r/enmeshmenttrauma

Moving out

Hey, I'm going to be moving out of my mom's house into a guest room in my Inlaws' house. I cannot take living with my mom anymore. I'm 25 now and I don't want to be in the same situation when I'm 30 where I'm overpaying to live in a bedroom and can't save anything.

When should I tell her that I'm moving? Should I tell her? If so, what do I tell her?

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u/solidarity2525 — 6 days ago
â–Č 2 r/enmeshmenttrauma+1 crossposts

Doubts and thinking of moving out

Hi.

A short story of my life is here https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/bwFbBdpkWF. I am in my mid 20s and still live with her.

So recently I made the decision to move out and I am having some doubts like: what if I don’t succeed? What if I go from this to something worse? What will I do without her support? I think that if I move out her relationship with me will become almost non existent bc I do not think she will want to keep contact with me.

I love her very much even though she she hurt me and it pains me to leave her and know that she will suffer (bc she will suffer if I move out even if she tells me sometimes she can’t stand me and that I hard to live with).

Socially I am mostly isolated, I can’t sat I have somebody I could ask for help but I am thinking of therapy after moving out. I can’t now because I don’t even have my own room and she wouldn’t be okay with it.

If anyone went through this or even if not and has some advice it would be very well appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

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u/PuzzleheadedCup6918 — 5 days ago

When you come into the picture of an enmeshed family structure as the new partner of their adult “kid”. Nightmare fuel

They make the new partner target number 1 and will try everything in their arsenal to break you up, control how much time you spend together, become more needy and controlling, hoover, overstep and take offence when you don’t feel comfortable giving them all of your private life’s details up to them to twist into strange narratives to use against you/get flying monkeys to get riled up and hate you because you’ve unintentionally upset poor vulnerable MIL or IL.

My MIL is losing her shit now because i’ve completely closed myself off once I saw the way she and everyone operates, how toxic the entire structure is etc. I stay to myself, I don’t talk about anyone ever, not even to my spouse at home. I focus on my own life. They sit around at tables shit talking me behind my back. Nothing I do will ever be good enough and i’m realizing that’s not because of me- it’s because i’ve ruined the enmeshment/hierarchy but simply not playing ball.

If I compliment something the mom makes or does, i’m apparently fake and lying and don’t actually like it.

I take notice and say something little like, did you switch up your lipstick? The colour on you is really good, I like it. Now apparently i’m again, lying and being mean.

Or she will mention that her and her eldest went shopping and found some really nice anti aging skin serums that are usually expensive on sale. So when christmas came (we got everyone stuff from Sephora for their stockings) we put in a really nice serum that I knew about that I thought she would love to try. Apperantly now i’m calling her “old”.

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u/Important_Local2284 — 7 days ago

How to deal with an elderly, pushy, controlling mother who means well?

My mother has a "difficult personality", which, among many other things, means that she is agitated, stubborn and 100% immune to feedback. If she wants to "help" you, she will force her ideas on you no matter what: you can beg, you can scream, she will just move on with her plan. She can manipulate, emotionally blackmail, distort reality and so on, and all that "for your own good".

It sounds as if she were a horrible person, but I don't think she is evil, narcissistic, etc. I really do believe her intentions are good. Unfortunately, due to some psychological or neurological issues, she is simply unbearable.

I only started to regain some peace and sanity many years after I left and started living on my own, a 3-hour drive from home. Since then, my contact with my mother has mostly consisted of weekly phone calls, plus me visiting her once every 2 or 3 months.

She is almost 70 years old and will retire in a few months. A few months ago, my daughter was born, and my mother got this horrifying idea of coming over to our home to "help us with the baby". I told her multiple times, extremely clearly, that we don't want her to come, but recently she called my wife's parents, almost sobbing that she is very sad and lonely, that I don't talk to her anymore, and that she "just wants to help". She also shared her plan to rent an apartment near us!

She's always been pushy and never listened, but now it's clearly reaching insane levels.

