Secrets in the family

There are not many families who can honestly say that they did not have secrets. Whether it is something that some members hide from other family members, or secrets that are kept from people outside the family. Although there are secrets all around us and in us, the number of secrets kept by different types of families has not been systematically researched, so it is unknown. It is also unknown how often family secrets are revealed. What is known that secrets are present in the most intimate fields of personal and family life, such as: birth, adoption, parenthood, infertility, abortion, infidelity, divorce, sexual orientation and sexuality, violence, addiction, suicide, physical and mental illness, etc.

Secrets have a multiple function. They give families a common identity, make them develop a sense of family unity, and maintain and protect relationships. Many secrets help to establish important generational boundaries. Parents generally have a lot to hide from their children: salaries, savings, previous love affairs and problems with the law are just some of the examples. Keeping these secrets from children helps to establish important boundaries between the two generations. The generation that cares is not asked of the generation that cares to bear the burden of their worries. Some secrets help family members feel close, and thus emotionally strengthen the whole family. If the father and the child secretly save money for an expensive and desired gift for a woman, family ties will undoubtedly be strengthened.

In contrast, secrets that divide the family and create tension have opposite effects. These are the most common secrets between parents and children. The secret usually binds the child to one parent, and against the other. For example, a daughter who shares a feeling of discomfort and shame with her mother because of her father's infidelity, keeps a "dividing" secret. This secret puts the child in the role of a "pseudo-adult" and unites the mother and daughter against the father. Also, secrets that reveal weaknesses in character or otherwise make fun of a family member, as well as where there is a lot of pressure in the family to reveal the secret, can be very harmful for the family. They can prevent intimacy, block communication, seriously weaken the family's ability to solve problems, etc.

The impact of the secret on the family is beautifully illustrated in two conditionally speaking "family" films from 2009, Everybody's fine and City Island.

It is interesting that in both films, the main protagonists are fathers, who face secrets in their families, but from different perspectives.

In the first, Frank Goode (Robert de Niro), after the death of his wife, learns that his perception of family life, ie the life of his children, is distorted because it is based on the "we are all good" concept, which implies hiding real events in their lives;

In another film story, Vince Rizzo, played by the great Endy Garcia, is confronted with his own secret, which in the hustle and bustle of life in the suburbs, he was not even aware he was hiding, and it marked his entire family, and threatened his marriage.

Both films deal with the same question in a fun and seemingly easy way: "What do big secrets do to families, ie to their members?" and the answer is quite simple: if they do not destroy them, they seriously endanger them.

Vince Rizzo, an example of a man with a secret, is a prison guard who dreams of becoming an actor. He goes to acting classes every Friday, justifying it with poker games. And he doesn't think of sharing it with his wife, he reads acting manuals secretly in the toilet, where he secretly smokes, but that's already a harmless secret…

His wife Joy, of course, does not dream what he is doing, but he feels a secret, so out of doubt he develops the idea of ​​the existence of a mistress, feels rejected, distances himself from him and takes the risk of committing infidelity herself.

Eventually, when the story unfolds, and the secret unfolds, Joy in tears explains how she felt lonely, rejected, how she thought he was tired and bored.

His personal secret, which could have been neutral because it was essentially just an old unfulfilled dream, given how much it was kept and how important it actually was, turned into a toxic one.

He did not dare, for fear of being ridiculed and rejected, to share it with his wife, and the secret, once born, continues to live and develop on its own, and few can be aware of the moment when a lifetime it begins to revolve around her, when the fear of disclosure is much greater than the desire to work on a particular problem.

The irony of this film is that Vince's second secret, seemingly much bigger and more dangerous, runs through the whole story, and it refers to the existence of an illegitimate son from the period of Vince's early youth, before his marriage to Joy. Yet that secret, given that before the family was formed, and given that Vince has no dilemma that he did the right thing and turned out to be a good man to the woman who bore him that child, does not carry that weight as the seemingly harmless aspiration of a prison guard to become an actor.

This only indicates the fact that, just as beauty is in the eyes of the observer, so is the weight of the secret in the heart of its bearer.

Seemingly and on the level of the conscious, secrets arise from the desire to preserve someone, to protect, and in fact, we nurture secrets because we want to preserve ourselves.

In another story, the example of Frank's wife illustrates the same thing. She creates the illusion of her children’s perfect life in wanting Frank to feel good, to keep children from criticism, and ultimately in essence - in wanting to affirm herself as a mother of successful children, a mother close to her children, a keeper of their secrets, striving for things in such a way as to bind them as much as possible to himself.

Her mission of "secret keeper" unfortunately succeeded, because after her death, the inability to communicate adequately creates bizarre situations between father and children. They, accustomed to the pattern of insincerity and concealment, present their lives falsely, preventing one crucial piece of information from emerging, that one of them is in serious trouble.

The story of secrets raises another important question - how is it that more children, raised in similar conditions, develop different responses to these conditions and form completely different patterns of behavior?

All four of Frank's children grew up under the influence of the "we are all good" concept. Three achieved functional lives, one was killed. He got involved in the world of crime and drugs and ended up somewhere far away from everyone who loves him and who would support him, if they weren't too preoccupied with weaving idyllic stories about their own otherwise quite decent lives.

Without going into the reasons why he, it can be concluded that Frank's youngest son experienced a tragic end because, like Vince, he had a secret that he failed to communicate and expose it to his father's critical eyes. In the desire to satisfy and fit in, he became a victim of the general principle of covering up, cultivating a secret.

Both stories illustrate the same general thesis that the great secrets, in fact, put a dam on the ability to share, support and be supported, to accept and feel accepted, which should be the basic emotional functions of the family.

Of course, that doesn't mean that we have to say everything we think and know everything about the other. In that way, we potentially fall into another trap - the "tyranny of intimacy", in which I am replaced by me, life is lived with all the doors open, and the participants in that game lose the right to intimacy and take a serious risk of endangering their own integrity.

The balance line is thin, there is no formula, no recipe.

Only a good balance of privacy, small personal secrets and trust will make one family a safe and healthy living environment, and it is up to each family to recognize and nurture their members' needs for personal space and closeness, to create and nurture their balance.