Enmeshment

Today I would like to highlight many of the presenting issues in my clinical practice, struggles with being intimate, vulnerable and simply giving oneself over to the other as seemingly an impossible tasks that hinders relationships and having others seek non-intimate pursuits that have a tendency to lead to compulsive sexual behaviors. These non intimate pursuits usually consist of porn, cypersex, infidelity, paying for sex and a whole gamite of other ways to act out sexually. This is common as the inability to risk intimacy is a fundamental issue that impacts the relational world. As I look into the dynamics of these cases where there is an underlying fear of intimacy, symptomatic of that of which we see in the profile of either the “Love Addict” or “Relationship Addict”, I find that boundaries, specifically unclear or a lack of boundaries are at the forefront of the issues to these relationships. The key to a healthy relationship is dependent on the balance of the “togetherness, separateness force” and today I want to highlight the enmeshed relationship, where boundaries are permeable and unclear, leading to an imbalance in this “togetherness, separateness force”.

Let’s first talk about ways in which enmeshment is formed in early childhood. When boundaries are not developed as a child, in cases where parent or guardian either over or under functioned in the relationship, in the case I would like to highlight there involves over functioning, the child does not learn to self soothe and requires the parent to soothe. This also creates a scenario where the parent is engaging in the over functioning role as an unconscious way to get their own emotional needs met. Over time as this process occurs, the child deepens its inability to self soothe and the parent strengthens the enmeshment with the child and the child in some cases becomes “emotionally incested” by the parent. It is important to not get this confused with sexual incest, this form of covert incest with the child does not have any sexual elements to it, simply when the relational dynamic and boundaries of the parent-child relationship becomes unclear regarding who is responsable for each others emotional needs, this form of enmeshed relationship has a high probability of occuring. I often see this in my practice as the client who comes from a broken home, their parents separated when the client was a young child and one or both parents went to the child to soothe the level of distress felt from the break-up of the relationship, the child learned and developed the means to soothe the parent, meet the parents emotional needs and formed an enmeshed bond with the parent. This created inappropriate loyalties to the parent that the child developed as the child became focused on meeting the emotional needs of the parent rather than their own. This presents itself in the client today as his or her inability to self soothe and is overly connected and needs to meet the other person’s needs so badly that they lose touch of their own needs, goals, desires, and feelings. This person has the vulnerability of engaging in a relationship in the preoccupied attachment style of which they have developed, low avoidant and highly anxious where the level of their anxiety is in reference to the other, much as it was with the parent, simply without the other they have an inability to soothe and emotionally regulate. They are often in high levels of distress in any inactivity in the relationship.

So how does this impact relationships? Enmeshment can create inappropriate loyalty to the other, it demands extreme emotional closeness at a cost of one’s interdependence. Simply put, time together is maximized and little alone time or separateness is permitted. So what does this feel like for those in these types of enmeshed relationships:

Feeling smothered, trapped or engulfed when in the enmeshed relationship.
Finding it difficult to make commitments and decisions.
Looking to take care of others in relationships and not self.
Creating a system of putting others’ needs ahead of your own.
Putting the needs of my partner over my own.

So how does this affect sexuality? I find that the enmeshed relationship often impacts one’s sexuality in the sense that the relationship presents itself much more like the parent-child relationship rather than the husband-wife relationship. This dynamic leaves either party in the relationship susceptible to many forms of acting out sexually as it creates problems with intimacy at the core level of the bond. Below are a few ways of which one’s sexuality may become impacted by enmeshment:

Finding it difficult to express passion sexually in the relationhip.
Having problems staying loyal to sexual and romantic comitments made.
Feeling more “sexually free” when engaging or using porn or being in an affair.

Many of these points are the behaivors present in sex addiction, porn addiction and love addiction. All stemming from the dynamics of the parent-child relationship, a lack of or inappropriate boundaries set that had the child forming a disorganized attachment style that leads them susceptible to forming enmeshed relationships with others. So the next question then is, “How do we fix this?” This is not a simple answer, finding a therapist that understands enmeshment and how it becomes a part of the addiction system is important. I would like to present the resource of my clinical supervisor Dr. Ken Adams CSAT-S, pioneer in the field of enmeshment and specifically mother-son enmeshment. There is help for those that fit this profile and have struggles forming lasting intimate bonds with others. Please see below specific resources in this area along with the link to Dr. Adams website:

Overcoming Enmeshment

“Silently Seduced” by Dr. Ken Adams

“When He’s Married to Mom” by Dr. Ken Adams

Mike Quarress CSAT-S