secrets you discover are secondary.
The real target is to assess whether any of your co-parents are
significantly ruled by a
and may be accidentally transmitting false-self
to your descendents like their
ancestors did.
|
Premise: family secrets are usually (always?) signs of
ancestral shame, guilt, fear, ignorance, and unawareness. If you see it
differently, what's your view?
|
From
this perspective, make this
"family-secret hunt" part of your overall Project-1
assessment for, and recovery from, false-self wounds. Doing this is an
essential early step in building high-nurturance stepfamily relationships and avoiding re/divorce. An
important benefit in doing this family research is that it will help all your
adults and kids gain a clearer idea of "Who am I, and who are we?"
Another benefit can be teaching your kids key ideas in this article, and
empowering them (a) to be aware of secrecy ("dishonesty"),
(b) what it means (unawareness, and excessive shame, guilt,
and or fear), (c) and options for choosing to mute or withhold information
constructively.
Resources
-
Project-1
articles and worksheets,
and the related
guidebook;
-
This article on how to create a
stepfamily map;
-
This worksheet
on assessing your stepfamily tree for signs of wounded ancestors
-
These articles on
increasing safety and honesty (trust) among your stepfamily members;
-
This
introduction to
effective communication
which can help your family members reduce their needs for secrecy
if
your true Selves are leading your
-
Helpful books:
Adult Children: The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families
by John C. Friel Ph.D., Linda D. Friel M.A. (Paperback - 2/88)
Family Secrets: The Path to Self-Acceptance and Reunion
by John Bradshaw
(Paperback - 5/96); Look for the related audio tape.
Secrets of Your Family Tree: Healing for Adult Children of Dysfunctional
Families by Dave Carder, et. al. (Paperback - 3/95).
Recap
Most (all?) families "keep secrets" - i.e. family leaders or other members
intentionally withhold or distort selected information about themselves, their
ancestors, and key family events to (a) protect reputations, assets, and
security; and to (b) avoid embarrassments and humiliations (public shame),
guilts, and anxieties.
Your family's secrets can range from outdated to
harmless to toxic. Toxic secrets limit someone's serenity,
growth,
and
and/or promote a distorted
personal identity (sense of self) and unrealistic expectations.
Unrecognized family secrets can lower
your family's
nur-turance level in many ways.
People who keep or promote harmful family secrets
tend to be
and/or
adults who
unintentionally
their false-self wounds to naive minor kids until someone
wakes them and motivates them to stop.
This article offers perspective on family secrets, overviews why secrets
occur and how they're often transmitted down the generations, and outlines
co-parents' options for spotting and using major secrets to help assess
for false self wounds. Doing this is part of co-parent
which is a the keystone to
projects for building high-nurturance, long-lasting stepfamily
relationships. The article closes with links to several resources.
Reflect: can you say out loud why you read this article? Did
you get what you needed? Do you need to discuss this article or subject with someone, or
take some related action? What are your
subselves
now?
+ + +
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