r/enmeshmenttrauma

I already posted this on another forum but someone suggested me to post it here.

My boyfriend and I have been together for 2 years. (29M) (25F)
His mother has always been considered by everyone as an angel, but from the moment I started spending time with her I immediately realized it’s all a mask, and she is the most fake and manipulative person I have ever met.
She is the classic mother obsessed with her son: when he is at home he is not allowed to lift a finger and she does absolutely everything for him—washing for him, ironing for him, packing his bags, and literally anything else.
I don’t think she has ever liked me. I think she has always just pretended. In fact, she has often made very inappropriate comments about his ex in front of me, telling me intimate sexual details about their relationship and implying they were practically married, constantly calling her “the little one” in front of me.
My boyfriend, on the other hand, has never defended me, and his mother has already been the cause of arguments in the past.
This year my boyfriend had a complication due to surgery, and that’s when the nightmare began.
He needed care while he was in the hospital, and I witnessed disgusting scenes. His mother would literally snatch things out of my hands and push me away (physically push me) so she could do everything herself, trying to even wash him, including intimate parts, putting her hands on him even when he was capable of doing it himself. She would get angry if I so much as did a load of laundry for him.
When he was unconscious, she tried to convince me that she was more important than me and that he needed her, not me.
She repeatedly humiliated him publicly, sending voice messages to people about his intimate details, even about how he went to the bathroom, to the point that his friends were messaging me asking me to stop her.
She also repeatedly spread lies, such as claiming he was saved thanks to her and not the doctors, and that he once cried because she supposedly wouldn’t be able to stay (none of this ever happened).
When he regained consciousness, he started to slightly stand up for himself, but she would sulk and get angry, and he would then give in to please her. We had to beg just to have time alone together.
I should also add that she has always made inappropriate comments about her son’s physical appearance, to the point where I prefer not to write them here.
Another thing I discovered is that she has told many lies about her ex-husband (the father of her children), probably to turn us against him. She is a pathological liar.
I could write a book about everything that happened during this hospital period; there isn’t enough space to describe it all, but this gives an idea.
Now I’m staying at their house because there is no way I’m going to let her, who I genuinely think is a psychopath, be alone giving her son—whom she is obsessed with—his shower. Living here is a nightmare.
She ignores me, especially when he is not watching. For example, if I say good morning she looks at me and doesn’t answer. She only speaks to us in the singular, as if I don’t exist. If we go out, she only asks him what he did and whether he enjoyed himself.
If we go out for more than two days in a row, she gives him the silent treatment and tries to make him feel guilty. She also looks for any excuse to touch him—for example removing his socks while he is lying down, even when he didn’t ask for it.
She has already taken time off work to attend every hospital visit he has scheduled, and she always tries to speak to the doctors instead of him, not giving him space to talk and making him look stupid.
I am exhausted, completely drained, and I think I seriously need therapy. The worst part is that he doesn’t defend me. He says I am right but that it is something between me and his mother and I should talk to her myself.
But how can he not understand? She is his mother—this involves him. Everything she does is about his body and life, and it should bother him too. But he doesn’t seem to care, probably because he was raised like this and is afraid to stand up to her.
I am also afraid that if he has another surgery, I will have to go through all of this again.
I don’t know what to do.

We’re both in our mid 30s no kids. I went no contact with his family a year ago after repeated mistreatment for 5 years. I asked him if he could go to the parade with me and the dogs and then can join his family later as they all celebrate all major holidays together and never cared enough to ask why I stopped going. Even worse they assumed I hate them all when in fact my husband knows the truth but denies any of it happened to me and thinks I’m just overreacting. I even went to therapy and learnt he’s enmeshed with his family. He treats me ok otherwise but when it concerns his family he doesn’t care if I’m alive or dead alone at home.

When I asked him if he could go to the parade with me and the dogs and then can join his family later, he got overly nervous and sweaty and asked why was I doing this to him. I said I’m an immigrant and been in America well over a decade. Most important I’m his wife. Can’t he offer to spend time with me for the first hour of the uninterrupted long day he will have with his family? Does a regular normal man do this to their wife? He came to the parade anyway throwing tantrums and just with a terrible attitude.

My husband and I dated long distance before marrying. We were long time friends who reconnected and started an intimate relationship while living in different states. We visited each other and spent time with each other’s family, but I did not realize what I was getting myself into. He told me he was close with his family, and I thought that was fine. His family is really small, as he’s the only child, of an only child with only an aunt who has a couple kids of her own. His mom got married when he was around 18 years old, after being single since he was around 7 years old.

