u/Sad-Foundation-3040

I’m 30F and my boyfriend is 35M. We’ve been together for 1 year and 2 months. I love him a lot and he is genuinely a very kind and loving person, but during our relationship I slowly started realizing how much his entire life revolves around his mother. I didn’t know all of this when we started dating. I found out little by little the more time I spent with him and his family.

He lives with his mom, who has depression, and he seems to feel responsible for almost everything about her wellbeing. She calls him while he is at work because she feels lonely and wants him to come home. She has also threatened to hurt herself when he leaves her alone, which obviously puts a huge amount of pressure on him. Sometimes she gets scared at night and sleeps in his bed because she doesn’t want to be alone. When he is at my house he often worries about what she is going to eat because he says that if he doesn’t take care of it she might not eat for days. He even pays their cleaning lady to go every day partly so his mom has someone there with her.

She also calls him when we are together for really small things, like something on the TV or whether the dogs have eaten. Twice when he stayed late at my house she called saying she heard strange noises upstairs and was scared. He didn’t go home either time and later there was nothing there. I can’t say whether the noises were real or not, but the timing was strange.

The biggest issue for me is that she really doesn’t want him to move out. She tells him that she lived with her own father until he was 85 and “never abandoned him.” My boyfriend has told me that of course he CAN move out, but that when he does “Troy will burn.” So I don’t think he is completely unaware of the problem. I think he knows, but he is scared of the reaction he will get if he starts living more independently.

Something happened recently that kind of summarized the whole thing for me. We had spent Sunday together and stopped briefly at his house before going to mine. He had already told me we were just dropping some things off and then leaving. His mom started asking why we had to go to my house and why we couldn’t just stay there with her.

At some point I heard him tell her, “The thing is SHE doesn’t want to stay here.”

That bothered me a lot because HE wanted to leave too. I told him privately that I didn’t want him using me as the excuse because he was afraid to tell his mom that he wanted to go. If he actually wanted to stay, that was fine, but if he wanted to leave with me then he needed to say that himself instead of making me look like the reason.

He immediately told me I was right and apologized. About two minutes later he got up, went back to his mom’s room and told her himself that we were leaving. Then we left.

Those moments are what confuse me, because he actually can recognize what is happening sometimes. He has refused to rush home when she calls scared, sometimes tells her “I have to live my life too,” and he has spent entire weekends with me without constantly checking on her. He has also been open to the idea of therapy.

But I can also see how much resentment all of this has created in him. One time he became extremely overwhelmed after an argument with his mom and said that when she eventually dies he will finally feel free. He was so upset that he had to step away from what we were doing for a while to calm himself down. Afterward he apologized to me and tried to make up for ruining our plans. It was one of the moments where I realized this situation isn’t only affecting me. He seems trapped in it too.

Then there is their house, which is honestly another huge issue.

They have six cats and three dogs. One of the dogs is paralyzed from around the chest down and cannot control when he goes to the bathroom. They don’t use diapers because they say he hates them, so accidents happen inside the house. The other animals are not properly trained either, and the whole house smells like urine.

His mom also doesn’t like throwing old things away, so there are boxes and clutter everywhere. His bedroom is much more organized than the rest of the house, but lately even his room sometimes smells like urine.

There are things that genuinely shocked me because they seem completely normal to him. Once one of the dogs peed on his pillow and he cleaned it with alcohol, let it dry and kept using it. Another time his mom was recovering from major intestinal surgery and a cat peed on her blanket, and instead of replacing the blanket he just turned it over.

His sister, who lives abroad, also tells him that the house is too dirty and that the animals need more training, so it isn’t only me noticing it.

Recently I was sitting in his bedroom and the smell was strong enough that I was covering my nose with my coat. He noticed and asked if I smelled something strange. I told him I could smell pee. He didn’t argue with me, but he lit a candle and covered the smell instead of looking for where it was coming from.

For some reason that small moment stayed with me. It felt like a perfect example of the whole situation. The problem exists, everyone knows it exists, but instead of actually changing it they have learned how to live around it.

There has also been a separate issue between us that affected my trust. Recently he took intimate pictures of me without asking me first. We had never discussed taking pictures like that and I had never given permission. When I noticed something was wrong, he denied it at first and later admitted it. He apologized and deleted everything in front of me when I asked him to.

