Dr. Lindsay Gibson

a sense of being understood and cared for, and that was the, you know, quote, good parent.

But then you hear stories like one woman who, when her mother was beating her, she would hear her father in another room, you know, doing something, making noise, and she interpreted it that he was helping her by letting her know that he was around, right?

He was helping the child.

Yes, almost like comforting her.

This is the way she read it.

He was comforting her by letting her know that he was still there, but he's not doing anything to stop the beating.

So when you have a person like that who uses that as an example of how good and loving that passive parent was, it's a huge development for them to get in touch with their anger

at why nobody, I mean, just like it never occurred to them that somebody would step in and stop it.

So they begin to have anger at that.

And then they have grief because that really was the parent that they had the strongest attachment to.

And honestly, they really did get a lot of good emotional connection going with that parent.

So we can't minimize that or the grief.

of realizing that at some level, some deep level, that parent really let them down.

Well, I'm sure that happens all the time.

I mean, I've seen a lot.

And the parent really does feel like, I mean, they are actively thinking, you know, should I leave her?

Should I leave him?

Would the kids be better off if I did that?

Would the disruption of divorce be worse than what we're going through now?

And then the other thing is for some parents,