AYC: Incest - Covert: "The same-sex parent is usually complicit in the incestuous relationship between the child and the opposite-sex parent. If a boy is being covertly incested by his mother, often the father steps out of the way so the incest can occur -- as the sexual and emotional bond between his wife and himself stops functioning in a healthy way. The boy unconsciously feels abandoned by his father and his sense of his own manhood is undermined. Though truly believing both parents are looking out for his needs, underneath is a seething guilt and bitterness and even rage for both parents who have, if not been true partners with each other, been silent partners in instigating and continuing the seductive pattern of covert incest."