🌪️ Families Built on Lies and Hypocrisy: When Truth Is Too Inconvenient 🌪️
The psychology behind emotionally unintelligent family systems — and the quiet destruction they leave behind.
By Linda C J Turner, Therapist & Advocate
There’s something painfully ironic — almost laughable — about a family that spends its energy crafting lies, covering tracks, and projecting a polished image to the outside world, while privately living in chaos, contradiction, and manipulation.
You watch them pretend.
You hear them contradict themselves.
You notice their double standards and self-righteous tone — and it’s baffling.
And here’s the truth: this is what happens when emotional immaturity runs the show.
🧠 Why Do People Live This Way?
- It’s About Control, Not Connection
Emotionally unintelligent families often substitute control for love. Genuine intimacy requires vulnerability, self-awareness, and accountability — all of which are terrifying to people who’ve never learned how to regulate shame or accept imperfection. Lies become tools. Hypocrisy becomes survival. Controlling the narrative feels safer than facing the truth. - They Are Addicted to the Performance
These families are often more invested in how they appear than in who they actually are. Their energy goes into appearances:
– “We’re a good family.”
– “We’re successful, united, respectable.”
But underneath? There’s disconnection, denial, resentment — and an almost pathological avoidance of anything “messy,” like grief, conflict resolution, or emotional accountability. - There’s Often a Fear-Based Legacy at Play
Many dysfunctional families operate this way because it’s generational. The parents were emotionally unavailable. Vulnerability was punished. Expressing truth led to rejection or chaos. So the family grows up with this unspoken rule:
🧨 “Don’t rock the boat. Keep secrets. Pretend everything’s fine.”
And anyone who dares to speak the truth becomes the enemy — not because they’re wrong, but because they’re disrupting the illusion.
🤯 What Does This Say About Emotional Intelligence?
Quite simply: they have little to none.
Emotional intelligence isn’t about being nice.
It’s about being real.
It’s about recognising emotions — yours and others’ — and responding with self-awareness, empathy, and accountability.
Families who live in lies and hypocrisy lack the basics:
❌ They can’t admit fault
❌ They rewrite history
❌ They deny what’s obvious
❌ They demonise anyone who challenges them
And while they might look functional on the outside — under the surface, they are emotionally bankrupt.
💔 The Cost to Their Own Lives and Families
It’s easy to assume they’re “getting away with it” — but they’re not. Here’s what really happens inside families like this:
🔹 Disconnection — Real connection requires authenticity. Without it, relationships stay surface-level or implode.
🔹 Generational Trauma — Children raised in this environment either conform and lose their voice… or rebel and get scapegoated.
🔹 Loneliness in the Long Run — When truth is denied for too long, and relationships are built on image, not substance, these families eventually fracture. Resentments build. Trust erodes. People walk away.
🔹 Stunted Growth — You can’t grow if you won’t face the truth. These families get stuck in cycles of blame, defensiveness, and bitterness.
And maybe the saddest part?
They often don’t even realise how the world sees them. They think they’re fooling everyone — when in reality, their dysfunction is visible to anyone emotionally intelligent enough to notice.
🌿 Final Thought
If you’ve come from or been entangled in a family like this, it’s okay to laugh at the absurdity sometimes. But more importantly, it’s okay to step away. You’re not crazy for noticing the contradictions. You’re not dramatic for naming the hypocrisy. And you’re certainly not disloyal for protecting your peace.
Let them keep performing if they choose.
You’ve chosen truth.
You’ve chosen healing.
You’ve chosen emotional evolution — and that takes more courage than they’ll ever understand.
— Linda C J Turner
Trauma Therapist | Neuroscience & Emotional Intelligence Practitioner | Advocate for Women’s Empowerment
