Wow!!! I discovered some enmeshment in my previous marriage and noticed the enmeshment between parents and children and children and parents. I'm discovering that culture may play a part in that. I was told that I don't respect someone, but what was really wanted from me was blind loyalty. Children are used as pawns. It's such a weird concept for me and so very sad.

Sorry but the background misic is so annoying & actually distracts from the important message & points in this video.

Too many men love this dynamic. They triangulate. Putting both against each other and reaping the benefits of women fighting over him. Mine runs to his and makes things up for false sympathy from his mom. He values that more than my love.

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How can I get help to buy medicasion

Older divorced women want to use daughter as "caretaker" instead of letting her go. I divorced my wife because it was unbearable. "Mommy" was at fault. The most shocking is "support" for this behavior from other older and selfish women who seem to not care at all about younger ones. Adding to that neverending stream of threatening stories about "abusive" man, aimed on scaring girls from relationships with men and we have destroyed families.

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I'm just finding you, Dr Adams....Its been a long journey in discovering the inner-workings of mother/son enmeshment! I'm married to a 56 year old man who was very enmeshed with his mother. It caused us to divorce 4 years after marriage....due to child, we remarried again a few years later. While his mother has passed, the damage of how this woman raised him to be fully dependant on her has never diminished. There came a time when I simply couldnt keep up the job of raising this man for a lifetime. Our daughter adored him as a baby, toddler, and on until about 8 or 9....its as if she was no longer entertained by his playful nature and he couldnt relate to her as she matured mentally and emotionally. It was throughout all this I realized, while she is growing and maturing, learning life lessons, he would require me to :"raise" him the rest of his life. Meaning....I would have to organize and orchestrate everything and leaving him notes and instructions....he does nothing that he's not told to do. I cant exit this marriage right now, although that is my full intention....so I backed away from him in every way. Weve not shared a bedroom in 16 years so he goes to work, comes home, buys his own groceries, fixes his food, I dont do his laundry or clean his room, his car is filthy now because I dont do that either. Its been extremely disturbing to see what would happen to a man whose mother never prepared him for anything, revert back to such a child and running on auto-pilot. Its almost like he lives on instinct! Thats today. The first 12 years together was indeed a battle with him and his mother. She would come in our home without knocking or if we were gone....she came and got his laundry to take home to clean, she cooked every meal and he went over there to eat, she fixed his work lunches, gassed his car up, paid his bills....you name, she did it. She fought me tooth and nail on everything!! I wont lie, its been a relief since shes been gone but he is exactly the same. Im not studying this to fix him or us...no repair. I cant. I wont. I am just very interested in the psychology of it all at this point. Theres tons more to this but you've heard it all before! Thank you, though for your videos!

I'm so glad to hear about this work with women also - since I have seen these problems going on in people's lives.

My abuser think enmeshment is "love" and boundaries and accountability are abuse. It's all twisted and backwards. I had to fight for all my boundaries until I could break free and go no contact.

I have just realised my bf relays all our relationship conversations to his mother ( and other women too) We recently discussed the topic of opposite sex friends and she sided with him ( behind my back) and has therefore laid down our relationship terms. He tells her literally everything. I have often been ganged up on by them. He is in his 60's , surely he should know better? I have already had a long relationship with a guy that was enmeshed with his father and now one with his mother. She is a typical matriarch and makes all the decisions for her sons except one that has distanced himself completely to avoid that. She wont even allow the partners to be part of the weekly family call ins. Is he too old to get over this? Something about me needs to change to stop getting attached to men like this

Can you talk about brother - sister enmeshment?

I foolishly thought that bc his mom lived in another country she wouldn’t be a problem. Boy was I wrong. 10 years & 2 kids later it took me asking for a divorce for him to finally seek help from a therapist who made him see his relationship with his mother was never healthy.

Do NOT do as I did….talked myself out of leaving several times because I thought he had put up boundaries and would keep them with his family. Got stuck in the “relationship” for months and at times I have been miserable beyond words. Planning on leaving out this week IF I can obtain a place now since I let several places pass me by due to guilt of leaving him. Don’t marry a Peter Pan man. A boy who never grew up. They are very very good at selling themselves on whatever they need from you.

Really really common in Avoidant attachment

Run………….

Can we speak via phone ?

actually my sweet friends there is a way to get more commitment. you need to read steve harveys book act like a lady think like a man and he will show you how to get the ring. however, just because youre carried doesnt mean he's not enmeshed.

