CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - The Betrayal of the Enabling Parent

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

In this solo episode, Whitney explores one of the most painful realizations in family healing: when the "safer" parent was also complicit in your harm. She breaks down the complex dynamics between enablers and abusers in narcissistic family systems, explains why enablers are both victims and perpetrators, and provides crucial questions to assess whether reconciliation is possible. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at [phone]⁠⁠ Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity⁠⁠ This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, and welcome back to the Calling Home podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I'm excited to be back here with you all today as always. Today we're going to be talking about the betrayal of the enabling parent. And I wrote an article about this for the Family Cycle Breakers Club, our membership community at Calling Home. And it was super popular. I've seen a lot of new members join because of this article. And so I wanted to expand on it a little bit for the podcast. So today we're going to be talking a little bit about the enabler and the abuser, how they play different roles, as well as how difficult it can be to realize that your safe parent or the safer parent also hurt you. I'm going to give you some questions that you can ask yourself and also some tools to help you

rebuild and work through this realization and free yourself from this idea that like I can fix them or save them somehow. This topic matters to me a lot because it's something that we've been talking about so much in our estranged adult child group at calling home. And for those of you that don't know, if you join the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home, you get access to unlimited monthly support groups with me and other licensed therapist. And one of those groups is for adults who are estranged from a parent. And something that gets brought up often is this realization of like, okay, I had an abusive parent. I had a parent that was really harmful to me. But what about my other parent that was there the whole time? What about the one that like didn't really do anything about it,

didn't help me or even put me in harm's way? And maybe they were the ones that were kinder and they helped me sometimes. And in comparison, they were a lot better. But they were still not safe in reality. And I have seen this realization really break people sometimes and be so overwhelming because I don't think any child at any age wants to believe and accept that their parent hurt them or didn't love them or was abusive to them. And there's a quote about that that I share all the time. I cannot remember who said it now. But it's like when given the choice between an abusive parent or no parent at all, the child is going to pick abusive parent because that is the nature of attachment. Right. So when you realize that, that you were keeping yourself safe by attaching maybe to like your quote-unquote nicer parent. And then you can feel kind of like, I'm an orphan in adulthood when you have this realization or epiphany that maybe that parent was also hurting you or not protecting

you or putting you in harm's way. And this has been brought up so many times over the course of this group in the last year that I think it's something really important for us to talk about. And I want to acknowledge how difficult it can be to have this realization. And so if you need to pause during this episode, take breaks, come back to it, totally fair. This is a heavy thing to talk about and discuss. So in that article that I mentioned for the Family Cycle Breakers Club, I talk about a girl named Lucy. And Lucy has a seemingly dedicated and attentive mother.

Her mother is there to pick her up from school, make sure her homework gets done, you know, she's providing a lot of those physical needs for her daughter. Her dad is a hot head. He's abusive. He's physically and emotionally abusive. He throws things around the house. He has like this hair trigger that he can just be set off at any moment. And the family is always walking on eggshells around the father, the children and the mother. There are some really clear roles in the home here, right? The father is clearly like the, this is an example that I'm giving of a narcissistic family. I'm leaving out a lot of details so you can absolutely go and read that article if you'd like to. But in this family, we have this abusive, narcissistic father that the entire family

kind of rallies around and tries to keep calm out of survival. And they always, ultimately learn to do this through their mother, right? Their mother is the one that is role playing this every single day. And this is where it gets tricky, is that Lucy's mom is both a victim and a perpetrator. She is being victimized by her husband and by this system and likely has a history of this in her life. But she is also not keeping her children safe from the abusive person in their life. And through her not keeping her children safe and exposing them to this, she is also teaching them that this is normal. This is what's expected. This is how people should treat each other. And her children are likely going to spend a lot of their life deconstructing that

or blindly accepting that belief as fact. Now, Lucy has this awakening where she realizes the role of her mother in all of this and that her mother can be both a victim and someone that harmed her and her mother can be a victim and an active participant in keeping the family functioning the way that it is. And this is so nuanced and so tricky that this is not black and white. And you cannot look at it as like this parent is either safe and wonderful or abusive and terrible. You have to kind of sit in this and this is where therapy and groups are so important because I think people when they have this realization, they just want to like put it into a box and be done with it. And you don't want to have these feelings anymore.

