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Originally Posted by TishaBuv
Good thread and something I’m glad to think about today, as I’ve lost a close relationship.
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Sorry.
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I agree your friend sounds too enmeshed. Healthy love is somewhere on a continuum of less than his intensity and more than the inability to allow trust, love, and sometimes even power with a lover.
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I wasn't aware "enmeshment" was a thing. Just googled it. Learn something new every day.
Anyway, the website said of it: "This often happens on an emotional level in which two people 'feel' each other’s emotions, or when one person becomes emotionally escalated and the other family member does as well."
This is something Colin does a lot, and not just with Sara or Lilly, but anyone he gets close to, although it's much more apparent in his romantic relationships. I wonder if he simply has a problem with emotional boundaries in general. I also wonder if he likes hanging out with me because I don't have many emotions for him to be affected by.
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The ‘people are hell’ part to me are how others can be so callous and hurtful. Those people will leave you or be so abusive that you will leave them. So we learn from what happened with them and look for others who won’t do that and are better for us. Maybe there’ll be no one for a time.
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"Hell is other people" is a reference to Sartre's
No Exit, and yeah, it is basically about people tormenting each other with lies and emotional manipulation. More specifically, it's about those who rely on others to define them because they don't want to take responsibility for their own actions.
Of course, Garcin, Estelle, and Inez were all terrible people specifically chosen to torment each other. When each looks to one of the others for validation, the other two respond with lies and manipulation tactics. Even when they try to be honest, the one asking for validation doesn't trust the motives of their comrades anyway, so they end up being suspicious of any validation that is given. I wonder what would happen if you were one of the characters in Sartre's play who was looking for validation, but you happened upon someone who gave you all the emotional support you needed.
I suppose Sartre would say that you're still lying to yourself, so it's a moot point.
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I’ve just had a huge loss. Yet I feel that there are so many more people in the world and more purpose for me.
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There certainly are.
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Originally Posted by TheSadGirl
There is a quote along the lines of "I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me"
I think that sums up a healthy, non dependant or codependant relationship. Be an individual who can stand alone and bring that to the relationship.
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Yeah, I think that sums it up really well.
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Originally Posted by bpcyclist
This reminds me a whole darn lot of those teenage relationships, where neither party can bear to be apart for more than 5 seconds and they text and call each other 600 times an hour and there is absolutely no room or time left in their lives for anything else but this obsession.
Enmeshment is the road to relationship ruin. It is fundamentally unhealthy. Your friend needs to learn to hold on loosely.
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He isn't quite that bad, but he does seem a bit immature for a 31-year-old. Not that I have room to talk, but at least I know that I lack the emotional capacity to be in a healthy relationship.