There is a quiet, profound dynamic that plays out in almost every family system, yet it is rarely spoken about until we are deep into our own healing journey.
It is this: The parent we are most frustrated with is usually not the parent where the problem originated.
When we look back at our childhoods, it is very common to feel massive, unresolved frustration toward the parent who was always there. We remember their intensity, their control, their anxiety, or their demands. We remember the ways they failed to meet us perfectly. We remember the friction.
But what we often miss is that the parent who was present became the safe target for the pain caused by the parent who was absent, unavailable, or checked out.
We project our deepest anger onto the parent who stayed, in order to protect ourselves from the devastating pain of the parent who abandoned us.
This is not just a psychological theory. It is something we have both lived.
For Matt, growing up meant navigating his mother’s intensity, anger, and control. He spent years feeling afraid of her loud tone and aggressive behavior, and for a long time, he focused his frustration entirely on her. She was the visible problem. She was the one creating the tension in the house.
But underneath that visible tension was his father’s passive behavior and addictive patterns. Both Matt and his mother were deeply impacted by his father’s actions, but because his mother was the one working hard to keep everything together and take care of the family, she became the target for the blame. Matt focused his frustration on her, completely missing that his father’s passivity and patterns were actually a more significant contribution to the development of his own patterns. He had unconsciously adopted his father’s passivity while blaming his mother’s intensity.
For Joy, the dynamic looked different, but the mechanism was exactly the same. When Joy was young, her father had an affair, and her mother left the marriage. Joy was furious. She was angry that the family was breaking up, but underneath that anger was the profound, crushing feeling of being abandoned by her father.
Yet, she did not direct her anger at him. Instead, she blamed her mother for leaving. She projected all of her rage onto the mother who was actually there, caring for her, while simultaneously fighting for the attention and love of the father who had betrayed the family. She protected the parent who caused the wound by punishing the parent who was present.
This is what the ego does to survive.
When we are young, the pain of acknowledging that a parent is emotionally unavailable, addicted, or abandoning us is simply too big for our nervous system to hold. So, we compartmentalize it. We take all of that unbearable grief and we turn it into frustration, and we aim that frustration at the parent who is safe enough to receive it—the parent who isn't going anywhere.
We blame the mother who is trying to hold the family together for being "too controlling," instead of grieving the father whose passivity forced her to carry the entire load.
We blame the parent who finally leaves a toxic marriage for "breaking up the family," instead of grieving the parent whose betrayal made the marriage impossible to stay in.
We fight for the love of the parent who rejects us, and we reject the parent who loves us.
Seeing this dynamic is one of the most liberating moments in a healing journey. It does not mean the present parent was perfect. It does not mean their intensity, control, or mistakes did not cause real harm.
But it does mean that our frustration is finally allowed to find its true home.
When we stop projecting all of our anger onto the parent who stayed, we finally have to face the grief of the parent who wasn't truly there. And while that grief is heavy, it is also clean. It is the grief that actually heals us. It is the grief that allows us to stop repeating the patterns of the parent we were secretly protecting.
If you find yourself carrying deep, unresolved frustration toward one parent, while giving the other parent a "free pass," we invite you to look a little deeper.
Who were you actually angry at? And who was safe enough to hold that anger for you?
When we finally see the truth of our family dynamics, we stop fighting the ghosts of our childhood, and we finally become available for the wholeness of our own lives.
With love,
Matt and Joy Kahn♥️
P.S. If this teaching is stirring something in you, come be with us in person. There is a depth to live transmission that being online can't fully carry. We're on the road to Langely, BC and we would love to see you there July 4th.
👉See all tour dates and cities → tour2026.mattandjoy.org
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