So you're very quick to be like, okay, both my parents were abusive. I'm done. But it's not that simple. And it's not easy to just wake up and say, you know, I don't have any parents now. They're terrible. And I'm not going to relate to them, especially with this enabling parents. who may have also been kind and giving and there for you and your only source of some stability in your home. There are a couple of things that we need to understand about this dynamic between

the enabler and the abuser, right, in a narcissistic family system. The abuser really cannot continue to exist without the enabler to some degree. And there are a lot of enablers within a family system. You could have a spouse that is married to someone who is abusive, who is being enabled by their own mother, by their sibling, by their friends. Like, there are a lot of ways that systemically we enable and actually encourage and promote abusive behavior within families. When you look at society at large and who we idolize, who we put. in positions of power. We often are quick to excuse types of abuse because, oh, well, they may have done that, but it wasn't that bad. And actually, they're really good at doing this.

And I think we can look around at celebrities, politicians, very wealthy people, and see that we make concessions a lot of the time, especially for narcissistic behavior. Because these people are often actually very dynamic. They can be very successful, have a lot of money, have a lot of people who love them in the community. They can be very attractive to others, especially people who are looking for someone to follow who has charisma and is very enigmatic. Like, there are a lot of reasons why someone will be enabled. And I think we have to be very careful not to strict. really blame like the spouse of that person or your other parent for being the only one enabling that because oftentimes they are also being enabled their behavior in their church, in their

workplace, in their community, in the spaces that they inhabit in the world. And that can make it even harder typically for that enabler who is really also like the next victim in line within the family. And it may make that enabler feel like, actually, I have to do these things because this is what everyone expects of me. This is the only way I can keep my family safe. And they start to view their behavior through the lens of solely protection, what they're supposed to do, being a good wife, being a good husband, whatever it is, being a good father, like all of this type of behavior can get spun. But what we have to remember is that When someone is behaving badly, especially when they're behaving badly only in private, there are

ways that they're getting away with that and that they know that they can because they're not acting like that around everybody or they have been able to convince people to such a degree that like, this is what's right and what's good. And it's hard to go up against that. I think if you are the partner of a very successful person, of someone who's well regarded in the community, someone who's very popular, like it's high stakes. And so sometimes you just join in on the enabling because it's what everyone's doing and you think that it's the right thing. And so for those of you that have a parent or parents like this, I think it's something to think about. And it's a way that you can, yes, intellectualizes to some degree, but also have some understandings of not only what was happening in your home in this circle, but also go out another layer of, okay, what's happening in my parents or my family's orbit in our community? And then a step further would be, okay, what's going on

in the world, in the state I live in the country, I live in where these types of behaviors that my abusive parent is exhibiting are actually rewarded and seen as good and profitable and things that should be quote unquote like celebrated or encouraged. And how did that also make my family continue to enable this person and think that it was normal or excusable the ways that they were acting? And I think this is where some of the breakdown comes in, right? When I have people in front of me having this realization of like, oh my gosh, no one in my house was protecting the children. Everyone was actually just protecting this person, their ego, the money, our station in the community, whatever it is. You start to like peel that onion and it's even more destabilizing

and dysregulating because you realize, oh my gosh, it was my parent. okay, but it was also this person at their job and this person at our religious congregation and this person in our community and all these people were participating in this. And then for some people, you can go even further and be like, wow, this is a worldwide phenomenon that we are not protecting children as our number one thing, right? And I think we can see this in the court system. We can see this in the legal system. There are so many ways that kids in abusive homes get let down over and over the more that you move outside of that circle. And that's why I say approach this with caution and care and like really have someone

to help you through this because it can be so jarring and overwhelming to see who drop the ball along the way. But the number one thing I want you to take from this is, is that every person in that ecosystem that was enabling and that was doing things to allow this to continue to happen, they were not doing that because there is something wrong with you. They were doing that for other reasons. It's never because there is something inherently wrong with you as a person that made them do that.

