Still wanting what never came? Longing and anger toward our parents.

One of the saddest and most painful things I hear about in my therapy room is not hatred of parents, but hope. Hope that refuses to die, even after decades of disappointment. Hope that this time a parent (often, though not always, a mother) will soften, understand, apologise, or finally offer the love that was missing as we grew up. And alongside that hope, something else entirely: frustration and bitterness, sometimes even rage, at how much was withheld or how badly my client was treated.

It's a painful place to be, and the fast approaching holiday season in which some families may end up seeing each more through duty than desire, can sharpen that pain. Maybe this time things will be different says a voice inside, even though it hasn't been, sometimes for decades. People might say to me, quietly or explicitly, Why can't I shake this feeling after all these years? I know what she's like, but I can't let go of the hope that she'll change...

To throw light on that question, I often turn to the work of the psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn, whose ideas help make sense of why these feelings persist - and why they are not a sign of weakness or immaturity. I've written about Fairbairn before, an unsung genius of the 1940s and 1950s who in my view was at the front rank of reorienting the ideas within therapy towards understandings that we'd recognise today (and away from some of the stricter - and to my mind, probably wrong - notions developed by Freud.) He came up with a model that speaks directly to these questions.

A very simple starting point

Fairbairn was part of a group of therapists who developed what came to be known as Object Relations theory. It sounds like psychobabble, but the basic idea is simple:

We are shaped by our early relationships. We try to make sense of confusing or hurtful aspects of these relationships by, in a way, separating them out in our minds, and we'll carry these inner explanations and internal models as we grow. We do this at a level that gets baked in to our inner selves, absorbed deep so that we're usually not really conscious of them.

As children, we don’t have the option of leaving our parents, emotionally or practically, however they treat us. We depend on them completely. And when a parent is loving enough, the child’s inner world develops with relative ease. We feel secure and cared for. But when a parent is emotionally unavailable, rejecting, or abusive, the child’s mind has to find ways to cope.

Fairbairn believed that in these situations, the psyche doesn’t just remember what happened—it organises itself around what the child is experiencing to try and find a way to deal with it.

How the mind copes with a difficult parent

Fairbairn suggested that when a parent is both needed and also causing pain (uncaring, unavailable, hostile or abusive) the child’s inner world tends to split into different parts, each holding onto a different version of that relationship.

He first described a Central Ego (he used the term ego rather differently to Freud who came up with it in therapy. Think of it as a central self.) This is the the part of us that tries to live in the present and deal with real people as they are.

But alongside this, two other patterns can often develop, especially when love is inconsistent or withheld. These patterns are not disorders but survival strategies.

The part that still hopes

Some parents who cause deep emotional wounds are not rejecting all the time. They may be affectionate one day and cold the next. They may offer moments of closeness that keep the child emotionally engaged, then withdraw or become angry, often for reasons the child can't understand. Anger or abuse may even be common...and then one day they seem to soften and perhaps actually care? Kids really need caregivers. We look for love, are drawn to it, programmed to notice and draw strength and support from it. If we spot it we're often likely to try and cling to it. And from this kind of parent, very occasionally something might come (in amongst all the other negative stuff - and it really can be pretty negative) that lights up the child's hope. But it's unreliable; never enough to make the child feel secure - he or she feels constantly off balance, walking on eggshells, unsure of where they are with that parent.

Fairbairn called the internal version of this parent the Exciting Object*—not because the relationship is joyful, but because it keeps hope alive. The part of the self that stays attached to this version of the parent he called the Libidinal Ego. In everyday terms, this is the part of you that still longs, carrying thoughts and feelings like: One day she’ll really see me or If I stay patient, something will change or There must be a way to finally get what I need from her, if I just try something different...

In adult life, this can manifest by continuing to reach out, despite repeated hurt or rejection. You might find yourself defending the parent or minimising what happened. Or you may get emotionally pulled back in, even after deciding to keep a distance - something that can crop up when by necessity or tradition you are placed back into historical family settings at Christmas.

From the outside, this can look baffling. Why do you keep trying? Friends might even ask you that. From the inside, it feels inevitable. This hope was formed when giving up was not an option.

The part that is furious

At the same time, the child also experiences the parent as rejecting, neglectful, or cruel. Fairbairn called this internal version of the parent, the Rejecting Object*

The part of the self that relates to this version of the parent he called the Anti-Libidinal Ego. This is the part that actually knows the truth about what was missing. It holds feelings like anger, frustration, rage, hatred or resentment.

As children, these feelings are often dangerous to express. You can’t really afford to hate the person you depend on, still less tell them - if you want to sustain the hope of getting any love or care at all. This is especially the case if the parent is clearly unreliable (or worse) in their love. So the anger often gets pushed inward; quarantined and undealt as it's held in the space occupied by the Rejecting Object. In adults this can show up as a harsh, attacking inner voice - the anger has to be expressed somehow, and if you can't direct it at the parent, you may end up directing it at yourself. You might feel worthless, or ashamed as well as angry. Maybe the reason you are getting treated this way is because you are the problem? To your young self that might make sense of it all, and how you feel? It can also come out as chronic bitterness toward the parent, a sense of being emotionally wounded and a later difficulty trusting kindness when it’s offered.Or it might get directed at someone else, perhaps in a relationship - your mind might try and enfold what's going on with your partner into this pattern established by a parent.

Why these two parts don’t cancel each other out

One of Fairbairn’s most important insights is that these two parts can exist at the same time.

So someone might feel I still want my mother’s love and I am furious about how she treated me.

This isn’t confusion, it’s the result of having had to survive a relationship that offered both just enough connection to keep hope alive, and enough rejection to cause real emotional damage.

The tragedy is that both parts remain tied to these internal versions of the parent. One keeps waiting, the other keeps fighting.

Why 'just moving on' rarely works

People are often told they need to move on, forgive, or stop looking to the past. But what Fairbairn helps us understand is that this isn’t simply about letting go of a person. It’s about letting go of a hope that once kept you alive.

What’s usually needed before letting go is a form of grief. This can mean grief for the parent you needed but didn’t have, grief for a childhood that was shaped around waiting, or grief for the part of you that kept hoping. Without that grief, hope tends to recycle itself, even when it hurts.

From a Fairbairnian perspective, therapy isn’t about getting rid of these parts, but about understanding them. Over time, therapy can help make sense of why the longing exists and create a place for the anger to be expressed. It can be somewhere where you can feel the feelings, somewhere safe to bring this shame that's got dumped onto you (and that you don't deserve). Together with your therapist you can start to identify the patterns, the moments when these reactions are getting triggered in you. Noticing them and being able to inwardly call them out is a major step on the way to handling them in real life (where they tend to lurk in our unexamined minds causing trouble). In therapy you can also work on strengthening that Central Self, the bit that can respond to people as they are, not as the model of your upbringing taught you to expect them to be.

A final thought

If you still long for love from a parent who couldn’t give it, there is nothing wrong with you. That longing is not a failure to grow up. It’s a trace of how deeply dependent you once were - as all children are - and how intelligently your mind adapted to a really difficult situation. Fairbairn’s work reminds us that healing doesn’t begin with self-criticism. It begins with understanding - and with a gentler relationship to the parts of ourselves that are still waiting and still hurting.

*The term 'object' can throw people, but the theorists who came up with it simply meant aspects or versions of people that were important to us (often parents) that we've boxed up deep inside our minds. ********* Jo Shaw is a BACP registered psychotherapist seeing clients in London, Tunbridge Wells, Kent and online. She can be reached at jo@jjstherapy.com