I chose to forgive him, but it still affected my trust, especially because he initially tried to hide what he had done.

What makes everything difficult is that I don’t see him as someone who is completely blind or unwilling to change. Sometimes when I point something out, he actually listens. Sometimes he puts limits with his mom. Sometimes he recognizes that he needs his own life.

I don’t want him to abandon his mother. I don’t want to compete with her either. I just want to be with someone who can love and help his mom without feeling responsible for whether she eats, sleeps, feels lonely or emotionally falls apart.

I also don’t want to become “the girlfriend who took her son away” simply because I want a normal adult relationship with him.

I love him, and I think that is what makes all of this so hard. Sometimes I see the small changes and feel hopeful. Other times I look at how deeply this dynamic is built into his life and I get scared that I could spend years waiting for those small changes to eventually become a completely different life.

I just needed somewhere to finally say all of this.

TW: suicide threats, mental health, unsanitary living conditions

Hi everyone. I’m 30F and I’ve been with my boyfriend (35M) for 1 year and 2 months.

I only recently learned about enmeshment, and the more I read about it, the more I feel it describes my boyfriend’s relationship with his mother. I didn’t know the full situation when we started dating. I discovered it gradually as I spent more time with him and his family.

He is a lawyer, works full time, is very loving toward me and is genuinely a kind person. That is why I’m so conflicted. He lives with his mother, who has depression and seems extremely emotionally dependent on him.

She calls him at work saying she feels lonely and asking him to come home. More seriously, she has repeatedly told him that if he leaves her alone to go to work, she might kill herself, basically making him feel responsible for what happens to her.

She is a psychologist herself, but she has rejected different therapists because she says they are all bad. Sometimes she gets scared at night and sleeps in his bed with him because she doesn’t want to be alone.

He also feels responsible for whether she eats. When he comes to my house, he often calls to ask what she is having for dinner because he says that if he doesn’t take care of it, she might go days without eating. He even pays their cleaning lady to go every day partly so his mother has company while he is working.

When we are together, she often calls for small things like how to use HBO or whether the dogs have eaten. Twice when he stayed late at my house, she called saying she heard scary noises upstairs and wanted him to come home. He refused both times, and when he eventually got home there was nothing there. I can’t prove she invented the noises, but the timing felt strange.

The biggest issue is independence.

When he talks about moving out, she gets angry and tells him he cannot leave her. She says she lived with her own father until he was 85 and “never abandoned him.” I once told my boyfriend I didn’t see how he would ever move out with this dynamic. He answered:

“Of course I can move out. It’s just going to be chaos. Troy will burn.”

So I don’t think he is completely unaware. I think he is afraid of what happens when he says no to her. Sometimes he even tells her, “I have to live my life too.” But he still organizes a lot of his life around her reactions.

Recently he had a lot of documents to number for work and asked me to help him. He works until around 6 PM and then has an online law course until 9 PM. I asked why he didn’t just come to my house after work, do his online course here and let me help him at the same time. He laughed and said his mother would “go crazy” because she would complain that he had left her alone all day. He is 35 years old, and spending one evening somewhere else after work still means managing his mother’s feelings.

Another recent situation made the dynamic very obvious.

We had spent Sunday together and briefly stopped at his house before going to mine. He had already told me that was the plan. His mother started trying to convince him that we should stay with her instead.

At first he gave excuses. Then I heard him tell her:

“The thing is SHE doesn’t want to stay here, so we’re leaving.”

That really upset me because HE wanted to leave too.

I told him privately that I didn’t want him using me as an excuse because he was afraid to tell his mother that HE wanted to go. If he wanted to stay, he could stay. But if he wanted to leave with me, he needed to own that decision instead of making me the bad guy. He immediately said I was right and apologized.

Two minutes later he got up, went back to his mother and told her himself that we were leaving. Then we left.

That actually gave me some hope because he didn’t argue with me. He understood and corrected it immediately.

There have been other positive signs too. He has spent entire weekends at my house without his mother interrupting us. He has refused to rush home when she claimed she heard noises. And sometimes he openly tells her that he needs his own life.

But there is also a lot of resentment in him.