And that is like the number one belief that I want you to try to, to work on shedding through this work. So if you're having this realization in adulthood, I assume you all listening to this are adults that are working through this, right? Just because this happened in childhood, it does not necessarily mean that you can't have a relationship with that enabling parent in adulthood or that this is still continuing. And so there's some questions I want you to ask yourself.

Does your enabling parent acknowledge what happened? Do they see it for what it was? Can they step back and really look from above at this situation and say, I can see why you felt that way. I can see why that was your experience with this. And we can still have empathy for them and acknowledge that they were also a victim. But can they, to some degree, understand why this was are for you. Are they open to feedback and any type of reflection? This is key, okay? Because all parents make mistakes, myself included. There, I talk about this all the time that like, my children are very young. There could come a day where they come to me and they say, I can't believe you did X. And I might have my reasons for why I did that. And they might be very good reasons and maybe my child doesn't fully understand those reasons. But my reasons and my understanding have to be held in the same regard with their feelings, their experience, and their understanding of it. And only when I do that, when I hold both of those things at the same time and I say,

this is important to me. I want to know how you feel. I want to understand you. I want to get a sense, of how this impacted you, then, and only then, after I do that, will it open up the door for them to be able to engage in some type of intellectual understanding about why I did, what I did. And again, there are some situations where this does not apply. Like, I have, I mean, gosh, I have heard stories lately from people that I'm interviewing for my book. I have heard more stories than I can count of parents who had tangible proof, real evidence that their child was being sexually abused by a family member. And this family member was still being allowed to come around parties and children and be there. And like,

that's the kind of stuff that there's no intellectual understanding there. What are you going to tell me to convince me, to convince your adult child why you made that decision? And, the fact that they're even giving you the opportunity to explain that behavior and they're trying to understand it, you have struck gold if you're in that situation because that's a hard thing to wrap your head around, especially because the people that I'm interviewing that I have heard these stories from, they also have children. And so they cannot understand that mindset. So you have to be willing to understand, empathize, and listen. And I think for any of you that are trying to decide, can I have a relationship with my enabling parent, with the parent that

put me in harm's way, like that is a non-starter. That's something that has to happen first. Are they still making excuses for the abusive parent? So in these types of families where there is excessive enabling of an abusive parent or partner going on. Excuses are the bread and butter of these families. They only do that because they're tired. That's not what they said. They love you. They didn't mean to. You misheard them. Your memory is wrong. All of these types of statements, they become truly the battle cry of these kids' childhood. Like, it's all that they've heard. And so So if you're going to your parent now and saying, hey, this is what it was like growing up with mom, she did these things to us. And they are still making excuses, trying to make you feel like it's your fault. That is like a yellow to red flag depending on the extent of that communication. Right. And speaking of green, yellow and red, I have a, worksheet that's now on the site under the narcissistic family systems topic this month

to help you identify if you can have a relationship with your family or if your family system is safe with some of those red, yellow, and green flags to help you identify that. So that would be a great resource for you to look at as well. The next question I would ask yourself is what is their current relationship like with the abusive parent? Are they married? Are they divorced? Are they still in contact? Has their relationship changed? If their relationship has changed, sometimes that can be really helpful as well. And it can make it easier for the two of you to move forward. And then the last question is, are they capable of having an honest and loving and collaborative relationship with you in the present? And what does that look like? And I think that's

where you have to ask yourself, what kind of relationship do I want to have? What does having an honest loving relationship look like between me and my dad, between me and my mom? How would I know that that's what we have? And getting really clear on that can be very helpful. Now, I always like to remind all of you that you are adults now. And even when it doesn't feel like it, you have so much power today than you had when you were a child. And that powerlessness of childhood is what makes so much of this so traumatic. And that's why in adulthood and at the core of everything we do at calling home, my goal is constantly to help you feel more powerful and more in control of your own life and to step out of that part of you that feels stuck and powerless because that's how children