When I visited while we dated, his mom, stepdad and grandma were very nice and kind, and I never thought anything weird. I actually admired how him and his mom would hug tightly and tell each other they loved each other when he was leaving the house and stuff. His family lived with him, due to migration and had not yet gotten settled. In hindsight, I should’ve questioned more why he called her so often or why they always seemed to be doing something together.

He calls his mother (or she is calling him) no less than 10 times per day with visit during the week or on the weekend, just to “check up on her”. When we got married I overheard a conversation where she was scolding him for not calling her enough, after he had a rather long day at work. She said “if you have 10 minutes free for the day, 7 minutes is for your wife and the next 3 is for me”. I was taken aback by this and when she heard my voice in the background, she said she was joking.

I tried in the beginning to be kind to her, and foster a genuine relationship as I wanted her to know she didn’t lose a son, but rather gained a daughter, but it all started to wear on me. Then one day her husband of 11 years (been together 14 in total) said “I thought after he got married I would get my wife back. We fought often about it in the past, because he keeps taking my wife from me, but what can I do, she was his mother first”. That moment both validated my own feelings and terrified me. That suggested I am going to suffer in this threesome (well, foursome really) for as long as I’m married to him. She has expressed sadness for her own marriage but will not get divorced.

He used to take her to all her grocery shopping, errands, they have their own inside jokes, they have mother/son weekend dates once a month and she tells him how hot and sexy he is and carries on like I should be… just admiring how attractive he is all the time. She used to tell me about all the women who like him in the past and how women would stare at him when they went out in public. She finally stopped when she started talking about how handsome someone though he was and it didn’t make sense in the conversation we were having and he called her out on it telling her that was an unnecessary interjection. Then their hugs to me started grossing me out, because she would hug him, moan all lovingly and stare at me. Almost like she won.

I feel like she competed with me too. I always did my nails, she started going to the same salon I go to. She wants to know my hair care regimen and products. She mentions a lot how sexy she used to be and she is going to lose the weight (I’m more fit and shapely) I did a certificate course, she did the same course. I said I’m going to transition to a career in the medical field, she just completed a CNA course because she is ready to try something different after her whole career in another field.

There is so much more, but now I’m worried I’ll have to leave because he gets extremely defensive when I bring up things that bother me and last time I expressed my feelings, he said I sounded insecure and jealous. Which I knew he would say because he said the same thing about his stepfather. I have no idea what this rant was to achieve. I guess I just needed it off my chest.

I am a 34 year old man who grew up in an enmeshed family. My mom's emotions were always my responsibility, she never respected my boundaries, I felt shame leaving home and was guilted to go to the local college just 10 minutes down the road and live at home. She always called me to help her with her anxiety, wanted to know where I was, and saw my relationships and the time I spent with their family as a threat. Christmas is always a struggle with splitting time across significant other's households. She would lash out and use guilt if I wasn't where she wanted me to be and questions my loyalty to the family (I have set huge boundaries here). Nothing is more important than our family and I often heard "Why? What else do you have going on that is more important that you can't be here with the family?". I won't go deeper into this. I eventually moved 14 hours away.

I had a friendship of 17 years where Maria (34F) is the social hub. She needs to know everything that is going on (including personal and private details), sees me making decisions on my own as a threat, me telling other people things before her as "sneaking around her back" or "hiding things from her", and has demanded everyone's iPhone locations to be shared indefinitely. She would then gossip and weaponize the information she learned. She often "corrects" me and frames herself as the superior or adult in the room when I have a house on my own, a career, and upkeep my life just fine. She is allowed to make rules for the group, but does not need to follow them herself. I stopped sharing my iPhone location with her and she went ballistic. She also has doubled-down that I am unstable, rude, and nasty because I stopped sharing details with her and have largely pulled-back entirely. She blames me and has pulled-in other people to spy on me to feed her information about what is going on in my life and has started to smear campaign me. Unfortunately this was a terrible decision, but I live 5 houses away from her and she has texted me at times asking who is at my house because she can see the car. I am working on a plan to get out of this neighborhood. She believes she can make my decisions and calls me rude and punishes me and I have to fix her emotions. I am not a victim, I am just trying to recognize these patterns and stop them from happening moving forward.

I really need to understand if I’m in the wrong here. Me and my mother just cannot see eye to eye on these matters, and I don’t know why.

My issue with my mother is that she is very very very controlling and never gave me the freedom to grow up and live how I wanted to live and bc of this reason I am now 22 and divorced.

