“You said (The Mercury, January 30, 2006) that a mother must tell her daughter to speak to her father about a relationship she has that the father thinks is already broken up. You said the mother was ‘in the middle’ when really I think she was being a friend to her daughter. Can a mother and daughter not have secrets with each other?”
A parent’s primary relationship is with the spouse, not with the children. The only exceptions are when a parent is violent, cruel or sexually inappropriate with a child.
It is appropriate that mothers and daughters share secrets, but helping a young daughter hide a relationship of which the father does not approve, is not sharing a secret, but participating in deceit.
The parent, if you take a close look at the dynamics, is being pulled into a giant triangle and the parent becomes trapped by the “secret.” In desiring to please her daughter, the mother stands to alienate her husband. If she is honest with her husband, she lets her daughter down. The kinds of healthy secrets mothers and daughters share do not serve to trap anyone into silence or deceit. Healthy secrets create no victims.
Talking with her father might be difficult for this young girl to do….. but it is a very necessary part of growing up.
difficultrelationships.com 
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