We who deny our deep inner world never acknowledge the source of these conflicts—our own childhoods.

The darker, unacknowledged purpose of being married with children is to create a vehicle for passing on denied trauma. Non-reflective, socially sanctioned family life with all the rigors of childrearing is a convenient way to divert our energy from the healing path. Few who are married with children have but the merest time for introspection. Instead of resolving their psychic carnage from childhood, they unconsciously project it unto their spouses and children. Their spouses and children carry the burden of whatever wounds or unfulfilled wishes remain within. Eventually these buried hurts erupt in conflicts of various sorts between us and our spouses and also our children. Maybe they take a generation or two to claw their way to the surface—but they do erupt. We who deny our deep inner world never acknowledge the source of these conflicts—our own childhoods. Nor do we indict our parents for the wounds they now pass on. Instead we deny—what was done to us and the fact that we
are doing the same.