Having worked as a psychotherapist for more than 20 years, I have heard a lot of family business in the consulting room. Even so, few family dramas have stayed with me as powerfully as this one. So today, having cut and spliced their story together, I’m telling it to you, in the hope that. If it rings true of parent-daughter relationships you’ve known, maybe you’ll take heart that there’s hope in the studio, too.
Laura had been seeing her therapist for some months a task that would deeply embarrass her. Her therapist wanted her to tell her daughter, Emily, that she, Laura, was addicted to alcohol. In mediation with her therapist, she practised what she would say, given that Emily would be shellshocked by the news, especially as Laura was still drinking. ‘I’m sorry, Em, I’ve been in denial for a while now. I really need help, and this is my first step. Mummy loves you so much, isn’t that what mothers are meant to say?’
In truth, Laura wasn’t sorry at all, and was unsure why this intervention was suggested in the first place. But her therapist said it would be important for them to be as much on the same page as possible. At first, Laura was petrified of confronting Emily, devastated by the thought of being exposed as a fraud. She vacillated endlessly between going or not going. Going would be humiliation, and not going would be failure. After much soul-searching, Laura agreed reluctantly but only when a therapist was present.
She knew Emily wasn’t going to believe a word she was saying, and besides, Laura was still drinking. Then, just two days before their arranged meeting, Laura went out for drinks and stumbled home drunk. Now what? There would be no hiding on the big day, for sure. So she called up her daughter and rescheduled the meeting. Laura was in no state to speak to her daughter, having downed an entire bottle of vodka before finishing her therapy session.
The Initial Session: A Room Filled with Tension
I shall never forget the first time Laura and Emily walked through my door. You could cut the air tight and taut between them with a knife. It was ridiculously silent, too, despite the hostility coursing between them. Laura, aged mid-fifties, with silvering hair and struggle lines branding a blueprint deep into her skin, sat like a mannequin fixed to one end of the couch. Emily, in her late 20s, chose a chair as far away from her mother as possible, her posture screaming discomfort, her body language a defensive shout.
When we started our session, it was clear that something had just happened to the bedrock of their relationship. ‘I don’t know how to trust her anymore,’ Emily said in her shaky voice. ‘How can I believe anything I thought I knew about our family?
As for Laura, she wavered between explaining herself and talking to her child. ‘I was trying to shield you from harm, Em,’ she said.
The Family Secret: Unraveling Years of Deception
In the following weeks, they shared a bit more about what had brought them to counselling: Laura had lately told Emily that the man she’d always believed to be her father was in fact, not. Laura’s biological father was her high-school sweetheart, with whom she’d had a three-year romantic relationship, only to reunite briefly just before marrying Emily’s dad.
This new information rocked Emily’s world. It directly challenged who she was, her family history and her relationship with both Mum and Dad. She reacted with righteous hurt and anger that went to the core of her being. Compounding her pain was the knowledge that for years many family members had known the truth and then unknowingly remained part of people she had trusted to have her best interests at heart.
For Laura, the need to protect the secret, born of her fear, shame and a misguided desire not to hurt her daughter or her marriage, was giving way to crushing guilt and a fear that she might lose Emily because of the choices she had made.
The Therapeutic Process: Unpacking Emotions and Rebuilding Trust
Over time, in the course of the therapy, it became apparent just how many important issues we would need to address in order to begin to heal this split: 1.
Processing the initial shock and hurt
Exploring the reasons behind the secret-keeping
Rebuilding trust and open communication
Redefining their relationship as adults
In one-on-one sessions, I helped Emily integrate her feelings of betrayal and betrayed anger – her sense of ‘who am I’ changed utterly, and she had to reconfigure her relationship to both her biological and her non-biological father. She needed to mourn the death of the family narrative she had long held true, and to work through the chaos, chaos, of her feelings about it.
The sessions with Laura were designed to explore the underlying factors that led her to keep the secret, and helped her address the guilt and fear she was experiencing. We also worked on helping her make sure her communication with Emily was more respectful going forward, and explored how she could support Emily through this difficult time while also giving her daughter more space to process the information in her own way.
The Power of Honesty: Breaking Down Walls
This was one of the turning points in their therapy, and took place during a joint session two months after we began working with them. Up until that point, Emily had participated minimally in the two joint sessions we had had thus far. Emily turning to her mother and saying, in part, ‘Why didn’t you trust me with the truth?
The question was too raw, too honest. A lull hung in the room before Laura, starting to cry, answered in a way that launched recovery.
‘I was scared,’ Laura confessed. ‘I was scared of losing you. I was scared of you hating me. I was scared of ruining our family. And my fear made everything worse. I should have trusted your strength and our love. I’m so sorry, Emily.’
That moment of weakness had made it easier for them to talk honestly with one another. It wasn’t an instant cure, but it felt like the start of a different narrative.
Rebuilding Connection: Small Steps Towards Healing
During our sessions, I incorporated exercises to help Laura and Emily rebuild their rapport:
Active Listening Exercises: giving them a way to actually hear each other’s views, instead of lashing out in defensive ways.
Letter writing: between sessions, I asked them to write each other letters about how they feel; this is very good for creating a place of reflection, and allows for sharing of painful feelings in a less confrontational way.
