Can A Family Be Too Close?: 10 Signs You Grew Up In An Enmeshed Family

Welcome to Good Enough, a weekly subscriber newsletter where I help you work through your family drama to create more meaningful adult family relationships. This is Week 1 out of 4 in the Family Enmeshment Series.

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This Email Is For:

• Anyone who wonders if their family is too close

What’s In This Email:

• the difference between enmeshment and having a close family

• 10 signs (with examples) that your family is enmeshed in an unsustainable way

• An invitation to join me May 29 at 10:30AM for a live and recorded Q&A about Enmeshed Families

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“My mother will not stop calling me to vent about my dad,” Andrea tells me as I watch her on my screen.

Growing up, her mother told her everything. There were no limits to the disclosure - sex, marital problems, family drama, and money issues were all fair game. Her mother celebrated the dependency and constantly praised her “mini therapist.” She hated seeing her mother upset, so she comforted her when she cried. She knew her mother had no one else to talk to, so she listened when she needed to vent. She knew her mother was working two jobs, so she took on the stress of worrying about finances. She knew her parents were having marital issues, so she tried to fill that void.

It’s clear that there is no distinction between where her mother ends and she begins. She absorbs her fears, hopes, dreams, and failures. If she tries to get distance from her mother, she’ll be rejected, so instead she keeps her close.

“If I try to set a boundary with her, she won’t speak to me for a week. The last time I told her I had plans with my friends, she accused me of not caring about her and ghosted me. I had to show up at her house to make sure she was ok” she tells me.

Andrea thought they just had a close relationship until she started reading about enmeshment.

Are You Enmeshed Or Just Close?

Enmeshment happens when two or more people, typically family members, are involved in each other’s activities and personal relationships to an excessive degree, thus limiting or precluding healthy interaction and compromising individual autonomy and identity. (APA Dictionary of Psychology)