In my article and webinar on The Half-Self, I described someone who was once very dependent on a parent, typically mother and then in adulthood becomes very distant or rejecting after entering into a romantic relationship.
While there are many reasons this can happen, one is that the adult can’t tolerate the memories or feelings connected to that earlier dependence.
This might be someone who, as a child, needed extensive help from a parent due to learning disabilities, ADHD, depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, or a physical condition that required ongoing medical care.
That history of dependency, sometimes life-saving, may be at odds with an adult’s desire to feel separate from the parent and more capable of self-care. From that perspective, the dependency is a source of shame or humiliation, tied to painful, sometimes frightening memories of helplessness.
Given those dynamics, the hostility to the parent serves several purposes:
Erases the feelings of needing the parent through devaluation: “If you’re so terrible, why would I want you in my life?”
Rewrites the story: by shifting the weakness onto the parent: “I didn’t really need your help—you only did it to make yourself look good.” That belief can easily morph into, “Being around you is bad for my mental health.”
Often—as I’ll discuss in tomorrow night’s webinar, Dealing With Your Difficult Son-in-law or Daughter-in-law—the dependence doesn’t vanish. It just transfers to the romantic partner. The partner is idealized, the parent devalued. The dependency now feels more “age-appropriate,” and the shared rejection of the parent becomes a kind of glue for the relationship: My partner sees who I really am and you never did!"
Yes. I believe this was, and is, at play with my son. He had years of just not being able to get his life together. Many times we 'rescued' him and helped him get back on his feet. I believe these dynamics made him vulnerable to reaching for something else that would take care of him when he just didn't seem to be able to get it together on his own, he didn't see a place for himself in the male world. It made him vulnerable to trans ideology and the promise of a group that wouldn't ask much of him and where the political belief is in socialism and in being 'taken care of' by the state. I also fault our profession Joshua. He had been in therapy for years with very well trained folks only to fall prey to a newly licensed 27 year old therapist (younger than he was at the time) who in a few online sessions believed his story and granted him a letter for transitioning and also encouraged him to reject us. As a retired analytically trained therapist myself you can imagine my horror and heartbreak. We haven't spoken in over 3 years. I know he isn't doing well.
This feels spot on. Thank you for identifying and explaining it. I look forward to more on this topic.