Let me give some examples. She tells me that I’m not allowed to cut my hair, dye my hair, get a nose piercing, and absolutely NOT allowed to wear makeup. She gives me a strict curfew and I’m not allowed to be past that curfew. She tells me that I cannot be in bed in the morning past 11 AM. She tells me that I need to grow up and that as you get older, you realize you can’t sleep in?? She says life isn’t proper this way? She tells me that unmarried girls should not put on make up and the ONLY time I ever explored makeup or was allowed near it was after I had gotten married. Naturally, I fell in love with it and now that I’m divorced I want to continue putting it on and living life for myself but the other day I put it on to go to my aunts house and my mom’s tactic is that if I do anything to upset her and if I don’t listen to all of her decisions she uses the silent treatment to guilt trip me. And that day, I asked her what’s wrong with putting it on and she was saying that you are not married anymore and she said word for word “ you have to live the same way you were before you got married” but who is she to make these rules?! I AM ALMOST 23!!!!!!! Like wtf?

As long as I’m not disrespecting her, working (I genuinely only sleep in on my days off), trying my best, learning, growing, helping in the house… and just doing what a good daughter does why can’t I make these little decisions for myself? She thinks I’m disrespectful when I say no to something she says, and I don’t understand how or why. I told her if she thinks being a respectful daughter is saying yes to everything she says then I can’t help her. And I genuinely don’t feel bad bc my ENTIRE life has been spent running on her commands and wishes like a puppet and I’m so tired of it.

And my divorce has changed me in ways I can never explain. She cussed out my ex and called him a bastard when he was divorcing me, and naturally would have a problem whenever he would politely decline her or tell her no or disagree with her bc she wanted to control him the same way she’s controlled me my entire life, but he wasn’t the type of guy to be controlled. I’m not blaming my mom for my divorce bc at the end of the day, he was a rapist and he was abusive towards me, but I’m trying to explain that I have this 15% - 20% of bitterness towards my mother for playing a tiny part in causing a rift between me and my ex bc she would pry on our personal life and ask about our sexual life. Like for example I took off my location as my husband (at the time) wasn’t comfortable with it, and my mom gave me the silent treatment and went on to say that I betrayed her. Kept asking if I had sex with him and ofc he wasn’t comfortable with her asking this. Anyway, that chapter of my life is gone. I’m just bringing this up to share my bitter feelings. I’m also the only daughter and sister of 3 brothers and naturally my mom is very protective of me and attached to me. My mother’s parents and siblings all live in Seattle. We all live a few mins away from each other. Naturally, sometimes I share some of my problems with my mom and she would call her mom and her siblings and there was absolutely no privacy and everyone would end up finding out about the problems I had shared with my mom. And I will take responsibility for this as I didn’t understand how to establish these boundaries. I turned her down many times when she would ask about my sexual life and when she would pry. I did everything I could, but my mother is on a different level of emotional abuse and strained me that I ended up telling her bc I feared for my life that she would get so mad if I didn’t. Just giving examples. And when I’d share little problems with her out of frustration, she would tell everyone.

Let me give an example. I was trying to explain the concept of privacy to her and how she can’t just go around and tell everyone my business. Like what happened is that I have one ovary and when I tell you my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and everyone knows it’s so embarrassing and she never asked me before telling them. Now you may ask, how does your mom know? She has access to my medical information (all my passwords and usernames) and obviously when I found this out for the first time I panicked and told my mom. She goes on to expose how my ex “used” me for the last time before divorcing me in front of my UNCLE. Like what’s the reason to even say this? Now you may ask how does she know that you guys had sex. We did it in my parents house in the room next to theirs bc we were on vacation visiting my parents in Seattle here before he left me in Seattle and left to go back to Canada and then called me 2 weeks later to divorce me. And I still cannot even look my uncle in the eyes bc I feel so embarrassed cause my mother can’t watch her words.

When I got divorced, she went on to apologize and tell me that she’s sorry for controlling my life and for not giving me the freedom to be myself which has made me end up in the position today as this marriage was my moms decision. Ofc I agreed and bc I had grown-up thinking that I can’t upset her and that whatever decision she makes for me I have to say yes. And now the same pattern continues and I’m trying to break it bc I’m so sick and tired of living like this.

It’s made going through my divorce so much more difficult. The one thing marriage gave me was freedom. The first time I ever cut my hair was after I had gotten married and I felt so free. I can’t move out at the moment for cultural and religious reasons, so please don’t give me that advice and I also have an anxious personality, so it’s not easy to just ignore her.

