What does it mean to be enmeshed with a parent?
It means that you are overinvolved with your parent at a cost to your own needs and relationships. It means you have taken on your parent’s problems as your own and fill obligated to fix them before you can have any life of your own. It means you fell excessively responsible for your parents’ happiness and you declare intense loyalty to your parent over most other commitments. You feel no one understands your bind and you are the only one who can help and be there for your parent.
Do you feel guilty too much of the time when dealing with one of your parents?
If so, you may have had an overly involved or enmeshed relationship with your parent that left you feeling excessively responsible to care for them at a cost to your own life and interests.
Below are some of the characteristics and consequences to you if you were enmeshed with your parent.
- I feel like I have to always be there for my parent even when it is not good for me
- After a conversation with my parent, I often feel guilty
- My parent often wants to be closer to me than I want
- I cannot stand up to my parent
How does enmeshments affect my relationships?
Being enmeshed with a parent creates an inappropriate loyalty to your parent that was implicitly or explicitly assigned to you as a role because of the loneliness or problems that your parent had. Enmeshment demands extreme emotional closeness at a cost to independence. Strong demands for loyalty are usually accompanied by messages of guilt and prohibitions against outside friends and activities. Time together is maximized and little alone time or separateness is permitted.
Below are some of the ways enmeshment impacts relationships.
- I often feel engulfed, smothered, or trapped when I am in relationships
- I find it difficult to make decisions and commitments
- I look to take care of others in relationships too often
- I find it easier to put other’s needs ahead of my own
- I have too often put my parent’s needs ahead of my spouse or partner
- My parent’s involvement in my life is a source of conflict for my spouse or partner
Can enmeshment with my parent affect my sexuality?
Yes it can, particularly if your role with your parent was to be the surrogate spouse. You may have felt more like your parents’ husband or wife, or even their sexualized boyfriend or girlfriend. Interactions may have (or do) felt “icky”. This can be a form of covert incest.
Below are some ways that your sexuality may have been impacted.
- I feel more sexually free when I am using porn or in an affair than in my committed relationship
- I have trouble staying loyal to romantic and sexual commitments that I have made
- I find it difficult to express much passion sexually in a committed relationship
Is it possible to recover form the affects of enmeshment with a parent?
Yes, it is! There is a clear path of recovery that can help men and women live a passionate life of their own choosing without either submitting to or cutting off their parent entirely.
Below are some suggestions that can help provide the basis for a life of contentment and satisfaction.
- Setting boundaries with one’s parent and others,
- “Divorcing” oneself from the contractual demands to be loyal to the parent at any cost
- Learning to live within commitments of one’s choosing
- Recovery from addictions and codependency