Shared Activities: Ask them to do the things that they once enjoyed together to give them more positive experiences to re-balance the negative ones associated with discovering the lawyer’s secret.
Family History Exploration: We also began the incredibly challenging and healing work of writing a new, accurate, more complete family history that could include and integrate all of their history – the good, the bad and the ugly and help them integrate all of this new knowledge into their sense of self.
The Role of Forgiveness in Healing
When we neared the six-month point of our therapy (‘So much ground to cover already, I reflected, and this just being the beginning.’), she brought up the issue of forgiveness saying that the thought of forgiving her mother somehow meant condoning the years of lies.
Through several sessions, we discussed what it meant to be able to forgive – not to forget or excuse painful actions, but to let go of anger and resentment for one’s own benefit.
It’s important to emphasise how non-linear and slow going Emily’s process of learning to forgive was. There were numerous ups and downs, episodes of redhot anger -> hurt, and we suspect that she has had more of these in the intervening 32 years. Nonetheless, over time, we believe that her mindset about her mother changed. We think that, on most days, her primary lens through which she viewed her mother’s actions was that of compassion rather than raw hurt.
In order to be forgiven, for Laura it meant living her life in a way that reminded Emily, every day, that she was worth being honest with; it meant a slow and methodical rebuilding of trust. It meant being persistent and consistent, and it entailed respecting Emily for as long as it took her to get there. It meant listening while she worked through her feelings, even if they were hard to hear.
The Breakthrough: A New Understanding
Eight months into our therapy, one session stands out as a major breakorations of thoughts and feelings about her biological father, Emily’s eyes suddenly sparkled and she said to me: ‘You know what I just realised, Robin.’
[Y]ou picked me over the easy way out’, she told me. ‘I was so pissed off about the lie that I almost forgot about the truth. Mom, you could have had an easier path. Aber and you chose to raise me, to love me. You both could have. I’m starting to see that as a act of yours to love me, even if I still don’t like how it was done.’
Laura, in turn, replied with empathy: ‘And I’m beginning to see that, by trying to protect you from pain, I actually caused more pain. You’re stronger than I thought you were, Emily. I should’ve trusted in that stronger nature.’
This was a huge moment of progress in their healing process, it showed a newer understanding and a conscious empathy on both sides. The higher ups could reach a deeper level of reconciliation.
Redefining Their Relationship: Moving Forward
As we approached the end of our therapy, Laura and Emily were left to redefine their relationship, and they didn’t yet know what their new normal was going to look like.
We developed healthy boundaries together, so Emily spoke her need that her daughter be honest with her, and so Laura agreed to embrace her daughter as an adult with her own set of beliefs. They rehearsed conversations, trying out new ways of communicating, practicing honesty even when it was hard.
One striking experiential exercise to try together had them envision a healthy future relationship. Building on that positive vision empowered them to work collaboratively on building a future instead of just endlessly re-hashing past slights.
The Ongoing Journey of Healing
By the end of the ‘normal’ meetings, both Laura and Emily were doing well, and the room that had been full of tension on the occasions when we began was replaced with tentative warmth. They were speaking to each other, even laughing together, and facing their dilemmas as fellow combatants, not each other’s enemies.
But I made sure they also knew that healing was not a single event, but a lifetime approach. In the coming months, there are likely to be moments of struggle and doubt. We talked through some strategies to handle these moments, and the importance of continuing to check in with each other and communicate openly.
Lessons Learned: Reflections on Family, Truth, and Healing
Looking back on Laura and Emily’s journey, several key lessons stand out:
Truth power: Though the initial disclosure was bitter, it led to a healthier, more shored-up relationship.
The conditions of utterance: Passing on painful information requires sensitivity to the conditions under which it is delivered. Both timing and venue can make a world of difference in the way that difficult truths are taken.
Andoxes complicate the picture: hiding a painful secret might be the caring thing to do for one generation, but a betrayal of trust to another. Being able to understand these different perspectives might be part of the healing salve.
When, for instance, a patient is dealing with family problems surmounting years or decades, one may find that crafted, contained dwelling places for these feelings and a guided rehearsal of new ways of relating can be vital to helping reset the terrain.
The power of vulnerability: among the most powerfully restorative moments in Laura and Emily’s healing was their ability to be truly vulnerable with each other.
Conclusion: Hope for Healing
Laura and Emily’s story is a testament to the tenacity of family ties. Even after the Edens’ darkest chapter, and after painfully betraying their daughter, they were able to find a way back. No family is free from suffering – but honesty, empathy and transparency can help to heal tough times.
Clinically, cases such as theirs strengthen my conviction in the potential benefits of therapy and the unimaginable possibilities for human development and healing. It is in that spirit that I share their story with those who might be experiencing similar family secrets and fractured relationships. Courage, commitment and sometimes professional help can enable us to regain trust and grow even closer to those we love.
Remember that every family has its difficulties – but with those difficulties come the chance for greater understanding, higher levels of empathy and, as a result, the kind of love that runs deeper and richer than you could have ever imagined. It won’t be easy, including the planning of where and when, if ever, to have a ceremony, but, with time and practice, you will – as Laura and Emily have done – create a family that is more real, more complex, and more fulfilling than you could have ever listened to.