Enmeshed Relationship

Does anyone have experience with this type of relationship? I'm so overwhelmed by these labels but they're also making a lot of sense to me about my relationship issues with my partner.

What's the difference between Borderline personality disorder and enmeshment traits?

I like the advice from this link below and feel I've already been working on these, unknowingly. I just need to apply them in a more positive way towards my partner who I feel quite negatively about these days. I also think the symptoms are quite spot on.

Tips on Setting Boundaries in Enmeshed Relationships

I'm just looking for ways to improve my situation while we're still together.

Dear MsLady,

I wish I had some wisdom to share with you about what you brought up, but sadly I am at a loss. Hopefully others here will have something helpful to share based on knowledge, experience and insight. I think it is so inspiring that you are trying to improve the situation you have outlined and I wish you only the best.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

You feel that you are too enmeshed with your partner?

Enmeshment isn't necessarily connected with BPD. There are dependency disorders and a lot of other reasons as to why people become enmeshed.

“1. You neglect other relationships because of a preoccupation or compulsion to be in the relationship.
2. Your happiness or contentment relies on your relationship.
3. Your self-esteem is contingent upon this relationship.
4. When there’s a conflict or disagreement in your relationship, you feel extreme anxiety or fear or a compulsion to fix the problem.
5. When you’re not around this person or can’t talk to them, “a feeling of loneliness pervades [your] psyche. Without that connection, the loneliness will increase to the point of creating irrational desires to reconnect.”
6. There’s a “symbiotic emotional connection.” If they’re angry, anxious or depressed, you’re also angry, anxious or depressed. “You absorb those feelings and are drawn to remediate them.”

^Good article. These are the bullet points from it.

BPD and enmeshed relationships are two separate things; one a disorder and one a dysfunction.

My main issue is within my marriage, we’ve got #2,3,and 4 going on. We don’t have #1,5, and 6. It’s not all me doing the unhealthy part in these things, it’s him too.

Someone with BPD might feel like #5, as that insecurity about being away from the other person is one of the traits.

MsLady, the problem you have is you don't have a partner but instead just another child. Also, from things you have shared your boyfriend is drama addicted where he looks to create drama to get attention.

Some people are drama addicted and always creating some kind of drama to draw attention and gain an audience.

With emeshment, often you have the drama addict and then one or two people that constantly "attend" to her/him.

No.. that he may be to me.

After everything I've opened up about, you think he's just being an immature "child"?

I have not read everything you have shared, but from what you have shared your partner is very immature and you are constantly having your button's pushed to mother him. I know you have encouraged him to learn from the DBT book, however, at times he uses that as a way to gain attention.

He is not really "with you" as a partner, instead he is often competing with you which is what often takes place when a parent is raising a teenager.

In many ways you are his babysitter. You dread even thinking about him getting to have his children if you were to break up. A deep part of you knows he is not mature enough to really be trusted. He doesn't respect boundaries, not even with his own children.

Your partner is far more than that. He's abusive, he's a liar, and he's very manipulative. He uses a number of abuse tactics on you, and he turns his family and your own children against you, filling them with lies about you. He twists everything around, to his own advantage. He is more than a child: he's an abuser.

Your partner is constantly trying to create his own reality because he wants the control and the power. He even gaslights himself. Mothering him gives him the control and attention. Drama, drama, drama is about control and gaining an audience and control too. Stomping around in a rage is also about needing control. Needing to blame others whom one feels as a threat in someway is also about a need for power and control, poor me that person is XYZ which typically happens when one doesn't get their way or ideal or doesn't care to see their part in the problem.

I think you are trying your best to minimize this ongoing challenge until you can get to a point where you can break free.

Often when some people see the red flags they tend to distance by letting the other person think they have the power and talent or whatever to reduce toxic blow back.

It's very hard to do that once in a relationship that has challenges where one can't do that and has to manage the toxic instead. It's also extra hard when children are involved too.

His therapist was the one that got him into DBT. I only knew what he wanted to tell me. He hasn't said much since the summer and I don't think he's still seeing that same therapist. I did not at all encourage him to do this. I stayed out of it and hoped for the best.