My fiance is still enmeshed with his ex-wife. They've been divorced 11 years.😔

This is eye opening work. I realised back in 2015 that I was putting my family of origin ahead of my own relationship with my husband. When I started to set boundaries the pushback was enormous; after all it was my "role" to be the good, compliant, accommodating daughter. That was my conditioning from childhood. Thanks for all your work. It's been liberating!

Pushing mum a off the train and his mum n three 50 yr old brothers live on the tracks how convenient

Every person around this woman she’s killed by wearing all her sons relationships out and her brothers relationships n her own husband and she still keeps being needy and guilt n pouting n child behaviour tantrums victim even though she’s the enabler

What do you do? Walk, walk, walk away. They don’t change.

He is an only adult child that puts his narcissistic mom above me

He has even put off his medical needs suffer because of her

He has punished me like he was as a child

I was in a one year relationship. His mom moved from another city and county, quit her job just to come over to live with him. It was in the middle of our relationship. He was learninh german at the time and wanted to go there, but his mother also learned and wanted to go with him. When we were on a trip, he gave me a silent treatment, after his mother went crazy on him for walking alone to a hotel room just because he went somewhere else with me. He didn't want to discuss it at all with me. But he went to his mother and came back to our hotel room behaving like he is an another man. Eventually when I wanted for us to start to live together he didn't want to. I also found a Word document with 700 words that he wrote about and to his mom in the very ending of our relationship in which he stated that she is everything to him, his only love and that he wants to die when she does, that his world will end after she does, etc. That's when I confirmed everything I suspected . I felt FROM THE BEGINNING as i am missing something from him. He was very caring and loving, but always had angry issues when i wanted to discuss something. I bet he can't yell at his mom like that. I understand everything now, all the pathology behind that, and psychoanalysis. But thank God i realised that very early, probably because I have the highest grade in psychiatry and I am a medical doctor.

So good! Had to set big boundaries with my parents and go low contact. Pushback was huge and I was seen as being disloyal to the family "system". I had relinquished my role as the fixer or go to person in my family of origin. Eventually went no contact with abusive siblings who saw me as abandoning them. To do anything outside of the family such as making my own choice was met with passive aggressive behaviour and bouts of the silent treatment dished out until I conformed. Thank you for your work. I find it so validating.

The worst is when the enmeshmed man idealizes the enmeshment and the mother

The 50+ year old daughter of my husband of 11 years was responsible for the emeshment. I called it meddling...calling 3 times a day, questioning what I did for him (wasn't good enough), taking over activities & giving him assigmnments. She would say, "I am going to take care of my daddy." It seems to be a twist of the mother emeshed to the son. But still I understand it now.

Very resentful for many years now!

What is it called when there is severe enmeshment AND a history of abusive neglect and manipulation.

I have gone no contact with my family (older parents). It wasn't part of a "trend" -- I really dislike people who call it that. It was the only solution I had to saving my mental health. No one encouraged me to do it; I decided it on my own. Since I have gone no contact, my mental health has stabilized. And it's still not easy. It was the hardest thing to do, and I still feel guilty about it over a year later. But I lost my brother to su*c*de, and I don't want to follow in his tracks. I had to make decisions to better myself. I was 45 when I made the decision. For me that was the needed course.

"Family does not give people permission to be abusive." Thank you. I bought and read one of your books years ago. People can give voice to reason, but they cannot change others, especially ancestors who love their dysfunctional patterns too much.

Thanks for this Dr.Adams. I’m from the Caribbean where enmeshment and especially mother enmeshed men is prevalent. My husband is the poster child for a severely enmeshed husband. I reached out to your office for help but was told you couldn’t do therapy for us because we’re out of the territory in terms of licenses. So we’ve sought help from a group of therapists who are familiar with your principles and we’re trying to recover, It’s really challenging. I feel you should broaden your work and training to other territories like ours so that our therapists can actually help victims of enmeshment. There needs to be further awareness and if we recover, I’d be happy to provide testimony for you. Court systems, traditional therapists, do not recognize enmeshment and this just results in the issue never being appropriately addressed and the metaphorical casualty count for all victims of enmeshment is 100%. Your work is critical, your work can save marriages, families and end the prevalence of generations trauma or the resultant trauma on the young offspring exposed to and negatively affected by the insidious nature and havoc of enmeshment. Please continue to spread the word, especially in further territories x