Any advice at ALL?

I am a 30/F have been setting boundaries by creating distance from my parents. Both of them have been enmeshed with me, my mother being worse and a covert narcissist. Every decision my entire life has been to make them happy because they were and are miserable people.

Every single choice I have ever made has been heavily influenced and controlled by my mother. Since beginning this healing journey, I have experienced a lot of grief and sadness over what could have been. Big things like college degrees, down to small things like never being allowed to paint my room or pick out an outfit. I just saw a tiktok of a girl’s room, and it was so cool. The walls were painted, posters, fairy lights, and pictures up on the wall. It triggered a wave of grief, but also hope and optimism for the future and what I can give my kids now. I now as an adult am trying to heal my inner child. I am trying to give myself the room and grace to be my own person and figure out what I like and what I don’t like. Is anybody else experiencing this?

Honestly enmeshment is a new term to me. I’ve always just thought my husband’s family had a really oddly close relationship and that my husband is just a good son and brother. But I constantly feel like I’m competing with the other two women in his life and it’s a bizarre feeling because one is his mom and the other is his sister.
EXAMPLE: Instead of going to my FIL for emotional support and hugs, my MIL will literally guilt trip my husband into going over to her in the middle of the night to hold her and let her cry on his shoulder.

Recently my husband and I have been having issues. Found out that my husband would give my SIL detailed information about our marital issues and conversations. When my MIL and FIL found out about our issues, instead of encouraging us to work it out, they’ve actually told him “love should be easy and you shouldn’t try to fix it, just separate”.

Now my husband and I have had conversations and have came to the conclusion that our issues are not big enough to separate and that we just need to work through them. But it’s just bizarre to me how enmeshed their family is. I feel like an outsider in my marriage sometimes because of how close my husband is with his family. Am I crazy?

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.

I really just need to vent to people who might understand, because I am hitting a wall with the sheer toxicity of my ex-husband’s family.

During our trial separation, my ex crashed a car, got a DWI, and went to jail. After our divorce, he moved back in with his mother. Last year, his addiction got so bad that he ended up on life support for weeks after an overdose before going to rehab.

The biggest, most disturbing issue here is his mother’s relationship with him. To give you an idea of the nuclear family dynamic she has set up in her head: when she tells me stories about her dog, she constantly refers to my ex-husband as "Daddy."

It gets worse. When he was in the hospital fighting for his life, she "accidentally" referred to herself as his wife, not his mom, to multiple different doctors on more than one occasion. She also went out of her way to aggressively point out to staff that I was just the ex-wife. To top it off, while he was literally on life support, she decided that was the perfect moment to "come clean" to me and reveal that he had been having an eight-year affair during our marriage.

When he left rehab and moved back in with her, she claimed he wouldn't be allowed to use drugs. Then the goalposts shifted to "he's allowed to use on certain occasions." Now, he is in a full-blown relapse. She refuses to let him go, lying and covering for him because she is so desperately co-dependent and obsessed with him that she would rather watch him fall into despair than see him independent and healthy.

To make matters worse, my 15-year-old son is about to go stay with them for a whole month. My hands are legally tied because she is sober and in the home, so he isn't in "direct physical danger." But I am sick to my stomach. I do not want my teenager around this sick, toxic dynamic, the enabling, and a grandmother who is completely unhinged.

I’ve been learning about enmeshment and parentification recently, and it feels like someone finally handed me the missing puzzle piece for my life.

Growing up, I always felt responsible for other people’s emotions. I was constantly trying to keep the peace, making sure everyone else was okay, and I never really felt like there was space for me to just be myself.

Looking back, I realize I carried that dynamic into friendships and dating too.

In friendships, I was often the listener, the funny friend, the one people came to with their problems. I felt like I had to monitor myself all the time—“Can I say this? Is it safe to be myself? Will this make them uncomfortable?” I didn’t notice how exhausting that was until I stopped doing it.

When I stopped over-functioning and stopped being everyone’s emotional support person, a lot of those friendships disappeared. At first it hurt, but now I wonder if those relationships only worked because I was playing a role.

Dating was similar. I found myself trying to fit what I thought men wanted instead of asking whether I genuinely liked them. I’d laugh at jokes that weren’t funny, soften parts of my personality, or choose someone who looked “right” on paper rather than someone I actually connected with.