I don't know how to handle this whole situation. For sure, I don't want her to come here. That is completely horrifying. When I visit her, the only semi-positive emotion I feel is relief that I've fulfilled my obligation and now I'll have some time before I have to visit her again. Our former weekly calls made me feel sick for hours. Given all that, the best approach would be no contact at all, but I doubt that it's realistic in my case, as I don't think I'm strong enough to cope with the guilt and pressure from other family members.

So the only realistic way of coping seems to be to maintain some form of contact, as limited and infrequent as possible. In order to do that, I would have to reduce my emotional reactivity to her, as currently, after each contact, I feel this boiling inner rage and sadness.

Any advice?

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u/Still_Department_221 — 7 days ago

My husbands enmeshment with historia mom feels like romance-anyone else?

Me casĂ© hace como 6 años, y con el tiempo me di cuenta de que mi esposo estĂĄ sĂșper enredado con sus papĂĄs, sobre todo con su mamĂĄ.

TenĂ­amos un montĂłn de problemas porque vivĂ­amos cerca de ellos: invasiones de lĂ­mites, ella me pedĂ­a que arreglara cosas que deberĂ­an ser responsabilidad de mi esposo, dejaba las cosas de sus hijos para que nosotros las cuidĂĄramos, venĂ­a a nuestra casa diario, nos decĂ­a cĂłmo hacer de todo, etc. Ya no me sentĂ­a yo misma; siempre estaba explosiva y enojada.

Le preguntĂ© si podĂ­amos mudarnos. AceptĂł mudarse a una ciudad no tan lejos, a unos 30 minutos. Yo pensĂ© que eso iba a ser la soluciĂłn, pero ahora su mamĂĄ le manda mensajes casi diario con una intensidad sĂșper cariñosa que de verdad se siente incĂłmoda. Cada mensaje trae un "mi amor, mi corazĂłn, mi vida" y le pide su opiniĂłn para elegir muebles para su casa, celulares, etc.

El otro día, en un parque acuåtico, ella le agarró la panza a mi esposo con las dos manos, como haciendo un pellizquito, aunque él se echó un poquito hacia atrås, ella siguió. Luego le hizo un chiste a su hijo mås chico, que estaba acostado, diciendo: "desde aquí puedo ver todo".

Ahora siento mucha repulsiĂłn. Ya no uso apodos romĂĄnticos con mi pareja porque no me gusta la idea de llamarlo con lo mismo que usa su mamĂĄ. Me siento distante de Ă©l. SĂ© que en realidad no es asĂ­, pero se siente como si ella fuera su novia y me pone sĂșper incĂłmoda, pero igual lo amo.

Le sugerĂ­ que fuĂ©ramos a terapia juntos, pero dijo que si Ă©l iba serĂ­a solo para que alguien le dijera que soy yo la que estĂĄ muy mal. O sea, Ă©l no ve ningĂșn problema, asĂ­ que no ve razĂłn para ir.

Siento que soy yo la que estĂĄ estorbando aquĂ­. ÂżA alguien le ha pasado este tipo de enredo que se siente como romance?

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u/Gold_Ad_84 — 6 days ago

Single child married : how to deal with mom who is widowed and totally dependent on you and its now affecting your marriage life

I live with my mom and my husband
Her personality traits are ego, being selfish and too much anger. Always demands respect and she never understands when she is wrong, doesn’t understand the concept of mental health nor of pms and believes ‘I am now my husband’s and take less care of her and doesn’t give her time when practically i shadow her almost all the time still its not enough. My husband i don’t know how he is taking all this bullshit as he never signed up for this. Whenever she is home i am automatically like is she ok or is she in trouble. And i constantly make sure she is good mood she is happy. My husband is an introvert and likes to live in his own world and i m fine by it but not my mother. She cant say anything to him so she constantly in front of me keeps talking like this is not done he is also now family. But who will make her understand that u need to accept people how they are in order for them to start feeling like a family. She wants to put no effort but expects others to adjust to her tunes. I have been doing this for many years and papa used to do it but my husband wont. Why will he.? I am so exhausted mentally and sick of all this. I think they should teach in school how a single child should deal with emotionally vulnerable single parent who are egoistic and money minded and selfish

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u/Long-Exit-1531 — 6 days ago

Estranged Father Initiated Contact. What to do?