feel, right? They're very much at the whim of the adults in their life. And so you are the person that protects yourself now. You have the power to protect yourself. You have the power to set boundaries to not pick up the phone, to not go to that holiday. You have so much more power today than you did. You can also have compassion for that enabling parent and hold them accountable. And I think what that looks like in action is having these hard conversations and trying to be kind and empathetic and understanding when you're having these difficult conversations and hoping that your parent can meet you in that place because you know what it was like to be victimized by the more aggressive or outwardly abusive person in your home. And so does your parent. And sometimes

they're not willing to admit that that's what was happening to them. Sometimes they're never going to be willing to admit that. And I think that that is something you have to prepare yourself for, is that your parent might be willing to tolerate behavior from their spouse that you're not willing to tolerate from your parent. And that is a really stressful and difficult impasse to be at with your parent. And I think they have to be willing and able to accept that the two of you might have different standards for these relationships. And so can you have an understanding that them being in that home was very hard to in its own way? And that the ways in which they continued to not protect you or to play neutral in the face of abuse was still very hurtful

to you and was still very harmful. And how can the two of you meet in the middle to develop an understanding of that? The other thing I think that we have to mention in this part about moving forward is that many of you may have such a deep sense of sadness and pity and empathy for your enabling parent because you know they were also victimized, that you want to save them and you want to fix them. And that can manifest in things like, you know, emmeshment, codependency, you not being able to see where they end and where you begin. And a lot of this can happen from childhood, especially in homes where there was domestic violence and a lot of abuse. And you felt like you were also there to protect one of your parents.

from the other. And I think this is where you also have to surrender to the fact that like my parent is an adult. I can help them in the ways that I see fit. I can try to help them see their worth and help them develop an understanding of that. And I can't help them at the expense of myself because a lot of you have been doing that your entire life. And I think when you have your own families, careers, children, etc. You have to be really careful about giving so much that you totally lose yourself and you're not able to maintain those other commitments that you have in your life. And that doesn't mean that you say, oh, I wash my hands of you. You're done. Your victim, deal with this on your own. Like, no, of course you don't have to do that. Like, we all know that

having community and support and help and caring about one another is very important, but that also has to come with limits and an understanding that all the things you experienced up to this point are also involved in helping this parent. And so it might hurt your relationship to be so helpful and so involved. I hope that you take away from this and understanding that if you're going through this awakening of like even my quote unquote nice parent hurt me, that this is not a place where you need to stay stuck, I think you're going to feel a lot of feelings about this that don't make sense that are so complicated from grief to pity, to empathy, to anger, to like resentment, all of that can come up when you have

this realization. And I think sometimes you'll wish that you could go back to just believing, like, you are the bad one and you are the good one. Our brains like that. It feels good to just be able to categorize people like that. But it's never that simple, right? And even your abusive parent, the outwardly abusive parent, is probably a victim in a lot of ways. They were a victim throughout their life. Maybe their childhood was bad. Maybe they experienced a lot of trauma. and I know that everyone who listens to this show has such a deep amount of empathy and understanding for the ways that those things can show up. And what I want you to take from this is that I can know all of that. I can understand it. I can feel it. And I can step into my power as an adult

and decide how I want to handle these relationships and how I want to integrate them into my life. Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode. I hope that it was helpful. You can go and read that article about Lucy on our website at callinghome.co. It's under the narcissistic family systems topic or you can just search Lucy and that article is available to members of calling home. Just a reminder that you can join the family cycle breakers club at calling home.com. It will give you access to that article that I just mentioned as well as all of my courses, every topic we've ever covered at Calling Home, the Worksheets, Articles, Videos, scripts, and you will get access to any upcoming topics and unlimited support groups.

I hope to see you again soon. I hope to see some of you in a group. And thank you again for listening. Please don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review or comment. Bye. The Calling Home Podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substantive. for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist patient or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Calm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below. Thank you.