Pull Versus Draw: Enmeshment
Every once in awhile, when we miss our grandchildren, FD will say, "I'm sorry I didn't make enough money to keep the kids in the city. I should have been able to buy them houses nearby, so they wouldn't want to leave."
This always inspires my rousing rendition of that old Blood Sweat and Tears song.
Enmeshment doesn't have to be about money and usually it isn't. It's not about going into the family business. Enmeshment is about psychological pull, meeting the neurotic needs of parents who really should be fending for themselves.
We used to call these ties invisible loyalties. Immature, irrational needs of parents become obligations, nooses around the necks of their kids. Thirty years ago I read the first edition of Invisible Loyalties, a book by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, still recommended reading.
Enmeshment can be an emotional topic. In alcoholic families, it's especially insidious. You can read a new post that I wrote about this as a guest blogger at The Second Road, called The Plant and Enmeshment, if you want a little more on that.
It so happens that I had to walk out on my first post-graduate family therapy lecture many years ago. The sharp, accomplished, erudite lecturer used the Jewish people as the paradigm of enmeshment. He gave a history lesson dating the concept to the necessary protectiveness of European Jews who lived in fear of bayonets and raping marauders, well before Hitler thought of it.
Jewish kids often complain about something they call "over-protection." But it's not fair to generalize.
The psychologist told a packed lecture hall that his parents' generation, the survivor generation, as a consequence of this transgenerational process, couldn't let their children live their own lives, wouldn't let them individuate.
He went on to say that that gooey closeness and psychological interference, the irrational need for information, underlies and maintains neuroses, addictions, and mental illness.
No question, he was right to some degree. This parent-child dynamic, not giving a kid enough psychological space, can affect mental health.
But to profile like that?
This went on, this rant, basting incessant interference from parents even after children have left the nest, railing the irrational need to know the whereabouts of children at any given moment, and what they had for breakfast, if they can get that information out of them, too.
The doc is probably giving the same lecture today, adding that Jewish children now come with an optional GPS chip.
Just as a point of reference, fast forward thirty years, my kids communicate with us and with one another almost every day, from all corners of the country, by group email. These adult children all have jobs, they have friends; they've left home. But for some crazy, psychopathological reason, they still like to stay in touch. The in-law kids are in on this insanity, too, and they don't feel like in-law kids, I don't think, not really. For some bizarre reason, they feel like family. We hope so.
The kids usually start the emails, but sometimes I will, and it will go something like this:
We must be enmeshed, I guess, as Jews who like to know what's going on with one another.
I've done a little work on comparative cultures and understand that the eldest daughter in some Mexican families is expected not to marry, but is to take care of her parents until they die. And when sons in some Indian families take a wife, she is expected to move into the groom's family home to take care his mother and father.
And now as our economy crumbles and people are losing jobs and houses, some will see living with elderly parents as not just a cost-saving enticement and a functional way to take care of them, but a necessity.
In my multi-ethnic community, having grandparents living in or very near a young couple's home, ready and willing to babysit, is considered a real score.
So what's the psychopathology? Wherein lies the problem?
Being truly enmeshed may have nothing to do with how many times a week or a day a person calls his or her parents, or how many times parents call a child. It depends upon the effect of the behavior, obviously, and the context. If important relationships are neglected due to attention paid elsewhere, any time with anyone, any project, any addiction, any job, can contribute to family dysfunctional, essentially, neglect.
Truly enmeshed has to do with the invisible pull to take care, solely, of the emotional and physical needs of the family of origin. That's supposed to be the job of the parents, not the kids.
Young enmeshed kids stay home from school because their mothers are lonely or afraid, abused, or ill. They have "separation anxiety." They can't bare to feel their mommie's pain.
Older children, when enmeshed, aren't properly launched into society, can't move out of their parents' homes without feeling guilty, or worse, they don't want to move out. (That's where the beer is, for some).
Enmeshed kids usually lack the confidence to leave home, and don't want to leave parents. Sometimes they are the glue in the marital relationship and they know that their role in the family is to keep the couple together.
