I live with the uber enmeshed family

Hello all
My partners family is over the top with enmeshment, it looks like heads in a giant bowl of spaghetti, connected with cell phones, one member can't make a move without 3 days of texting each other to make sure if on a walk if it is ok to step on or over the crack in the the sidewalk. On the sidewalk of life the spaghetti monster is very crippled and stuck in one spot, over the crack, starring
at it, hypnotize unable to move forward.

I on the other hand have been on my own from the age of 13, came from an abusive family, grew up quickly, was almost murder at the age of 19, learned to deal with life's curveballs on my own.

My loving partners has a large trust fund that I now feel really ads fuel to all this.

We have been together for 3 years, from the beginning after a fight she would tell me that I needed a therapist, I asked her if she would come with, and the answer was no because she had done the work with her theapist over the last five years and was fine.

This all sort of worked untill 5 months ago, when she decided it was time to have an intervention with her 20 year old addict son, he had been an addict from the age 14. We got him in rehab and his recovery is working out, he now has a job and is living in a sober home.

My LP is going to 12 steps and we all do every self help group on the planet, the is starting to cause a big riff in her family because her and I are starting shake off her clans rules and its starting to get crazy

Any ideas out there?

Do the clan members have to know about the 12 steps and every self help group on the planet?

Yes, but it is an alien concept to them, the enmeshment has paralyzed everyone, I can disassociate myself and only only deal with my stuff, but from time to time it does get to me.

The clan knows about the 12 steps, but it is an alien concept to them.

Look - 12 steps is not particularly effective, based on evidence (the effectiveness varies from one program to the next, though - the effectiveness of 12 steps for alcohol issues is different from the effectiveness of 12 steps for, say, clutter/hoarding issues, etc). But it is not particularly effective. So the fact that it is an alien concept to them is not, in and of itself, a problem - and you should research the effectiveness of 12 steps for the LP's concerns to make sure she does not over-invest into something that has a low likelihood of helping her in the long run. I am not sure why she is there - the OP talks about her son's problems, and not her own problems.

Self-help is also not outrageously effective. Look - why are so many self-help books out there? If self-help were that effective, people would have long helped themselves, and no new self-help books would be in demand. So something to think about before over-investing, too.

What I am trying to say is that these things are not necessarily effective, and trying to convince the clan that they are is not a good use of your time.

I think a better strategy would be to assert move privacy. They know about 12 steps, but should they know about self-help? Can your LP not share everything? Because once something is shared (cat out of the bag), it is hard or impossible to prevent the clan's reactions. But if it is not shared (keep the cat in the bag), then there are no reactions to contend with in the first place!

Not sharing = treating the problem upstream.

Sharing and then dealing with the consequences = trying to treat the problem way downstream.

Usually, the earlier you nip something in the bud, the better.

I do like the not sharing idea, she does seem to sharing thing that should be kept private, and not sharing things that should be. And with the word sharing it should be replaced with the word setting boundaries.

Sure.

I do see she is over-sharing.

Can you elaborate on her under-sharing though? (not sharing things that should be shared).

She told me today that she wishes that her addict son would stop calling , she need to share that with him , but she will not for fear it will " disturb the peace "
It can be up to 8 hours a day

I do not think this is an issue of non-sharing. I think it is an issue of her not wanting to - as she said - disrupt the status quo, which is not stellar but at the same time not awful (could be worse), so she does not want to disrupt it.

Smartphones have an option of sending calls directly to VM by choosing this feature per phone number. In other words, you can route some calls into ringing and others into VM. I am not sure if regular cell phones have this feature. If she can do it, she can decide when to call him back and not be "on call" (literally speaking) all day long.

She is on call all day and all night, he's is living in a sober home now and it is getting better

turning off the cell for the night - not an option? she feels that guilty?

Yes she does

She feels that guilty

So she needs to work through the guilt.

Look - she talks with the son for 8 hours a day. She is on call 24/7.

She cannot be talking with the clan for 8 hours, right?

So the first priority is dealing with the guilt, and not with the ueber-enmeshed family.

At least it seems so!

Yes the is in the uber zone, her boys come first then her dog, but fit in the rest of them , she talks on the home phone and text with the iPhone at the same time

The guilt is in the uber zone

that was the feeling I picked up from your posts, too...