One time we were going to the movies after his mother had been pressuring him all afternoon and had told him we needed to return home after the movie because she felt lonely.

He became extremely angry and emotionally overwhelmed. He said that when his mother eventually dies he will finally be free, and that he might cry publicly while secretly feeling relieved. He became so dysregulated that he had to leave the movie after five minutes to calm down.

He came back about 15 minutes later, apologized repeatedly and told me the situation with his mother had overwhelmed him. He also said he had called her while outside and told her he didn’t have to go home after the movie just because she wanted him to.

Later he offered to take me to see the movie again because he knew he had ruined the experience.

There is also a major problem with their living situation.

Their house is extremely cluttered because his mother refuses to throw things away and gets very upset if anyone touches her things. They have six cats and three dogs.

One dog is paralyzed from around the chest down and cannot control his bladder or bowel movements. They don’t use diapers because he hates them and tries to remove them. His mother says he deserves to live “like a normal dog.”

As a result, he urinates and defecates inside and sometimes drags himself through it. The other animals are also poorly house-trained, so the whole house smells like urine. I can smell it as soon as I walk inside.

My boyfriend’s bedroom is actually organized and minimalist, so I know he can live differently, but lately I sometimes smell urine there too. Early in our relationship, his dog peed on his bed and pillow. My boyfriend poured alcohol on the pillow, flipped it over and slept on it.

Another time his mother was recovering from major intestinal surgery and a cat peed on her blanket. Instead of changing it, he just flipped the blanket over.

His paralyzed dog also lies on his bed and he puts a towel underneath him in case he urinates.

When my boyfriend bought a bigger bed so we could sleep comfortably together, I gave him a waterproof mattress protector because I knew the dog sometimes peed on the bed.

I’ve told him that the hygiene makes me uncomfortable. Once he responded that maybe he just wouldn’t invite me anymore if I thought his house was dirty, and said, “It’s not my fault.”

His sister, who lives abroad, also tells him the house is too dirty, that he needs to train the dogs and be firmer with their mother.

Recently I was in his bedroom and the urine smell was strong enough that I was covering my nose with my coat. He noticed and asked if there was a strange smell. I told him I smelled pee.

He didn’t argue. He just lit a scented candle that covered the smell.

There has also been one separate serious trust issue. During sex, he secretly took intimate photos of me without asking. We had never discussed sexual pictures and I had never consented.

When I noticed something was wrong, he denied it at first and eventually admitted it.

He apologized, deleted every picture in front of me and emptied the deleted folder when I asked him to.

I chose to forgive him, but the fact that he hid it and denied it before admitting it still concerns me.

He has also told me that he was previously diagnosed with depression and prescribed medication, but he stopped taking it every day and now takes it every other day.

His mother has even privately messaged me and told me not to tell him she contacted me. She told me to forgive him if he ever hurts me because he is “the best person” she knows and said that “he suffered a lot with me.”

When I told her I sometimes see him emotionally exhausted and carrying too much, she admitted, “I’m heavy with him,” but then immediately went back to saying he is the purest person on earth.

The reason I’m so conflicted is that my boyfriend does not completely deny the problem.

When I point out certain dynamics, he sometimes listens, apologizes and actually changes his behavior.

He has also agreed that therapy might help him and said he would prefer a male therapist because he wants a man’s perspective.

So I can see some awareness.

But at the same time, his entire adult life seems organized around his mother.

He feels responsible for whether she eats, whether she is lonely, whether she is scared, whether she has company and whether she is emotionally okay.

And she strongly resists him becoming independent.

I don’t want him to abandon his mother.

I want him to be able to love her without being responsible for her entire emotional existence.

I also refuse to become “the girlfriend who stole her son” or the excuse he uses when HE wants to leave but is afraid to tell her no.

I love him and want a future where my partner can eventually live independently, build a home with me and make adult decisions without feeling like every step toward his own life means abandoning his mother.

So I’m trying to figure out whether I’m supporting someone who is genuinely starting to recognize his enmeshment, or whether I’m going to waste years waiting for his potential.

For people who have actually lived this:

Does this sound like enmeshment to you?

What showed you that real change was happening?

And if you were the partner of an enmeshed adult, how long did you wait before deciding whether things were actually improving?