Trigger Warning:
NY 2023 - 10 Years Ago, I Broke Up With My Mother.
Part 3 - Emotional Incest Victims Being The “Surrogate Spouse”
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Deets On Emotional Incest Sections
Part 3 - Emotional Incest Victims Being The “Surrogate Spouse”
The term "surrogate spouse" in the context of emotional incest refers to a situation where a parent, due to various reasons such as loneliness, emotional neediness, or unresolved personal issues, relies excessively on their child to fulfill emotional needs that are typically reserved for a partner or spouse. This dynamic blurs the boundaries between parent and child, leading the child to take on a role that mirrors that of a romantic partner or confidant.
Within the surrogate spouse dynamic, the child might:
Provide emotional support: The child may be expected to offer comfort, validation, and companionship to the parent, often beyond what is developmentally appropriate.
Assume adult responsibilities: They might take on responsibilities such as managing the parent's emotions, mediating conflicts, or even handling household duties that exceed typical parental expectations of a child.
Participate in inappropriate discussions: The parent might confide in the child about personal or intimate matters, seeking advice or sharing details that are not suitable for a parent-child relationship.
This dynamic can be damaging to the child's emotional development, as it interferes with their ability to establish healthy boundaries, form separate identities, and develop age-appropriate relationships outside of the family unit. The child may experience confusion about their role, feel overwhelmed by the emotional demands, and struggle to develop a sense of autonomy and independence.
Identifying and addressing the surrogate spouse dynamic is crucial for establishing healthy boundaries and facilitating healing for both the child and the parent involved. Professional therapy and support are often necessary to navigate and untangle these complex relational patterns and their impacts on individual well-being.
Deets On Being The Surrogate Spouse
My birther took me everywhere. Therapy for her childhood sexual trauma. Legal counseling during the divorce. Her alleged rapist’s grave so she could have a therapeutic experience. Millennials invest in therapy dogs. I was my mother’s therapy child. She made me her surrogate husband. Looking back, I wished she would have just cheated on my father after I was born, as she allegedly cheated on him while he served in the Navy. It would have saved me a hell of a lot of trauma.
She treated me as an emotional affair. Every time my parents argued, which was every day or virtually every day, I was the one she went to for comfort and to vent about my father. She poisoned me against my sick and dying father. I remember an episode clearly, I was maybe 8 years old. After an argument, my mother told me that my grandfather - her father - called her out for putting too much emotional baggage on me. She asked me - not an adult friend. Not any of her numerous half siblings across the nation, me - her child, if I thought my grandfather was right. What was I supposed to do but agree with her and nurture her ego - as the narcissistic victim I was?
I slept with my mother - literally - for what many would consider way too long. Since at least 1990, my parents had separate rooms and separate beds. So, I just never outgrew sleeping in her bed, and was never pushed by her to sleep in my own bed in the basement, even though I was routinely teased about it by my sisters (one of which, ironically, later started sharing a bed with our birther when she was 18. By that time I had my own room and did finally outgrow sleeping with my birther). I believe that I started sleeping in my own bed regularly when I was about 12–13 years old.
My birther hoovered. I was rarely allowed anywhere without her. When I was asleep? She was there. When I was at school? She “volunteered” to be there. Friends? I was only allowed at one regularly - who lived basically only a few blocks away - and rarely was I allowed at a group sleepover. And sleepovers were frightening, as I had a small bladder and wet the bed nearly every night. I didn’t know diapers were a thing, so if I did wet the bed, I wet the bed. I remember trying medication, which didn’t help, but diapers were basically nonexistent. While I’d like to now give the benefit of the doubt of it being a budgetary issue, I can’t help but to now wonder if it was a means of control via embarrassment.
I was regularly encouraged to either not start or to quit activities. I was afraid of a lot of things as a child - a lot of things - and after a season of T-Ball, I started crying when I saw the K-Ball pitching machine. Instead of being what I believe an actual parent would do - talk me down, have me express my fear, address my fears, and encouraged me to try it - she seized on that opportunity to turn the car around and go home. A similar experience happened with bear scouts. I was ready to sign on, but my social anxiety and selective mutism kicked into overdrive when it was time for sign-ups. Instead of trying to center me and encouraged me to still join, we went home.
A few years later, I had to basically have a meltdown for permission to join after school weightlifting. When I was finally allowed to join, I was actually kind of good at it and won an award or two. At the end of the season, I wanted to quit, but was actually derided by her about “quitting everything”. Looking back, it was understandable why I was wanting to quit. It was the sixth grade year, and in my district middle school started with seventh grade, so I was changing schools, changing districts, and changing houses that year. That’s a lot for an undiagnosed autistic kid, especially one with difficulty forming and maintaining relationships. And, as an almost middle-aged adult, I was finally diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder - a disability of which an identifying trait is… the inability to form and maintain relationships.
All of this developed into lacking any sense of autonomy, much less identity. I developed a deep misunderstanding of my own emotions and desires, and would go onto shut down the majority of those assets of my being for over the next decade of my life. I would develop fewer friends and fewer relationships as she drew me in deeper into zoning into her needs and wishes. My entire attention became centered around what she wanted of me and what she wanted… period. My birther took advantage of my disabilities in order to fulfill her needs. I was simply her coping mechanism for her own trauma. And I developed a sense of responsibility for her trauma. After an episode that I won’t address in 2013, I finally had to cut my mother out of my life. I went no contact.
Written with ChatGPT and scanned for plagiarism by plagiarismdetector.net on December 31, 2023
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