Comments on: 14 Signs Your Partner is Enmeshed with his Mom https://khanselma.com/14-signs-your-partner-is-enmeshed-with-his-mom/ Healing & Recovering from Trauma Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:03:16 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: Selma Khan https://khanselma.com/14-signs-your-partner-is-enmeshed-with-his-mom/#comment-751 Sun, 31 Mar 2024 08:33:36 +0000 https://khanselma.com/?p=1683#comment-751 In reply to John Young.

Hi John,

I apologize for the delayed response! I somehow missed your comment until now. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. To answer your question, yes, enmeshment and parentification always coexist. Additionally, narcissistic behavior is commonly seen with these dynamics. Enmeshed parents tend to use their children to fulfill their needs, rather than the other way around. This, coupled with control and manipulation, is also how narcissistic abuse looks like. I’m sorry to hear that your wife is placing the blame solely on you. While parents certainly share responsibility for their children’s well-being, when manipulation and abuse are present, it gets complicated. This seems to be your case, John, and seeing clearly what’s going on is not easy when someone is deliberately gaslighting you (changing your reality).

Yes, you can absolutely get the tools and strategies in therapy, but our main focus in trauma therapy is to heal the parts in you that get triggered dealing with this situation. Once that begins to happen, shifts will naturally occur as you gain more clarity in your mind on what to do and say. You are welcome to contact me for a free 60 minute session to get a feel of working together and trying out IFS therapy.

I hope this was helpful John,

Regards
Selma

]]> By: John Young https://khanselma.com/14-signs-your-partner-is-enmeshed-with-his-mom/#comment-705 Mon, 26 Feb 2024 23:42:03 +0000 https://khanselma.com/?p=1683#comment-705 Your article on Enmeshment could have been written by me, if I were aware that the term existed. I plan to book an initial session with you. However, I have a question first.
Is it possible that Enmeshment can coexist with Parentification?
My wife and her 22 y/o daughter strongly exhibit every characteristic in your article with a variation. With rare exception my wife seems to be the “beta” seeking the constant validation of her “alpha” daughter, while at the same time they are deeply enmeshed in every single facet of their lives.
My wife is 100% convinced that I am 100% of the problem. Would I be able to acquire tools and strategies through your counselling if she did not participate?
This situation is driving me insane and quite frankly, killing our marriage.

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