Now I’m in a season where I honestly don’t miss many people. For the first time in my life, I get to figure out who I am without constantly managing someone else’s emotions.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I have very little patience for relationships where people repeatedly vent without wanting to change anything. I know everyone needs support sometimes, but after spending so much of my life emotionally carrying other people, I feel completely drained by those dynamics. Sometimes I wonder if this is just burnout from years of enmeshment.

Right now I’m much more interested in building my career, working on myself, and creating a life that feels authentic than trying to maintain friendships that leave me feeling emotionally responsible for other adults.

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced something similar after recognizing enmeshment.

Did you go through a phase where you wanted much more solitude? Did you become hyper-independent? How did you learn the difference between healthy boundaries and shutting people out completely?

I’d really love to hear from people who’ve come out the other side. What did healthy friendships and relationships end up looking like for you?

I think this version is likely to get thoughtful responses because it focuses on your experience rather than making broad claims about women or friendships. People who have recovered from enmeshment will probably recognize themselves in it and share how they navigated the transition.

My wife and I are deeply in love. She recently had a breakthrough and is seeing all of the behaviors. She also finally recognized how much pain and agony I’ve been in and has comprehended what I’ve been trying to tell her for a while now.

I’ve seen her work really hard to try and have better boundaries with her sister, but she is still struggling. Of course, it’s only been a few days since this revelation, and I’m trying to be patient, but it’s so hard.

What do you do when your partner is just starting to wake up and how do you support them without seeming too “pushy”? I’m trying to be gentle but it can be so difficult sometimes. Her sister’s behavior has done a number on her.

Today she told me she felt like she “couldn’t heal without her sister.” Which she acknowledged was absurd, but nonetheless how she has been feeling.

I’m trying my best. I’m in therapy. I hang out with friends. I talk to our mutual friends who can see what I see. We have couples counseling scheduled very soon. My mind just can’t stop sometimes. I worry that she will relapse but I know I need to step back and let her work through this on her own.

Thank you for reading and sharing. This support subreddit has been so helpful.

My mom told me (51f) she wanted a baby because she wanted someone to genuinely love her. That's where I came in, she was 20 at the time. She regarded me as her bff. She married an alcoholic (I call dad) when I was a year old. I remember waiting with her on the sofa, her crying and me consoling her waiting for him to come home from the bar. I was her confidence, we were tight, I was probably 8 years old at that time. I listened, she talked. I knew everyone's secret. I knew the only reason why she stayed with dad was because he was good in bed. She was lonely and thankful she had me. She had 2 other kids and I knew I was the favorite, she told me that.

When I was 15 she had an affair, she took me with her as an alibi. She gave me her love letters to hold. I felt special. Mom became pregnant by the other guy, dad became enraged and stole a gun, sawed it off to take the guy out. Fortunately the guy was gone that weekend and dad confessed to mom. Mom showed me the gun and told me if he took her out I could testify in court and know where the gun was hidden. I was terrified but did my duty and made mental notes. Mom had an abortion, blame me for it. I also became pregnant at near the same time and wanted to keep my baby and she said she couldn't afford two babies so she had to terminate hers.

I had my son at 16 and moved out at 17. Mom had another affair and kept using me to hide her love letters, again. Her and dad divorced, she leaned on me, every single day. I started to struggle though, she paid no attention to her grandson and I started to feel an imbalance in the relationship. I got some counseling at that time, didn't help much. I think it all felt normal, even though I felt it had to be wrong.

I started college at 23, she remarried but in no time I was keeping her secrets again. This time an online affair. She'd have me add him to my instant messenger. When her dial up crashed she'd call me 3am to get online to tell the guy she want to bed. I was irritated but that's what I thought I got for being the favorite and responsible one.

Probably about 10 years later I heard what boundaries were. I had a friend as a social worker and I brought this up in casual conversations and and she said Mom has bad boundaries. That changed everything for me. I learned what she talked about and started setting them.

I've become fairly successful in life, but I still have Mom who I feel just uses me. I'm more someone she used to brag about, it's embarrassing.

I'm a mom of 4 kids, the youngest is 19, oldest is 35. I don't think I was a perfect mom but I made a conscious effort to maintain boundaries, let them be kids, not burden them with my problems. They know I spend as little time with grandma as possible, they don't know the history.