Enmeshed kids often think that they alone must tend to or solve the problems of their parents, and they know this at a very young age, too.
As parents age, this can be a stark reality, as no one else will do it. If we don't check in on elderly parents, make sure they're okay, and a parent falls ill, we're going to feel something much worse than enmeshed if we hear something terrible happened.
Enmeshed people forget to marry.
Enmeshed means tending to middle-aged, healthy parents. It means sacrificing, not going away to college, and if they do take the leap and try, are yanked back psychologically. Sometimes it means failing in school. We call this failure to launch.
It's that pull, that guilt that's not healthy, feeling one must take care of parents who should be self-sufficient, but who aren't. The guilt. Not being able to say No wears down a person's sense of self. That's enmeshment.
A healthy child can say No to a parent. With conviction.
An enmeshed child sighs and says, "Fine, I'll be over after dinner. I'll mow your lawn." He says this even when helping his spouse or parenting his children would be a better alternative. He leaves the family, mows a lawn that should have, could have lived to grow another day.
Enmeshed children sometimes say that they're doing this family of origin work out of respect, which is fine and good, if it is true and doesn't take away from a spouse's needs, or the needs of the children.
Truly enmeshed adult children say Yes out of guilt, not respect, but passivity. They take the path of least resistance.
Parents still survive when we say No to irrational requests. It's amazing how that works. And they grow to respect us as adults, people with separate lives. Best to do this, to say no gently, consistently, when it is surely more functional to emphasize that boundary.
Then we take it to the next level, encourage our own children to do individuate, become their own persons, do what is good for their families. These decisions can really hurt, can take a lot out of us. The process of letting them go is the process of loss.
But it's good loss, and temporary. When we do this they are exceedingly grateful. They even look at our advice about things, see what we say more realistically, less emotionally, can acknowledge us when we're right, not reflexively dismiss our ideas, bat off our ideas and opinions, just because they're our ideas and opinions.
Done with panache, we become a draw.
If it's a draw, it's not enmeshment. Being a draw is another thing altogether. When adult children are drawn to family, the family is like cotton candy to a child.
When we're drawn to the sound of our parents' voices, we are not enmeshed, but feel something most of us would call a wonderful variant of love.
And an occasional call to YouTube.
therapydoc
From American Idol, LaKisha Jones
This always inspires my rousing rendition of that old Blood Sweat and Tears song.
Mama may haveYou may prefer Billie Holiday. She and Arthur Herzog Jr. wrote the song, I think.
And Papa may have
But. . .
G-d bless the child who's got his own
Who's got his own (big trumpet solo here, great stuff).
Enmeshment doesn't have to be about money and usually it isn't. It's not about going into the family business. Enmeshment is about psychological pull, meeting the neurotic needs of parents who really should be fending for themselves.
We used to call these ties invisible loyalties. Immature, irrational needs of parents become obligations, nooses around the necks of their kids. Thirty years ago I read the first edition of Invisible Loyalties, a book by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, still recommended reading.
Enmeshment can be an emotional topic. In alcoholic families, it's especially insidious. You can read a new post that I wrote about this as a guest blogger at The Second Road, called The Plant and Enmeshment, if you want a little more on that.
It so happens that I had to walk out on my first post-graduate family therapy lecture many years ago. The sharp, accomplished, erudite lecturer used the Jewish people as the paradigm of enmeshment. He gave a history lesson dating the concept to the necessary protectiveness of European Jews who lived in fear of bayonets and raping marauders, well before Hitler thought of it.
Jewish kids often complain about something they call "over-protection." But it's not fair to generalize.
The psychologist told a packed lecture hall that his parents' generation, the survivor generation, as a consequence of this transgenerational process, couldn't let their children live their own lives, wouldn't let them individuate.
He went on to say that that gooey closeness and psychological interference, the irrational need for information, underlies and maintains neuroses, addictions, and mental illness.
