Mother-Daughter BFFs: Walking the Fine Line of Enmeshment - GoodTherapy.org Therapy Blog (2024)

FAQs

What does an enmeshed mother-daughter relationship look like? ›

When the roles of a mother and daughter become entangled, this is described as an enmeshed relationship. In an enmeshed relationship, a mother provides her daughter love and attention but tends to exploit the relationship, fortifying her own needs by living through her daughter.

One common way toxic mothers overstep boundaries with their daughters is by micromanaging their lives. If your mother continues to dictate your appearance, career, or romantic choices, or even meddles in your life long after you've reached adulthood, that is a sign of toxicity.

A codependent parent is one who has an unhealthy attachment to their child and tries to exert excess control over the child's life because of that attachment.

Effects of enmeshment

Mental health issues, such as personality disorders. Self-esteem issues due to a lack of identity and years of being cut down by a possessive family member. Boundary issues, because no one ever modeled healthy boundaries. Unstable relationships due to family instability during childhood.

Emotionally absent or cold mothers can be unresponsive to their children's needs. They may act distracted and uninterested during interactions, or they could actively reject any attempts of the child to get close. They may continue acting this way with adult children.

The causes of estrangement can include abuse, neglect, betrayal, bullying, unaddressed mental illness, not being supportive, destructive behavior, substance abuse. Oftentimes, parents do not square with a child's sexual orientation, choice of spouse, gender identity, religion, and or political views.

Set Reasonable, Effective Boundaries

For example, you could say, “It hurts my feelings when you are overly critical about my appearance,” or, “Please don't belittle my career choices.” You can also let her know that if she doesn't change her attitude, you'll start visiting her less to protect your mental health.

What do toxic mothers say? ›

The most common toxic behavior of parents is to criticize their child, express self-wishes, complain about the difficulties of raising a child, make unhealthy comparisons, and make hurtful statements^​1​. What is this?

Narcissistic parenting creates huge problems for the growing child. Daughters of narcissistic mothers often become enmeshed with their parent, losing contact with their true self and growing up without boundaries and without the ability to recognise or nurture healthy relationships.

A narcissistic mother may feel entitled or self-important, seek admiration from others, believe she is above others, lack empathy, exploit her children, put others down, experience hypersensitivity to criticism, believe she deserves special treatment, and worst of all, maybe naïve to the damage she is causing.

Codependent parents have an extreme focus outside of themselves. They provide extreme caretaking to their children. They are often busy taking care of their children and forget to take care of themselves. They tend to lack expression of feelings.

In order to heal from enmeshment, a person first has to recognize how they are affected by it. "For example, if you recognize that you have trouble being alone without a partner or feel threatened by your partner's autonomy, you can practice soothing yourself in those moments," Muñoz says.

In an enmeshed family, there are no boundaries between the family members. Instead of the strong bonds that signal a well-functioning family unit, family members are fused together by unhealthy emotions. Usually, enmeshment is rooted in trauma or illness.

Enmeshment trauma is a type of childhood emotional trauma that involves a disregard for personal boundaries and loss of autonomy between individuals. The purpose of enmeshment is to create emotional power and control within the family.

What causes two people to become enmeshed? The causes of enmeshment can vary. Sometimes there is an event or series of occurrences in a family's history that necessitates a parent becoming protective in their child's life, such as an illness, trauma, or significant social problems in elementary school.

What is toxic enmeshment? ›

Enmeshment often begins when one family member has a mental health condition or substance abuse issue. Enmeshment normalizes harmful behavior and can be a way to avoid treatment. Enmeshed families often view dissent as betrayal. Enmeshed families may demand an unusual level of closeness even from adult children.

Snowplow parenting, also called lawnmower parenting or bulldozer parenting, is a parenting style that seeks to remove all obstacles from a child's path so they don't experience pain, failure, or discomfort.

“As the daughter becomes less dependent on the mother and starts to make some of her own decisions - that can cause rifts in the relationship. This is most evident when the daughter's thoughts and beliefs start to differ from those of her mother. This 'coming into self' can often feel like rejection.

Lack of trust. With an emotionally unreliable mother or one who is combative or hypercritical, the daughter learns that relationships are unstable and dangerous, and that trust is ephemeral and can't be relied on.

Many times the root of the conflict is the mother whose heart does not recognize that a daughter is "grown." When a mother fails to acknowledge her daughter's adulthood, a family rift can occur. Family rifts that are not repaired can lead to grandparents being estranged from their grandchildren, once children are born.

The family member can physically hurt or endanger others (antisocial personality disorder), or mentally and emotionally abuse them (narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder).

Karl Pillemer, author of Fractured Families and How To Mend Them, researched about 1300 people and found on average, family estrangement can last 54 months or 4.5 years. Of those interviewed, 85% were estranged for a year or more. Half of the respondents had no contact for four or more years.

What traits do daughters inherit from their mothers? ›

Mothers provide daughters with three important developmental needs: nurturing, protection, and guidance. If any one of these three is missing, a daughter grows up with an achy loneliness that distorts her self-concept and capacity for healthy relationships.

According to this article, CBS News found 24 percent of adult children thought they should call their mothers at least once a day. Another 24 percent thought they should call a few times a week, while 35 percent answered once a week. And 12 percent deemed once a month or less is appropriate.

Some well-meaning parents may gaslight their children in an attempt to protect them. For example, “You will love these vegetables as they are so yummy.” However, many more do so to maintain control, power, and a sense of rightness in the parent-child relationships.

The “devouring mother” is co-dependent and “consumes” her children, particularly her sons, emotionally and psychologically. She seeks fulfillment through her children because the feminine mystique has convinced her that her identity is inseparable from her roles as wife and mother.

Controlling. One of the most dangerous traits of a toxic person is controlling behavior. They may try to restrict you from contacting your friends or family, or limit resources like transportation or access to money to restrict your ability to interact with the world around you.

If you're in an enmeshed relationship with your mother, you'll often go out of your way to please your mother. You'll sacrifice your own needs and those of your partner. For instance, if your mother wants you to drive to her house in the middle of the night, you will leave your partner alone and do so.

What does parental enmeshment look like? ›

Enmeshed families tend to look to each other for support and solutions to problems, instead of turning to “outsiders.” This habit may stunt their growth as individuals because they often don't learn healthy communication or conflict resolution skills.

A codependent parent is often threatened by a child's success, or the parent may live vicariously through their children to meet a need that was never met in their own childhood. This creates a toxic dependence on the parent in the child and a need to always please him or her.

Effects of Enmeshment

People who grow up in enmeshed families often struggle to develop a sense of identity and may suffer from low self-esteem. They also may avoid taking healthy risks and may be reluctant to try new things.

Enmeshment is a form of emotional abuse. Living through any kind of abuse can lead to mental health issues. Some common mental illnesses that are connected to enmeshment include depression, anxiety, substance misuse, and eating disorders.

“Someone in an enmeshed relationship is overly connected and needs to meet the other person's needs so badly that they lose touch with their own needs, goals, desires, and feelings,” explains Roberts. “Often, just the thought of being without the person can be anxiety-producing.”

Enmeshment is common in narcissistic families because the parent often needs to be in control and will not allow their children to have their own autonomy. The total lack of boundaries between parent and child can lead to feelings of insecurity, a loss of identity, and resentment towards the controlling parent.

Enmeshment refers to the lack of self-other differentiation. An enmeshed family sometimes referred to as a chaotic family, is characterized by a lack of a clear family boundary between the parent and the child^​3​. The relational boundaries between them are fused and blurred.