This is 100% correct. He recently said he has an inferiority complex.

There's definite trust issues but I wouldn't say it's because of his immaturity.

Right now, I'm genuinely fearful of parental alienation. I've had concerns with his emotional parentification, which has improved. I've had concerns with his differentiatial treatment between our two girls, which has improved. I've had concerns over lack of boundaries in general.. the impulsivities and emotional instabilities with regards to our relationship. I've had concerns with the lies, gaslighting, name smearing, and finger-pointing. I've had concerns with his need for attention, my short "leash", and his secret social life. I can go on and on. None of this reaks "typical teenager" to me. It's dark. His behaviours have kept me feeling permanently unsettled and concerned.

It's why I've been looking at enmeshment vs BPD. The article I posted had helpful strategies. There seems to be an overlap between the two.

I don't mean to put you in the hotseat. I just know you've read my post about covert abuse. I don't know why you'd compare those behaviours with a teenaged child.. ?

Good post, I agree with this.

Yes, I can see how that article provided you with strategies you may find helpful.

When I talked about teenagers I was talking about the maturity level and the testing that age group does with each other and even parents and other authority figures. Of course that’s general and not inclusive in a one size fits all.

I doubt if ''life'' is often that ''simple''... that someone can usefully be reduced to a label.

Hugs and respect

I sometimes wonder about our maturity age if it's a time in our lives we were most impacted by something. So if our maturity level is in the teens, something in our teen years, stunted our maturity levels.

I would not equate covert abuse with a teen.

I see #s 1, 2, 3, and 5 in my partner.

When we first started hanging out we spent A LOT of time together because I had just walked away from a marriage and my family. My son was also going through a tough teenage phase. My partner was my escape and I was very clear about that. I was not at all interested in a relationship.

If I opted to spend my day doing something without him, he'd text me throughout the day. If I didn't respond, he'd call me. If I didn't pick up, he'd leave a voicemail sounding all "concerned" about me.. wanting to know if I was ok and to let him know, asap. The next day, he'd give me the cold shoulder and sulk because he had "nothing to do" the day before.. and his friends were "busy".. and I was "ignoring" him.. even though I had responded to some of his texts.

I remember his friends telling him they didn't like how preoccupied he was with texting me when he was spending time with them. They found it inconsiderate.

I remember talking with him about feeling smothered to the point he went and saw a therapist, in fear I was going to leave him (which I should have). His therapist told him he needed to respect my boundaries or I'd end up pushing him away.. so he backed off a bit.

I'm drawn to codependents who smother me. In the early dating stages, if I'm not with them, we're talking on the phone for multiple hours or texting. All 3 relationships I got to a point I was just not interested in spending time with them but wanted to be polite. I liked them all but it was too much.

You are not putting me on the hot seat at all. Actually psychologists don’t like to diagnose teenagers withNPD because that age group tends to lean more narcissistic due to maturity level. Teenagers explore and practice lying and manipulating its part of normal development.

Yes some actually develop into covert narcissists.

Is covert abuse specifically from a covert narcissist or can one exhibit these behaviours and not have narcissism?

I'm really curious because my partner very recently labeled me a narcissist which makes me think he subconsciously wonders if he is. I'm only saying this because a couple years ago, when I was talking with him about my mother, he asked me if I thought 'he' was.. I was surprised by his question.

I think that if someone repeatedly exhibits these behaviours, they are likely a Narcissist, or maybe ''just immature''.... Yeah I'm not a fan of labels. And I am not a Narcissist.

Covert Tactics Manipulators Use to Control and Confuse You | Psychology Today

^This is a good article for your situation MsLady

Thank you. I'll take a peek later tonight. I read this article that was pretty spot on. My partner exhibits all of these traits.. if not, most.

Learn to Recognize 26 Covert Abuse Tactics — Confusion to Clarity

Thanks for this link, it will be helpful to me (re a someone, or more than one someone, in real life)

That's a good question -- I may ask this of my new therapist today.

Your partner was clearly projecting, which I know you know already. He probably does wonder if he is a narcissist.