Going NC with JNMIL & ILs after 17 years together with husband. Included 3 children in the boundary. Husband struggling & resistant due to enmeshment.. How do you navigate this?
I've lurked in this sub for years, and I honestly wish someone had introduced me to the concept of enmeshment sooner. It explained my marriage more than anything else.
I've been with my husband for 19 years. We're both 40. For the first 16 years, he absolutely struggled with boundaries with his mom, but after years of marriage therapy we were making real progress. We became a united front.
Then two years ago we experienced a major trauma and loss, and it's like someone flipped a switch.
His mom has always been very controlling (I believe she's a covert/vulnerable n-arcissist), but after the trauma he became incredibly emotionally fused with her again. At the same time, he developed what appears to be some kind of severe reaction to alcohol. Even a few beers now can make him paranoid, irrational, accusatory, emotionally dysregulated, and completely unlike himself. He has since mostly stopped drinking, but that period seemed to coincide with a massive regression.
Meanwhile, his family became increasingly disrespectful toward me. Nothing dramatic enough that outsiders would necessarily notice—just years of subtle digs, eye rolls, triangulation, whispering to my kids, ignoring my boundaries, and painting me as the "cold white American" who doesn't understand "real family."
After everything we'd been through, I finally put down firm boundaries:
- No more kids going anywhere without us.
- No more sleepovers.
- Family visits only together.
- No pretending everything is fine without accountability.
His family hated it. We went from seeing them multiple times a week to about once every 4–5 weeks.
Instead of supporting me like he would have before, my husband became obsessed with getting back to "normal" with his family while refusing to address what had actually happened.
The breaking point came when he read hours of my private ChatGPT conversations while I was asleep. Those chats were me desperately trying to understand enmeshment, trauma, and his family dynamics and trying to save my marriage. He became enraged, drove to his parents' house, and told them everything I had written about them.
That betrayal changed something in me.
We're still in marriage therapy, but for two years he has never once asked me, "What did my family do that made you not want to see them?" Not once. Not like him at ALL.. Isn't that odd? He has also become very preoccupied and loyal to them. I don't get it at ALL. He wasn't even half this bad when we started marriage therapy 9+ years ago.
Instead, every conversation circles back to, "We don't see my family."
The hardest part is that away from them, he's almost himself again. Calm. Logical. Kind. Then his mom re-enters the picture and it's like watching someone relapse into an old trauma pattern.
I've gone essentially no contact with his family, and I've also chosen not to have my children around them while all of this remains unresolved. My older kids have privately told me they don't want to go to family dinners anymore because they feel the tension.
I constantly question myself because most stories I read involve the husband eventually seeing the dysfunction. Mine hasn't.
Has anyone dealt with severe enmeshment where your spouse completely regressed after a major trauma?
Did your spouse ever come out of it?
If you went no contact but your spouse didn't, how did you handle the kids?
Did your marriage survive, or did you eventually divorce?
I feel like I'm grieving someone who's still alive.