Today I learned the word enmeshment. Is that what this is? Im going to bring it up with my counselor in a couple weeks. I do know there is trauma in there. I've been diagnosed with ptsd.

i’m pretty sure my dad (47M) is enmeshed with me (19F). after moving to college (i had to live in the dorms, only an hour away from home) my dad has been increasingly growing more and more enmeshed. he would call me multiple times a week and always ask to hang out which bothered me since i felt already busy in college and wanted more independence to hang out with college friends. he would understand, but always had a sad tone which would make me feel guilty.

ever since he has done specific things that are not appropriate, he is growing more comfortable than be should be. he talks about sex with me, asks if im a virgin and says “good” when i say yes, tells me about his own sexual experiences in detail, and once was drunk and showed me nudes of the breasts of women he’s friends with and even my own MOM. he showed me a nude of my moms breasts. he also overly sexualized me and girls my age. went on a cruise with him and anytime a man his age would stare at me he would loudly say “having fun eye fucking my daughter?” which made me uncomfortable, about a week or two later he made a comment about a girl who was walking on my campus (clearly a student, clearly my age) about her having a nice ass. to me it seems hypocritical like he’s projecting his creepy thoughts about women onto other men because he knows he does the same thing.

recently, he’s just been bothering me. some days he calls me multiple times, he calls me almost every day asking what i’m doing, what i have planned, asking to hang out, etc, every time he calls me asks me to hang out. when i tell him im hanging out with my friends, he either invites himself or has a sad tone. one weekend in college i told him my friends and i went swimming that week and he said he wanted to swim to, and basically said that he would love to swim with us, inviting himself and repeating how it would be fun and he would love to yadda yadda. i had to tell him that i don’t think my 18 year old female friends would want to hangout with a 47 year old man they never have even met, nevertheless at the pool in swim suits? i always thought it was weird a grown man genuinely wants to swim with his daughter and her friends who were all 18 at the time and he would actually have fun.

the most recent time happened the other day. my best friend (19F) and i went thrifting, i told my dad our plan before and he straight up said “i would love to go thrifting with you guys! can i come?” and i had to politely tell him i didnt think my friend would want that and she would just want to hang with her girl friend to do girl things (obviously?) and he kept trying to push it by asking why she wouldn’t want to, that he would actually enjoy the teen girl things we do, and even said “well, we can ask her” and had to straight up tell him she doesn’t because we want to have girl time!! he had a sad tone but understood.

the next day he came to my room literally saying “you know, for like two seconds, i thought i was going to go thrifting with yall.”, it felt guilt trippy/self deprecating, and then asked if i was busy that day and if i wanted to go to lunch and that he really enjoyed our hangout we had after i got back from thrifting.

i hung out with him after because i felt bad and haven’t hung out much with him anyway but everytime i do he comes back the next day all excited thinking we’re gonna hangout again the next day. every time we hang out recently he makes it a big thing, he’s all smiley and excited and talking about how much he’s enjoying it and how good it is to hangout, which makes it feel like i’m just doing it to make him happy since my presence has such an impact on him.

my dad acts like when he isn’t with me his whole world falls apart, like he can’t live without me. one time he was talking about how all he can think about is me, how he misses me, misses hanging out w me, etc, and i straight up asked him “do you wake up everyday just thinking about me and ‘i want to hangout with my daughter’” which he said yes. we had a whole tense convo where i made my point of wanting to grow up, be independent, build my own life, etc, and he said “so you’re just going to abandon your family?”

what do i do with this enmeshment, when my dad views me as building my own life seperate from him as “abandoning him?” i don’t understand why he is like this, ive read about covert incest and i believe my moving to college was the “switch” that made him hyper fixated on me.

What’s an appropriate number of visits per year when you live in another state from your enmeshed family about 6 hours away by car? It seems too close to avoid all the time and too far to visit often. But I carry a huge amount of guilt if I go 2 months without visiting because of the comments I get.
Moving away was met with extremely toxic behaviour from my family who iced me out, told me I abandoned them, didn’t love them (the usual language you’d imagine from an enmeshed dynamic). It’s slowly getting better but everytime I go back there’s some garbage that comes up that sets the progress back 5 steps. For example shit talking my husband to the whole family or crying and having a meltdown because I chose to move away to have a better life. It can never be just a smooth visit. The urge to visit does NOT come from a desire to spend quality time with them at this point, it’s my unfortunate weakness in being a part of this dynamic and struggling with shame and guilt.

If you are a woman who felt underappreciated as a child and developed a sense of low self esteem about your looks or your abilities, how did it affect your adult life? If you were in a long term relationship or were married, did that help you feel better about yourself? Or did the insecurity continue? Do you think it affected your relationship?

I’ve been wondering whether some of the phrases/comments we’ve repeatedly heard from my very enmeshed (and narcissistic) MIL are common in others with enmeshment.