No question, he was right to some degree. This parent-child dynamic, not giving a kid enough psychological space, can affect mental health.
But to profile like that?
This went on, this rant, basting incessant interference from parents even after children have left the nest, railing the irrational need to know the whereabouts of children at any given moment, and what they had for breakfast, if they can get that information out of them, too.
The doc is probably giving the same lecture today, adding that Jewish children now come with an optional GPS chip.
Just as a point of reference, fast forward thirty years, my kids communicate with us and with one another almost every day, from all corners of the country, by group email. These adult children all have jobs, they have friends; they've left home. But for some crazy, psychopathological reason, they still like to stay in touch. The in-law kids are in on this insanity, too, and they don't feel like in-law kids, I don't think, not really. For some bizarre reason, they feel like family. We hope so.
The kids usually start the emails, but sometimes I will, and it will go something like this:
I'm thinking for dinner I'd like to toast French bread and slather it with sauteed mushrooms, onions, green pepper (light on the peppers) tomatoes, and garlic, sprinkle it with some fine mozzarella, make a side of tapanade. What are you guys having?They all chime in. We can do this until there's breaking news, like a link to a Simpsons video clip.
We must be enmeshed, I guess, as Jews who like to know what's going on with one another.
I've done a little work on comparative cultures and understand that the eldest daughter in some Mexican families is expected not to marry, but is to take care of her parents until they die. And when sons in some Indian families take a wife, she is expected to move into the groom's family home to take care his mother and father.
And now as our economy crumbles and people are losing jobs and houses, some will see living with elderly parents as not just a cost-saving enticement and a functional way to take care of them, but a necessity.
In my multi-ethnic community, having grandparents living in or very near a young couple's home, ready and willing to babysit, is considered a real score.
So what's the psychopathology? Wherein lies the problem?
Being truly enmeshed may have nothing to do with how many times a week or a day a person calls his or her parents, or how many times parents call a child. It depends upon the effect of the behavior, obviously, and the context. If important relationships are neglected due to attention paid elsewhere, any time with anyone, any project, any addiction, any job, can contribute to family dysfunctional, essentially, neglect.
Truly enmeshed has to do with the invisible pull to take care, solely, of the emotional and physical needs of the family of origin. That's supposed to be the job of the parents, not the kids.
Young enmeshed kids stay home from school because their mothers are lonely or afraid, abused, or ill. They have "separation anxiety." They can't bare to feel their mommie's pain.
Older children, when enmeshed, aren't properly launched into society, can't move out of their parents' homes without feeling guilty, or worse, they don't want to move out. (That's where the beer is, for some).
Enmeshed kids usually lack the confidence to leave home, and don't want to leave parents. Sometimes they are the glue in the marital relationship and they know that their role in the family is to keep the couple together.
Enmeshed kids often think that they alone must tend to or solve the problems of their parents, and they know this at a very young age, too.
As parents age, this can be a stark reality, as no one else will do it. If we don't check in on elderly parents, make sure they're okay, and a parent falls ill, we're going to feel something much worse than enmeshed if we hear something terrible happened.
Enmeshed people forget to marry.
Enmeshed means tending to middle-aged, healthy parents. It means sacrificing, not going away to college, and if they do take the leap and try, are yanked back psychologically. Sometimes it means failing in school. We call this failure to launch.
It's that pull, that guilt that's not healthy, feeling one must take care of parents who should be self-sufficient, but who aren't. The guilt. Not being able to say No wears down a person's sense of self. That's enmeshment.
A healthy child can say No to a parent. With conviction.
An enmeshed child sighs and says, "Fine, I'll be over after dinner. I'll mow your lawn." He says this even when helping his spouse or parenting his children would be a better alternative. He leaves the family, mows a lawn that should have, could have lived to grow another day.
Enmeshed children sometimes say that they're doing this family of origin work out of respect, which is fine and good, if it is true and doesn't take away from a spouse's needs, or the needs of the children.
Truly enmeshed adult children say Yes out of guilt, not respect, but passivity. They take the path of least resistance.