Thank you Dr. Ken Adams, Jon Taylor and team for your hard work! I look forward to all of your newest videos and appreciate all of your guest appearances on podcasts too! Dr. Adams, your books and videos have truly saved our marriage! We will be forever grateful. 💜

My husband calls his mother 2x a day and visits her in her assisted living facility 3x a week for at least three hours each visit; then she comes over for 4 hours every other Saturday. This has been going on for 5 years. (Actually, when she first moved close by to us after her husband died, my husband would visit her for 3-4 hours Monday through Friday, plus 2 phone calls per day.) . I never expected to spend our early retirement years in this agony. Verbal abuse follows my attempts to encourage a more balanced schedule. I have given up.

M

Joey?

Soft start ups to a denying MEM sends him into a major angry response and doctorate defensive degree in gas-lighting.

I fully agree in the beginning of dating a MEMan, the first few years showed little to no sign of enmeshment. And he was “perfect”- caring respectful, not a cheat, very intelligent and knowledgeable. My husband was an immigrant at the age of 16 and had to take responsibility for his family moving to a country with a very racist attitude towards him. Both parents involved with infidelity. And the father basically washed his hands of contributing any responsibility for the struggles of the family. After our marriage.,, “truths” started showing up … not by actual conversation but incidents not adding up and comments that eventually painted the story and history. . Tidbits of information, secrets, shame slowly coming out and putting the story together. Looking back would I have still married the guy??? Yes. But most likely we would not ended up staying married. I would NOT have tolerated the dysfunctionality to the degree that I did. Having said that ….when a major incident forced us to move overseas for work it lessened time spent with his family. . But still so SOOO many unnecessary disagreements and fights… most of the time instigated by his family. The nicer I acted towards the family, the worse it got. Their goal was to sabotage our marital relationship. Once I realized that, I stopped being nice. I wasn’t mean but I disengaged from them. It is not like my husband treated me better if I was nicer. No matter what I did…. Because he believed them over me. The most difficult hurdle is the resentment and anger that he lashes out. The constant blame that I was the one making them feel bad blah blah blah. In his late teens, he was supporting them. And they did not treat him well. As soon as I came into the picture, they were not happy so when I was around they showered him with so much attention … so his association with me contributed to his feeling more love from them. This was very difficult then to try to make him see what was going on. We never argued about money, we had similar values for how to raise out daughters, we never had issues with my family(I was not so close to them). Our daughters are Ivy League graduates with double degrees each, very successful in their passions and careers…. And this is what I pride myself on. We have enough funds to enjoy retirement, we have travelled extensively but the anger and at times lack of compassion causes major riffs. I have started to plan to be more separated to enjoy my remaining 25-30 years if I live that long.

Bravo! Thank you!! Me and our kids were always put in "the back of the bus." Always secondary, never a priority. Time to leave. Thanks again for having the balls to address this!

I am so fearful of sexuality.that I am celibate to avoid being hated by the one I love ad being rejected by him and others in my family

Yes I did. My parents have died now I cant do healthy opposite sex love commitment marriage

Thank you for your valuable insights and great work, your information helps me a lot. In your recent webinar about copendency versus enmeshment, you mentioned maybe also doing one about comparing enmeshment with trauma bond. I would be very interested in that, as I believe my situation (as well as that of my sibling) is both combined. Also, I'd like to mention that mother-daughter enmeshment can feel very icky, too, so not only with mother-son enmeshment that you refer to in other podcasts. as in, certain implicit and explicit boundary crossing into surrogate or intimate partner like expectations that are put on the child. I'd also like to know your view on the concept of FOG in such dynamics. Kind regards, I hope you'd be interested to discuss this in a webinar or other public conversation.

5:00 yep. I guess a great deal is subconscious with a lot of these parents. Thank you very much for your work and advice. 💜 9:08 exactly

Very helpful. Thank you.

It started with ED. We were never able to consummate the relationship. He refused to seek medical attention. His mother interfered. I was always the last monkey on the totem pole. Mom, dad, dog then me. When his mood swings were no longer bearable I left. I no longer felt romantic feelings for him. 2 year relationship. First year was good. Second year was bad. No more.

Oh my gosh! How sad!! 😢

To easy solution. Menu preliminaries were not been taken into account. The whole direction very good. But in this form is not for all, especially for wounded ones.