Understanding Enmeshment With Dr. Ken Adams
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ค. 2024
- Everyone wants a caring, loving family, right? But is it possible for close to become too close?
“Enmeshment” is a term that’s been gaining more traction recently, and it describes family systems that are intertwined in unhealthy ways. These families appear very loving from the outside, but that love is often based on guilt and obligation…and usually the family doesn’t even know this about themselves!
My brilliant guest today, Dr. Ken Adams, is pulling back the veil on enmeshment and helping us understand what it is and when and how it forms. One of the leading researchers and teachers on this topic, Dr. Adams helps us understand when closeness crosses a line, how to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy family structures and how to break free and develop secure attachments to your partner, friends or other relationships you’ve created.
Listen to discover:
- What enmeshment means
- How it forms in childhood
- The effects enmeshment has on a spouse or partner
- How to change the family system
- Why getting free is something you have to do for yourself
Often, enmeshment is rooted in a lonely parent who substitutes their child for their partner. This leads to adult children who feel a sense of obligation to the parent’s well-being, even at the expense of their own needs or the life they’ve created.
The good news is that this doesn’t have to be an either/or scenario. It’s possible to love your family without feeling tangled up with them, and you CAN redefine the relationship and become free to be who you’re meant to be - including a great son or daughter.
“The love contract is defined by obligatory guilt and loyalty, not about freedom to love.” - Dr. Ken Adams
“The empathetic, sensitive soul in the family gets globbed onto by the lonely parent.” - Dr. Ken Adams
“Enmeshment has a direct impact on romantic availability.” - Dr. Ken Adams
“Emancipation is not a negotiation.” - Dr. Ken Adams
“The idea of cracking [the false self] open and becoming the true self is terrifying because we don’t know who we are without that mask.” - Michelle Chalfant
“It feels like your spouse is having an affair, but it’s with their mother or their father.” - Michelle
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Dr. Ken Adams Website
www.overcomingenmeshment.com/
Dr. Ken Adams TH-cam
/ @drkenadams
“When He’s Married to Mom” (Dr. Ken Adams book)
www.overcomingenmeshment.com/...
“Silently Seduced” (Dr. Ken Adams book)
www.overcomingenmeshment.com/...
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TH-cam: / michellechalfant
My husband worked for his parents, went to their Church, and we were neighbors for the first 8 years of marriage. This last year we finally quit their job, found our new Church and moved. And we’ve never been happier. These videos have helped me SO MUCH. ❤
Omg fantastic. I can't tell you how relieved I feel knowing I am not alone here. This is exactly what I felt as a partner of an enmeshed man.
I'm remembering once my father saying to me that a son could moved on unless if their parent were sick, it tuns out that I have a friend which her mom have been sick since she was a teenager, but even so, she got married, bought her own house, and her mother had never said to her that she couldn't live, but it doesn't mean that she never carried about her mother health, but she wanted to have her own family as well. In my opinion my parents wants us to be with them without having our own life because they are afraid of being alone, their marriage is not okay before I was born, but they would never get the divorce, maybe because of that fear of loneliness.
Great interview, thank you. Also huge thanks to Dr. Adams, for your insights and great work. it's very enlightening.
So much self-forgiveness and understanding flooding in because of this video! Another awesome bombshell Michelle👏🏼
13:25 that 's a great huge coffee or tea cup, I love it :D
I wish there had been more on what the spouse of the enmeshed man should do
Dr Adams has some books on this. Married to Mom is excellent.
Thank you so much for this invaluable and life changing information
This episode being re-released three months after the original audio podcast and I was already ready to hear it again. Thank you for spreading awareness and knowledge to make the world a better place.
Thanks for listening
Great content!
This is such a great talk. Thank you so much.
Great information.Thanks for explaining this so well
Informative and compassionate podcast, thank you. A great introduction to the work of Dr Ken Adams and I will check out his website and U Tube channel.
Whatever the kid's temperament, children are dependent on their parents for survival so they don't feel they have a choice. Even if a child would say, I don't (want to) care and the parent metes out (heavy) physical and/or psychological punishment, that's a dire situation for the child. For example the golden child helper and rescuer role gets passed from eldest child to youngest child, or alternates between them, even extended family members in the system get that role if they are deemed available.
Love this video. It’s changing my life. I have a question that I’m hoping you can help answer. I am getting married soon and am really feeling guilty about not wanting to invite my mother to my wedding / elopement. She’s recently guilted tripped me (at least it felt on my end because it’s not the first time) after I texted her some song she used to like when I was a kid. It was basically a breakup song and she said it made her cry and then said “it’s so hard to watch your kids grow up.” Which just made me nauseous because it was a breakup song? Anyways, It makes me feel guilty because it’s like she’s implying I don’t visit her because I’m now an engaged / coupled woman but honestly I don’t visit her because she controls my sisters (I feel scared and annoyed she’s like that).
Anyway, my question is about whether it’s normal for me to feel like I don’t really want her there (nor my dad who wasn’t really in my life. Didn’t attend my college graduation etc). I feel guilty that I don’t want them there and I honestly don’t want my inlaws there either because my MIL has said things like “were we (her family) the first ones to know about X,Y,Z” and has gotten excited to be the first one which made me feel like she just wanted to be #1. In other words, I’m not really comfortable with letting his parents there on our big day because I don’t want it to be about how they’re special and my parents arent? I just want it to be about my fiancé and me committing to each other. Is this all normal or am I being selfish ?
It's normal. Your wedding so you decide who you want there. Don't let anybody guilt you into your decisions as it just causes resentment further down the track. "Leave and cleave" when you get married which means leaving your family of origin behind and starting on your new life with your new family. It's not that you don't love or care for your family of origin, it's just that you are now a grown adult who can make your own decisions without interference. Good luck!
Italian American northeast catholic houeehold here
Important reminder: it's also daughters, not only sons, in such unhealthy, enmeshed relationship with their mothers!!