What Is Enmeshment?
All human beings are driven by the balance between two fundamental life forces: individuality and togetherness. We all have the desire to be an autonomous individual in our own right and the drive to belong and connect with others.
Healthy and mature relationships balance these two drives well. In enmeshed relationships, however, togetherness is favored over individuality. There is too much closeness, which often impacts the healthy and development of the individuals in the relationship.
In enmeshment, there’s often a lack of psychological and emotional boundaries between people. They find their sense of self in each other versus in themselves. This results in an unclear distinction of self — too much “we” and not enough sense of “I” to counterbalance it.
Signs of Enmeshment
You’ll know you experience enmeshment in your relationships if:
You experience insecure attachment or lose your sense of self in any of your close relationships.
You struggle identifying who you are outside of those relationships and/or feel uncomfortable doing things alone and making decisions for yourself without the input or support of others..
You struggle with setting boundaries and/or with understanding and respecting the boundaries others set with you.
You fear the rejection and disapproval of others, so you tend to censor yourself or bend the truth to appear a certain way to others.
You find yourself taking responsibility for the psychological and emotional problems of others, or expect others to take responsibility for yours.
You find it difficult to regulate and soothe your own emotions and often reach for others to help you do so.
You find yourself often sacrificing your own wants and needs to meet the needs and demands of others.
You get swept up in groupthink and group reactivity, catching the emotions of others, taking on their thinking, and joining in automatic behaviors.
You seek validation, approval, and reassurance from others more often than providing these things for yourself.
You find yourself unconsciously copying the choices, appearance, actions, or approach of others instead of charting your own way.
You look to others for guidance and direction in life more often than trusting your own inner voice and wisdom.
How We Inherit Enmeshment
Enmeshment can be caused by a number of different experiences. Some of this is just part of being human because we evolved for a strong sense of togetherness as a social species.
So, all humans experience enmeshment with their closest connections in one form or another. What really matter is the degree of that enmeshment and how much it’s affecting the individuals in the relationships.
Enmeshment is inherited from our evolution as a social species, but also gets passed down from previous generations of our family lineage, is learned in our nuclear family, and is also influenced by our culture and society.
1. Evolutionary Context
The togetherness force evolved in our human history for a reason. Social bonds were vital for our survival in our human history. Our ability to form strong emotional bonds with each other helped our ancestors band together, share their emotions with each other as a form of communication, and react automatically to their environment.
2. Generational Transmission
Levels of enmeshment and maturity pass from generation to generation. The family you are born into has an entire legacy of enmeshment and maturity that they inherited from many generations before them. Hence, you are born into a family with a certain degree of enmeshment and a certain degree of maturity that was inherited from their own parents.
3. Nuclear Family
As babies, we are naturally born enmeshed. As we develop throughout childhood, we begin to mature and outgrow some of that enmeshment with the help of our families. However, our families can only take us as far as they have gone in their maturity.
For some of us, we can outgrow a good amount of enmeshment in our original families. Our parents were mature enough to help us leave home with a good degree of our own maturity. These are people who go on to have a healthy sense of self, and create secure attachments and balanced relationships with others.
For others, we left our families with a high degree of enmeshment and often go on to struggle with insecure attachment and imbalanced relationships in our adult relationships.
4. Culture and Society
Enmeshment can also be influenced by the different social groups we belong to throughout the course of our lives —schooling, religious communities, cultural groups, friends, and so on. Enmeshment is perpetuated by any social group that promotes togetherness over individuality.
If we belong to a culture that perpetuates enmeshment, for example, it will be even harder to develop an individual sense of identity and choose yourself over the group when necessary. But it’s possible to do so, for those who want to go on the journey.
Consequences of Enmeshment
Although some people can live fairly functional lives in enmeshed relationship, for others, it can become problematic. This can look like:
Having less energy for your own life and pursuits. You sacrifice energy and attention needed for your own pursuits.
High levels of stress and overwhelm from taking on the problems and emotions of others.
Having an unclear sense of individual purpose, personal meaning, and direction in life.
Being more susceptible to life’s stressors or to emotional decision-making.
Unstable or stagnant adult relationships and difficulty with attracting quality relationships.
Perpetuating enmeshment to future generations. What you don’t heal in yourself will inevitably be passed onto your children.
How to Work Through Enmeshment
Because enmeshment is ultimately a state of imbalanced togetherness in our relationships, the way to start working through it is to bring more balance back by nurturing your individuality and sense of self. You can do this by beginning self-differentiation work on your own, or with a coach or therapist who specializes in Bowen Family Systems, enmeshment, and self-differentiation work.