Every family secret is unique – it can arrive at any time and in any form.
Li Ying Andrews, who appears in season one of the SBS series , never knew her birth name. Born in Taiwan, Andrews was adopted as a child and raised in an acrobatic troupe. She knew very little about her heritage and had no idea if she had any surviving family members.
Angela Hamilton’s family life was marred by the violence meted out by her abusive father, who emigrated to Australia after the Second World War. His extreme anti-Semitism and eastern European roots led her to suspect he was a Nazi collaborator – a dark history she explores with host Noni Hazlehurst on Every Family Has A Secret.
A secret can be seemingly minor – a one-on-one lunch with a colleague that we fail to disclose to a partner, for example – or, like Hamilton’s, earth-shattering. The common thread, no matter the secret’s weight, is usually a sense of betrayal.
A common reaction is: “‘you left me out of something that I felt I should have been included in’”, says Trish Purnell-Webb, a clinical psychologist who runs . “We feel hurt, left out, unimportant. It’s a statement of how worthy we are to the person who kept the secret. It feels like a judgement – you don’t trust me; you don’t think well enough of me to tell me.”
The revelation of a family secret can have wildly different ramifications. It can cause hurt and conflict and upend our entire sense of self. In other cases, it may bring joy and resolution.
For some, it’s an opportunity to start over or repair old rifts and make new connections. For others, it requires a re-evaluation of relationships and the re-living of trauma.
Dealing with the consequences of a family secret is rarely straightforward. Purnell-Webb offers practical advice on how best to approach it.
How to talk about it
If you want to broach a sensitive topic with a family member, Purnell-Webb advises taking a non-confrontational approach. “Go with a gentle curiosity,” she says. Ask them to help you understand their point of view.
Make sure you explore why they withheld a secret before you make assumptions about their motivations. If you have questions about why the information was kept from you, pose them with curiosity rather than judgement, she says. Ask questions like, ‘what stopped you from telling me? What were you trying to protect me - or yourself - from?’
Managing conflict
“The biggest key to managing conflict is to be a really good listener,” says Purnell-Webb.
Conflict often follows a predictable, tennis match-style format. “I say one thing, you bat that away with your point of view, I bat that away with my point of view,” says Purnell-Webb. Inevitably, the dialogue escalates into an argument.
A better idea, she says, is to invite the other person to spend 10 minutes explaining their point of view with no interruptions. Make it clear that you may ask open questions such as ‘how did you feel about that?’ If possible, take notes – 10 minutes is a long time to listen to someone speak, notes Purnell-Webb
When they’re finished, don’t jump in straight away with your rebuttal. Instead, take a moment to reflect back to them what you’ve heard – make sure you understand their perspective before offering your own. “If you just launch into your point of view, it feels to the other person you haven’t heard them,” she says.
Every Family Has A Secret season 2 premieres on Tuesday 22 September at 7.30pm on SBS. Episodes will also screen as an encore on SBS VICELAND Thursdays at 11pm.
Every Family Has A Secret will be subtitled in Simplified Chinese and Arabic and added to the subtitled collection at SBS On Demand, available immediately after its premiere.