Parents still survive when we say No to irrational requests. It's amazing how that works. And they grow to respect us as adults, people with separate lives. Best to do this, to say no gently, consistently, when it is surely more functional to emphasize that boundary.
Then we take it to the next level, encourage our own children to do individuate, become their own persons, do what is good for their families. These decisions can really hurt, can take a lot out of us. The process of letting them go is the process of loss.
But it's good loss, and temporary. When we do this they are exceedingly grateful. They even look at our advice about things, see what we say more realistically, less emotionally, can acknowledge us when we're right, not reflexively dismiss our ideas, bat off our ideas and opinions, just because they're our ideas and opinions.
Done with panache, we become a draw.
If it's a draw, it's not enmeshment. Being a draw is another thing altogether. When adult children are drawn to family, the family is like cotton candy to a child.
When we're drawn to the sound of our parents' voices, we are not enmeshed, but feel something most of us would call a wonderful variant of love.
And an occasional call to YouTube.
therapydoc
From American Idol, LaKisha Jones
Labels: blood sweat and tears, enmeshment, Invisible Loyalties, Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, LaKisha Jones
posted by therapydoc at 1:17 PM
35 Comments:
Interesting entry today. What happens, tho, when an only child creates the dependency and suddenly, in her mid-forties, falls off the face of the earth, with her two teen-age daughters, communication-wise? We are mad, hurt, confused, and suddenly without a family.
R&R
Thanks you! This definition helps put some behavior I see into perspective and gives me language (at least for myself) for why I'm resisting some of the stuff I resist.
Any time, not faint.
Anon, THIS is the time, you knew I'd say this, to get therapy. Get a therapist who has some real family therapy training, too, someone who has the skills to engage your daughter, too. Sounds like you're going to need it.
This has been my favorite topic so far in my Family Therapy class. Thanks for the most interesting post about it.
wow. I can't imagine a family like that. It's incredible. I talk to my family probably, oh, once a month... maybe. But then, I was the move out three weeks after I turned 18 type. I've lived on my own and been quite content with it since.
Most of the people I see have the opposite problem (and maybe I do too). Rather then being enmeshed, they're not attached at all.
Still Dreaming, don't worry. We're going to get to that kind of family, too. Remember, I tend to deal in extremes :)
I like hearing these extremes. :o)
I think that I have decided that there is no such thing as normal.
I was glad to read this today. The last couple years my mother has begun making all sorts of irrational demands. I was in AlAnon for my son, and I'm finding those tools really helped me with her latest crisis.
I also liked your 1st post on Second Road.
Normal is my least favorite word, so I'm with you.
Lou, I'll be putting up another post there soon. Thanks.
This is such a timely post after spending this weekend hammering out Thanksgiving and Christmas plans with our extended family. Ughhh. There is nothing like holiday plans to reveal invisible expectations and guilt and how families operate differently. This year, as the sort-of-enmeshed-daughter, I didn't take the bait my mom laid out. I didn't play her game!!! Boy it was tough but you know, for the first time in ages I'm actually looking forward to the holidays. This post put some words to my experience this weekend. :)
So I should have titled it, Just in Time for the Holidays, eh, ROSY?
So I should have titled it, Just in Time for the Holidays, eh, ROSY?
I don't know if this is an odd situation, but in my family of origin my mother and younger brother were enmeshed, while she and I were unattached.
I think a large part of the issue may have been related to the death of another brother when he was 18 months, and I was 3. I'm told Mom was depressed and withdrawn for a long time (understandably). Later, when she gave birth to enmeshed brother, we almost lost him to a condition related to Rh incompatibility.
We're trying to help our kids grow into independent adults who feel confident and secure in the world. Still, I cried and pouted and generally acted the nut for a few months after OD started college (especially since she seemed to be settling in so well). It's so hard to let go, but they deserve their own lives.
Thanks for this article. It really helps to keep things in perspective.
It almost sounds like co-dependence. What's the difference? I have felt enmeshed in something most of my life but am at last becoming less entangled in the mesh.