I would almost feel validated if others have also experienced these kinds of comments.

Here’s the most common ones my husband/me get from his mother:

‘I’m going to die soon’

‘After everything I’ve done for you’

‘You used to be such a caring boy’

Do you get similar, or if not what are the most common comments you get?

This is brutal, miserable and depressing and unless you’ve been in it you don’t know how much an absolute long term mindf**** it is.. especially to try to describe what’s “wrong”..

It’s death by a thousand paper cuts and after almost 19 years (been togther since 21 and have 3 kids).. the betrayal and resentment I just cannot cope with. What hurts worse is we did 8 years of marriage therapy and became a united front and he halfway broke out of it.. set boundaries,. Etc,, then we had a trauma and wow.. it’s a 180 I cannot even describe and like his mom hijacked his brain.

I feel sorry for him because he’s not a narcissist and is a fearful avoidant who has been ruined by his mother,. And whatever insane regression has been triggered I cannot seem to bring him out of. Marriage therapist privately eluded to CPTSD but it’s weird because he functions normal at work and stuff.

This dynamic is so devastating I’d rather have been with a husband who cheated on me and divorced that way.

I want nothing more than to divorce these disgusting dynamics and I’m so angry I’ve wasted my precious lfie being stuck in this and there is NO rationalizing, understanding or logic with these people.. you either accept being treated like a sidekick surrogate and hand over your kids to be sucked into this cult and just lie down and take being mistreated OR you’re the bad guy and going to be painted as such.

It doesn’t make sense. Enmeshment doesn’t make sense. No matter how much of a bigger person you are, how much therapy you do, how much you strive to understand.. when you’ve got a jealous and passive aggressive MIL she makes sure she has already pitted everyone against you including the husband you have your kids with.. the worst is when they’re a vulnerable narcissists ..

God id give anything to have messed up marrying into anything else.. and i dont want to sound like im minimizing cheating.. I know that deeply hurts (been cheated on by exes) but somehow for me would feel much more cut and dry than dealing with this and would not destroy my mind and physical health.. if that makes sense at all.

The part that really hurts is I’ve seen him start turning into the man he was meant to be thru the years in therapy.. he cried and said he was sorry for not prioritizing me, for not always being there for me and that he always would.. NEVER in my life did I know this scenario exists where they can literally after 16 years just regress.. sooooo badly that their baseline is even worse than it was when you started therapy.. by 3x.. its like watching an addict relapse ..

I think I need to start doing individual groups or therapy for myself so this doesn’t continue to eat at me while I decide what to do with the life I have left now that I’m 41..

As a wife it’s the most degrading and demeaning thing to be with these men.. you have sex with me and I almost died having our 3 kids.. I do everything for you but it’s like I’m the side chick and the mom is the wife,. And the insanity of trying to get him to see
How screwed up this is is like too much for me.

I understand the neuroscience of how and why this happens but I’m struggling still thinking about my kids and how this emotional abuse is sooooo subtle it’s hard to see and how it can damage them

Welcome to r/healing_FD_enmeshment

Hey everyone! I'm u/Winter_One_4085, a founding moderator of r/healing_FD_enmeshment.

This is a community dedicated to discussing, understanding, and healing from father-daughter enmeshment, emotional incest, covert incest, parentification, and other unhealthy relational dynamics that can occur between fathers and daughters. While there are growing conversations around mother-son enmeshment, resources and support for father-daughter dynamics can be difficult to find. My hope is that this space helps fill that gap.

What to Post

This community welcomes:

Personal experiences and stories

Questions about father-daughter enmeshment and recovery

Discussions about boundaries, attachment, and family dynamics

Therapy insights, books, podcasts, and educational resources

Challenges in adult relationships that may be connected to enmeshment

Success stories, healing milestones, and personal growth

Reflections on parentification, emotional caretaking, guilt, obligation, and identity development

Whether you're just beginning to recognize these patterns or have been working on healing for years, your perspective is valuable here.

Community Vibe

Many of us arrive at this topic carrying confusion, grief, anger, guilt, or a deep sense that something wasn't quite right, even if it looked "normal" from the outside.

This community is built on:

Compassion over judgment

Validation without victim competition

Curiosity over assumptions

Respect for different healing journeys

Trauma-informed discussion

You do not need to have all the answers to participate. Sometimes simply putting words to an experience is a significant step forward.

