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Understanding and Recognizing Emotional Incest
Emotional incest is most commonly known as a form of abuse that happens in parent-child relationships.
25/05/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Emotional abuse, emotional incest, and any other kind of abuse, pattern, and dynamic all have a particular vibration to them.
If you’re an empath who is sensitive to the vibration of things, you’ll easily be able to tell what kind of abuse you’re experiencing simply by tuning into the vibration of it—once you’re knowledgeable enough about these topics and have experienced them often enough to observe the pattern.
Emotional incest is common in abusive relationships. Usually, a person will use you for emotional incest, and even though they only use you emotionally, it will create havoc in your body, just like any other kind of abuse. If abuse doesn’t affect you, maybe you’re not an empath. An empath can feel another person’s abuse in their body and is usually weakened by it.
That’s why narcissism experts often say that no contact is necessary with a narcissist—not only because of the emotional impact, but also because certain narcissists can endanger their victims’ lives in other ways. Some wonder why victims suffer from things like Stockholm Syndrome, and I have to say, from my own experience, a narcissist can be so magnetic that you’re drawn back to him like a magnet—pulled in through an energetic force, like a positive and negative pole. If you’re not paying close enough attention, you might run back faster than you otherwise would, without protecting yourself enough.
This is only my own observation. Please don’t take this as medical or psychological advice if you find yourself in an abusive situation.
I digress.
Emotional incest means you’re being used, usually by a narcissist. If the narcissist is your parent, there will be a role reversal—which means you’re having to parent either your parent or grandparent, and aren’t allowed to be the child in the relationship. Children who are parentified experience their carefree childhood being taken from them, and they show signs of emotional incest in the way they talk and act. Often, parentified children will act much more grown up than their actual age, behaving like a caretaker for an adult or even like a partner to their parent.
Goodtherapy.com explains emotional incest in the following way:
Emotional incest, also known as covert incest, has nothing to do with incestuous sexual abuse. Rather, it is an unhealthy emotional relationship between a parent and a child that blurs boundaries in a way that elevates the child into an adult role. The parent looks to the child for emotional support. In some cases, the parent also seeks practical support from the child.
In an emotionally incestuous relationship, the child is expected to meet the needs of the parent rather than the parent meeting the needs of the child. This type of relationship, which is similar to enmeshment, is inappropriate and can be psychologically damaging for the child.
In a relationship between adults—such as a man and a woman—role reversal can still occur. For example, the man, who should take responsibility for himself like a grown-up, may instead push that responsibility onto you. He might behave like a toddler and force you into the role of his mother, expecting you to meet all his needs.
In more extreme cases, if you become ill, you may not even be allowed to care for yourself—because the narcissist starts playing sick and accuses you of being selfish if you don’t look after him. Narcissists can’t stand it when others receive attention. Some of the most toxic narcissists I’ve encountered are those who all of a sudden pretend to be just as sick as you—or even sicker—when you’re the one who is genuinely ill. Some may even sabotage your healing from a life-threatening illness, where self-care is absolutely essential.
We’re talking about serious conditions, where you truly need rest, support from a caregiver, or space to look after yourself. But instead, you’re forced to care for another adult—someone who isn’t actually sick and could easily take care of himself. He’s only pretending to be ill to keep your attention off your own needs. Narcissists will go to extreme lengths to make sure you stay weakened, worn down, or even pushed to the brink of collapse.
It’s not that being sick means you’re getting special attention—it means your energy should be focused inward, on rest and recovery. But with a narcissist, that focus is hijacked. You’re expected to deal with their drama instead of healing yourself.
In the case of a child, the child’s needs are usually neglected. You can often see that neglect in their faces, in their bodies, and sometimes in how they behave and talk. Their emotional development may be stunted by a parent who ignores their emotional needs, pretends they’re not allowed to have needs, or otherwise neglects them through immature or careless behavior.
A child may be used as a confidant, with grown-up issues being confided in them. As an adult, someone may still confide things in you that you, even as another adult, shouldn’t have to take responsibility for. They may guilt trip you if you don’t want to listen to them talk endlessly about their ex-girlfriend—whom they seem to still be in some kind of relationship with, one they never fully ended. They may even start confusing you with her, identity-wise. It’s like they only see her, and expect you to change into her identity. Maybe she listened to all these stories—and now you’re supposed to become her and do the same. The person doing this doesn’t take any responsibility for stopping such communication when it becomes too much or too abusive. You may already be dealing with a lot—work, court, children, or other serious issues—but they’ll still push their less important issues onto you. They expect you to act like their therapist, listening to them complain about you all day while praising their ex-girlfriend in the same breath. The separation and boundaries that should exist in a healthy relationship are missing, and the importance of those boundaries isn’t acknowledged.
You may be forced to neglect your own needs and prioritize the narcissist’s needs above everyone else’s. You won’t be able to live more light-heartedly or without the burden of tending to someone else’s needs. You’ll be guilt-tripped for not measuring up to the narcissist’s image of you—or for not acting like the kind of parent who listened to their every story without ever setting boundaries, revolving only around them.
The other person will make you responsible for their happiness. They’ll often use you as their “one and only”—the one person they constantly talk to about their ex-girlfriend, with no regard for your need to be left alone. Some narcissists constantly make others jealous, and their behavior can spiral out of control.
Emotional incest is most commonly recognized in relationships with a generational age gap—such as a parent-child relationship—where the child is treated like they belong to the same generation as the parent. Even as an adult, the parent may continue to use the child as a partner substitute, confiding way too much personal information.
It can also occur in romantic relationships, where one person doesn’t handle their own issues, but constantly burdens their partner with them. They push their partner into a more mature role while remaining in a child-like state, pushing off responsibilities, restricting freedom, and violating emotional privacy.
According to verywellmind.com, examples of emotional incest in parent-child relationships include:
The parent vents to the child about workplace difficulties, relying on the child for emotional support.
The parent shares intimate details of their romantic relationships, which can be confusing and uncomfortable.
The parent confides their marital problems to the child, which can be distressing.
The parent violates the child’s privacy by reading their diary or messages.
The parent expects the child to drop their activities and “rescue” them emotionally.
The parent undermines the child’s friendships to keep their full attention.
The parent lays a guilt trip on the child for not complying with their emotional needs.
Have you ever experienced emotional incest?