The second son becomes what we family therapists refer to as the sacrifice. It doesn't have to be this way, you know. No where is it written that relatonships can't change.
I hope you'll write more on the second son/sacrifice issue in the future.
I do know that relationships can change, but that's difficult when one person doesn't want to change, and the other person has given up.
Enmeshed brother has managed to put some distance between Mom and himself by marrying and moving out of the family home. Still, she expects a lot of him, and does a lot in return.
I live 500 miles away by choice, so I don't have to witness this and can avoid thinking about it most of the time.
--Queen of Avoidance :)
Where I got stuck on your post was not the theme of enmeshment (years ago, a friend who wasn't Jewish said her Jewish friends had a harder time separating from their families) but on the psychologist lecturer and his tone. He sounded like a self-hating Jew (I'm guessing that he's Jewish, as many brilliant academics are). I would have a hard time listening to him, too. He may have been "right", but he sounded nasty. Couldn't he have said the whole thing in a different tone?
Syd, the difference is that enmeshment is always parent-child. And the child is never expected to take care of a parent, emotionally.
The gooeyness is for sure the same. And the idea of invisible loyalty, although with co-dependence, there's nothing very invisible about it.
Actually, enmeshment can be pretty glaring, too.
Great thoughts, though I expected the ending Youtube clip to be Simpsons...
I witness a lot of enmeshment around me, though I'd never heard that term until now.
Enmeshed or detached, the ebb and flow of it all is grist for the mill.
Another potentially emotionally charged topic wonderfully, clearly explained. Very helpful.
Great post and explanation of enmeshment! This post is so clarifying and enlightening.
i loved this post! hopefully ill remember it in about 20 years....
Interesting but very confusing (to me) post. After separating from my parents for close to 20 years (by separating I mean living my own life while they lived theirs) I suddenly found myself very caught up in their lives due to their age and an onslaught of health/mental problems that come with having parents of advanced age -- their both in their 80's. There's no one else to help them so what do I do? Leave them to fend for themselves? I suppose some would applaud me for what I am doing, other would say I am acting co-dependent. I figure I have to do what makes me feel best about the situation and walking away is out of the question because, as rocky as our relationship has been at time, I love them.
I guess if people parented with this in mind, that their kids would ultimately resent helping them out at some point, they might parent a little more thoughtfully.
Kindness has to be good karma. A pain sometimes, and you're sure sometimes that it's not apreciated or even deserved, and yet...whacha gonna do?
Never really thought of enmeshment when listening to that "God Bless the Child" tune, but it fits. Actually, a lot of stuff Billie Holiday sang kinda creeps me out. Ever listen to the lyrics to "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do?" Love her style, but the dysfunctional relationship stuff scares the heck out of me.
This is a wonderful writing on enmeshment. All parents and children would be served well by your thoughts. There are so many dynamics in the parent/child relationship that it is difficult for many to discern what is healthy and unhealthy behavior.
I'm wondering if it's possible to be enmeshed and detached at the same time, with the same parent. Looking back, I see both with my mother.
Sure, anything is possible. But wait until I post on detached parenting to decide.
And again, this type of assessing is only good if it pushes people to stick their necks out to change things for the better. So if you're detached at one phase of life, you want to work on more attachment; if you're too attached, you try for spreading out a little, developing your other relationships a little more.
For me it's she's on the east coast and I'm on the west coast...and that is a very good thing!
Six hours and she's there!
Ha!! Not in our case! It took her 3 days to get here when my grandmother passed away. She's physically disabled so not able to just run to the airport and jump on a plane very easily. Minimal contact is good in this case...enmeshed and detached and abusive...very bad combo.
Thank you very much for your insight into enmeshed relationships with family of origin. It is a fresh and honest explication of what goes on in this truly horrible dynamic between parents and their children ( in my experience anyway). Your post has helped me feel less alienated and guilty and more determined to set the boundaries to make my relationship with my mother healthy.
So glad it helped, anon.
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