A Quick Note

Father-daughter enmeshment can exist on a spectrum. Not every experience looks the same. Some members may relate strongly to emotional incest or covert incest. Others may be exploring emotional dependency, parentification, blurred boundaries, or a lifelong feeling of responsibility for a parent's emotional well-being.

This community is not a substitute for professional mental health support, but it can be a place to find understanding, shared experiences, and resources.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments below (share only what you're comfortable sharing).

2. Post something today—even a simple question can start an important conversation.

3. If you know someone who may benefit from this community, invite them to join.

4. Interested in helping build this space? Feel free to reach out about moderation opportunities.

Thank you for being part of the very first members of r/healing_FD_enmeshment.

Many of us spent years believing we were alone in these experiences. We aren't.

Let's build a community where healing, understanding, and honest conversation can happen together. 💙

I’m a 32-year-old man currently living at home with my mom.

Back in 2020, things were going great. I had graduated college, I had a good job the year before, and in the middle of that year, my best friend and I started a company. Unfortunately, toward the end of last year, we had to part ways, and I had to step away from the company. I had also left my previous job back in 2021 to pursue that business full-time.

Right now, I’m doing gig work to support myself and help with bills while still living at home. Finding a stable job has been difficult for a lot of reasons, the economy, personal circumstances, and just trying to get back on my feet.
Last summer, I went through what I can only describe as a major psychological awakening. I started learning about narcissism, personality dynamics, empathy, and a lot of deeper emotional patterns. It triggered what Carl Jung might describe as individuation. I went through a severe grieving process for several days and came out of it feeling like a different person.

But now, here I am in 2026, still living at home and dealing with the same shit. My mother uses me like an errand boy. Go to the bank. Do this. Pay these bills. Manage that. Take me to work. Take me here. Take me there. I feel completely taken for granted. She doesn’t have a car, but she is fully capable of taking a taxi or figuring out other options. Things used to be even worse. I would take her to get her nails done, get her hair done, go to the bank, return things to Macy’s, go grocery shopping, take her to church, take her to different stores, and drive her to medical appointments. She had to get treatments done on her legs, and I would drive her about 15 miles away, sometimes weekly, for that too.

It was always something. And through all of it, I never really felt appreciated. Sure, she might give me money here and there, but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel robbed of my time, my energy, and honestly a part of my life. I know the reason she gives me any help is just to keep the loop going to keep manipulating and gaslighting. It’s to the point where I do not even accept it whenever I can.

That realization was incredibly painful. I feel like I had to grieve the mother I thought I had. I don’t really feel the same love for her anymore, because I don’t feel loved by her. I feel used. And whenever I pull back, it feels like I’m just a broken toy that isn’t functioning for her that day.
Because of that, I’ve had to start putting up boundaries. I put a keypad lock on my room because people would just barge in. There’s no privacy in this house unless I fight to create it myself.

At this point, I feel like I can’t afford to waste time. I’m doing gig work 7 days a week, 12 hrs a day, trying to save enough money to get out. I’m investing, working, and doing everything I can to build some kind of future for myself. And even on top of all that, she still only talks to me when she needs something.

If she makes breakfast, there’s usually an ulterior motive. The second I sit down, suddenly there’s a list of things she needs. I come home after working 12 hours, and it’s immediately: can you go to the pharmacy, can you do this, can you get that, can you pick up wine, can you help with this errand?

She has zero interest in my life. None. I am never asked how I’m doing - mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, nothing. It is always about her needs, her problems, her priorities.

And that’s what makes me so angry.
I went through that painful awakening last year, and I’m frustrated with myself because I still keep falling into the same pattern. Today she came back from the airport, and I stopped doing gig work, drove 16 miles home, took her to work, and then immediately it turned into: can you go deposit this money at the bank, can you help with this claim for my delayed flight, can you do this, can you do that.

And I’m just sitting here asking myself: when am I going to learn? Seriously, when am I going to stop? I tell myself to say no. I tell myself to pull back. I tell myself to protect my time. And yet I keep ending up in the same position.
I’m parked not far from my house writing this because I’m just that angry. I’m already stressed out from working constantly and trying to figure out how to build a decent life for myself and get out of here, and instead I just feel robbed. I feel like I don’t exist as a person in this house.
I know part of this post is me venting. I know I’m angry. But I also genuinely want advice.

How do I stop making the same mistake over and over again, even after becoming aware of what’s happening? How do I actually hold boundaries when I still live here? I’ve tried grey rock, avoiding being home, putting up locks, and becoming more emotionally detached. Some of it has helped a little, but clearly not enough.
I’m just exhausted, and I’m tired of feeling like this.