Enmeshment
As a full-time minister since 1982, I’ve had a front row seat to see lots of nurturing families and lots of enmeshed families.
What’s strange is that they often look alike — at least on the surface. But they are very different.
A nurturing family is one that empowers family members to have a strong sense of self. Children are loved and drawn into the nurturing center of the family–but without losing their sense of self and outward mission.
In an enmeshed family, children are loved and drawn into the center–but often at the expense of their sense of self and outward mission.
Sound like gobbledygook?
All right. Here it is.
In an enmeshed family system (which is more common than you might imagine), parents are dependent on each other and/or their children to make them whole, happy, and loved. In biblical terms, it’s a form of idolatry: trying to find life in someone or something other than God.
When a family is always together, that can be because they are a source of great nurturing and love. But often it’s because a system of enmeshment has been formed where family members are discouraged from having other relationships, from expressing their individuality, and from expressing their missional instincts outside the family. They would never say that, of course, and almost surely don’t know it. But the parents need-to-be-needed and love-to-be-loved to an extent that they keep their children corralled emotionally and/or physically.
Have you ever been around a family where no one else (no Bible school teacher, no coach, etc.) is trusted enough to help guide?
Have you ever seen a family where the children are made to feel guilty when they aren’t around for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, or other special occasions?
Have you seen a family implode because grown children decided to attend another church?
Have you ever heard sound waves of guilt because a child (or parent) didn’t write enough, call enough, visit enough, or perform well enough?
Sometimes those families that seem the strongest to us because they’re so close or always together are the ones that are sickest. (Not always, of course.) Families where people are made to feel guilty when they don’t follow unwritten behaviors can be the most damaging of all.
It’s a sign of health when children form other relationships, when they start to make decisions for themselves, when they don’t have to be home to be happy.
As parents, we have the important job of nurturing our children–pouring love into deep places of their hearts–while allowing them to be individuals who turn themselves to God alone for life.
Differentiation is such a wonderful word. We do our best job as parents when we teach kids to “hold onto themselves” in this world — to live before God as the source of real life while being in community with others without being enmeshed in those relationships.
If you were nurtured by parents who always let you be you; if you are able to miss family members when you’re apart without feeling endlessly homesick; and if you are able to connect without being made to feel guilty about failures to connect enough –GIVE THANKS! A nurturing family is a wonderful gift.
Preacher Mike;
I compliment you on your articles on the ”enmeshed family system”. However, I must challenge you .
The enmeshed family DOES know what they are doing sir. That is an integral part of the ”enmeshment glue” that keeps them together.
If you notice…. The enmeshed family ”uses” others for personal gain. They do this throughout their lifetime., and think nothing of it. It is a character issue.
They have ”learned to use others”. They ride on the shirt tails of others.
They DO know better. And for that……… I feel NO sympathy. Only ”pity”………………..
for they will NEVER find true happiness and contentment…. ever… and their children will suffer as well. Unless there is a ”spell breaker” in the enmeshed system…………… nothing will change.
In addition to the above comment … I would like to add one important factor that evolves from an enmeshed family system:
”They never get sick”………….. The people around them do.
Dear Brother Mike,
What about families like those I often see as a Pastoral Counselor which, usually involving addictions, are somewhat the reverse of what you’re saying here? For instance, the family in which the parent(s) has, or has had an addiction and hasn’t always functioned as a ‘parent’ should, but instead functioned more like one of the children, and therefore caused one (or more) of the children to take on the role of parent. Usually the oldest child becomes overly responsible due to the lack of responsibility of the addicted parent(s), often raising the younger children, taking care of the home, fixing meals, etc., because the parent didn’t do their ‘job’. Later, as the children grow up, and even after the addicted parent enters recovery and begins to ‘grow-up’ a bit and take some parental responsibility, the eldest child has taken on the role of the parent’s parent even to the extent that the parent answers to the adult-child like a teen might answer to their parent. I see this often in single-mother families when the mother has or has had an addiction to drugs and/or alcohol, didn’t function properly as the parent and the eldest child begins to parent the parent. This results in a form of enmeshment which includes a parent who doesn’t seem to be able to make any major decisions without the eldest child’s approval, and the parent’s life is constantly being monitored and critiqued by the parental-child. — I could write an article on this ‘angle’, but perhaps you would like to? If you decide to, please forward a copy to me, if you would be so kind. Thank you, and thank you for working to educate people on the “sicknesses” often active within the family-unit of America.
God Bless you,
Pastor Lee
My 40-year-old husband ran home to live with his parents two weeks after he had married me. His parents encouraged him to divorce me, and I was served divorce papers eight weeks after our wedding day. I didn’t see the red flag that he had been living at his parents’ home eventhough he owned a townhome. Perhaps, I didn’t get to know him well enough as we dated for only six months before we got married. What led to the him moving back home was that I got upset about the wedding and told him my feelings. One of the things that upset me was that we spent our wedding night in the same hotel as his parents and relatives. He had to call his dad all the time to see what his dad had to say about our discussions in front of me. His parents even came into our house to take all the wedding gifts that his relatives had given us. My ex-husband and his dad then continued to harass me and defame my character in e-mails. They even harassed my mother and brother too. They blamed the divorce on both my mom and me. I finally had to put a temporary restraining order on his dad and him so that the harassment would stop. Both of my therapists have said that he was enmeshed with his parents.