Tl;dr:

My homophobic father whom I haven't spoken in a little under 2 years reached out to get me to sign a document. I'm struggling with how, if at all, to reply.

Full story:

I went limited contact with my parents back in Nov. 2024 because they're both homophobic. They called my partner of 7 years a roommate, my mother would only refer to him as "it", they refused to visit the home we shared together, and never wanted to meet him. They were happily there for the break up though.

Things finally came to a head when I confronted them about it and said if they refused to meet any of my partners I didn't want them in my life. Things understandably fell apart from there.

My mother, the primary abuser, tried to DARVO me while my father, the "relatable" but narcissitic parent tried to pretend he was an ally despite him being the one to tell me I could never bring my partner around and, in effect, had to be in the closet around them. They both left that evening without us finishing the discussion after I brought up my mother being the first person to call me the f-slur and slipping out a. F-bomb in frustration. I'd apparently, "taken things too far."

I tried to connect with my father immediately after the interaction to give him the opportunity to actually be an ally, but he essentially said my boundaries need to be flexible with family (i.e., I'm comfortable with the same, sweep it under the rug way of life we've been living,) and that I can't blame them for my miserable life. (Mind you, I love my life, never said otherwise, and only wanted them to get over the homophobia.) When I responded as such, he left me on read and later unfriended me.

Since then he's tried a few odd ways of reaching out including guilt tripping when the family dog died, messaging my cat's instagram page 40+ times, and sending a transphobic reel to an old group chat with my brother. He's also simplified my reason for the reduced contact as, "I'm mad at them" to anyone that will listen.

I last saw them at a wedding where my mother stared from across the room and my father actively covered his face with papers every time my brother or I passed the table.

My father reached out to me today and I'm just not sure how to approach it. The guilt trip, the false time expansion, the obvious ploy to just have a conversation...it's all just too much. Would love to hear thoughts.

u/AvatarZim — 14 days ago

Realising I'm in an enmeshed weird cult family is horrible

Hello I'm scapegoat..

In all seriousness, in the last 6 months I've figured out I'm in an enmeshed family system which has been a bleed realisation as I'm the emotional absorber or scapegoat if you will.

I'm a 38M, single and sober for 5 years where I've gained a lot of clarity, growth and career success which has upset my younger, suspected narcissistic brother, and mother in particular. My brother and I fell out 5 months ago after I set a healthy boundary after he wanted validation about a message a girl had sent him weeks after he separated from his soon to be ex-wife. I asked for space as I was struggling and he flipped out. Gaslit, manipulated and guilt tripped me to which I called the behaviour out and he went to my parents. My mum then I'm attempt to 'get me back in line' gaslit and discredited my reality and when I set further boundaries I was met with subtle threats. This all came as a gut punch to me as the masks hadn't slipped they'd flew off and I knew what I was up against. I've held my boundaries, left the family WhatsApp group and I am very low to no contact with my brother and low contact with parents.

The other day I went round to my parents and discovered my brother had straight up lied and manipulated my mum telling her about a conversation me and him supposedly had which never occured (I went through her messages, I know it's bad but I knew I'd find stuff). He then claimed I'm jealous of him, I'm pathetic and I need to go to him now because I was grey rocking him (one or two word answers).

I've also recently pieces together or at least assuming that the reason my dad has never been able to meet my eye is because of his shame. He doesn't have a problem meeting my siblings eye but with me he can't hold eye contact like I'm a stranger it's very upsetting and makes me doubt myself.

I'm struggling at the moment with isolation, confusion and anger towards them. I've worked hard to get myself well in sobriety and that is now a threat because I say the truth and set boundaries?

I feel very alone and could do with some advice on how to feel a part of and find some good people to meet. Hope someone can help.

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u/Turbulent_Tea621 — 13 days ago