The Handover of Pathology: How Manipulation Travels Across Time

 

Family systems do not break down overnight. When one looks closely at the fractures within a family caught in the grip of manipulation, one often finds a long arc — a sequence of influences, each compounding the last, until the pathology becomes so entrenched that betrayal feels like loyalty, and exploitation masquerades as care.

I want to speak about a particular pattern I have witnessed up close: the handover of pathology. It is the process by which one manipulator imprints destructive scripts into a person, only for those scripts to be later activated and exploited by another. The continuity can stretch across decades, spanning marriages, divorces, and new relationships, yet the psychic groove remains the same.

 

The First Imprint: Betrayal as Loyalty

At the root of the handover is an initial act of pathologisation. A spouse or intimate partner slowly reframes the terms of loyalty: what was once unconditional care for family is re-scripted into hostility, suspicion, and betrayal. Rivalries are inflamed, parental figures dishonoured, siblings cast as enemies.

This is not done overnight. It takes years of projection, gaslighting, and inversion. The manipulator implants a narrative: to degrade the family is to protect it; to betray kin is to prove loyalty; to dishonour the father’s memory is to assert independence. Over time, the victim of this manipulation internalises the script so deeply that it becomes indistinguishable from their own thinking.

 

Persistence Beyond the Marriage

Even when such a marriage collapses, the implant does not dissolve. The person who has carried this pathologisation forward often clings to it even more fiercely, because it provides identity continuity. Without those scripts, the self feels fragmented. With them, however distorted, the self feels whole.

This explains why, even years after separation, the same destructive patterns repeat. The projection of hostility onto a sibling, the willingness to dishonour a parent’s dignity, the ease with which manipulation is tolerated — all persist because they have become psychic habits.

 

The Secondary Capture

When another manipulative figure enters the picture, they encounter fertile ground. They need not implant new scripts; they need only activate the old ones.

The family betrayal that was once demanded by a spouse now becomes demanded by a new figure. The triangulation once imposed within a marriage now plays out across the wider family system. And the enmeshment patterns once fostered by the first manipulator now bind the victim to the second.

This is the handover of pathology: a baton passed from one abuser to another, across time, across relationships.

 

The Tragedy of Consent

What makes this so devastating is that the person carrying the pathology often believes they are acting freely. In reality, they are operating from within an inherited script. They may even consent to things that, from the outside, appear unthinkable — the exploitation of a parent, the betrayal of a sibling, the desecration of family memory. To them, it is not betrayal but survival; not collusion but loyalty.

 

Why It Matters

Understanding the handover of pathology is crucial for anyone dealing with cycles of undue influence, elder abuse, or family manipulation. It explains why some enablers seem irrationally loyal, why they side with abusers even against their own blood, and why they double down even when evidence exposes the lie.

The truth is: their betrayal is not entirely their own invention. It is the residue of an earlier manipulation, calcified into habit, and then weaponised anew by another.

 

Breaking the Cycle

The only way to break such a cycle is to see it clearly:

• To name the handover.
• To understand that what looks like free will is often the inertia of old scripts.
• To intervene not just against the current manipulator but against the entire legacy of pathologisation that prepared the ground.

Without that recognition, families risk living under the shadow of a pathology that travels across decades — changing names, faces, and circumstances, but always repeating the same betrayal.