Enmeshed mother son
11 Mother-son enmeshment signs - PsychMechanics
Enmeshed families are families where there are no psychological and emotional boundaries between the family members. The family members seem to be psychologically enmeshed or fused together.1
While enmeshment can occur in any relationship, it’s common in parent-child, especially mother-son relationships.2
The enmeshed child fails to develop a separate identity from their parent. They’re exactly like their parent.
Healthy vs. enmeshed families
Being close to your family members is not enmeshment. You could be very close to your family members while still maintaining an identity of your own.
In enmeshed families, family members have no boundaries, and they keep invading each other’s space. They keep over-interfering in each other’s lives. They live each other’s lives.
In parent-child enmeshment, the parent sees the child as an extension of themselves. The child exists only to meet the needs of the parent.
Mother-son enmeshment
When a mother is enmeshed with her son, the son becomes a mamma’s boy. He’s exactly like his mother. He has no separate life, identity, or values.
The enmeshed son cannot separate from her mother even as an adult. In his attempt to cater to his mother, he’s likely to ruin his career and romantic relationships.
Let’s look at the signs of mother-son enmeshment to get a clear picture of what it looks like. You’re likely looking at mother-son enmeshment if you see most of these signs in a mother-son relationship.
I have listed these signs assuming you’re a son suspecting you might be in an enmeshed mother-son relationship.
1. You’re the center of your mother’s world
If you’re the most important person in your mother’s life, you’re likely in an enmeshed relationship with her. Ideally, her partner should be the most important person in her life.
If she has said that you’re her ‘favorite’ or ‘best friend’, this is a red flag for enmeshment.
2. Your mother only cares about her needs
In parent-child enmeshment, the parent believes the child exists only to serve the parent’s needs. This is pure selfishness, but the enmeshed child, blinded by enmeshment, cannot see it.
An enmeshed mother wants her son to be there for her at all times and can’t handle separation. If he wants to leave town for education or a career, she’ll insist he stay and not ‘leave the nest’.
3. She can’t stand you being different from her
If you’re enmeshed with your mother, you have her personality. You talk like her and have the same beliefs as her. If you were to differ from your mother in any way, she wouldn’t be able to stand it.
She’d guilt you for being your own person, calling you disobedient or the family’s black sheep.
4. She doesn’t respect your (non-existent) boundaries
It’s mainly because the boundary between you and your mother is blurred. That’s what enmeshment is. You hardly have a boundary with her, and she almost lives your life.
She over-interferes in every minor issue concerning you. She invades your personal space and asks you to share the most intimate details about your life with her. Things you don’t feel comfortable sharing with her.
She doesn’t want you to keep anything secret from her. She wants to be involved in everything you do, making you feel suffocated.
5. She keeps you dependent on her
Your enmeshed mother wants you to remain dependent on her, so she can keep depending on you. She does things for you that you, being an adult, should be doing yourself.3
For instance, she cleans up after you and does your dishes and laundry. She gives you money to buy things even though you could easily buy those things yourself.
6. She competes with your girlfriend/wife
Your girlfriend or wife is the number one threat to your mother’s position as the most important person in your life. So, your mother sees your girlfriend or wife as a competition.
She comes between you and your partner.
She makes decisions for you and your partner that your partner should be making, or at least should have a say in.
Of course, this makes your partner feel alienated, and she feels like you’re married to your mother, not her. She feels insecure in her relationship with you.4
In worst cases, this competition takes an ugly turn where your enmeshed mother criticizes and puts your partner down. Being the enmeshed son you are, you do nothing about it and don’t take a stand for your partner.
7. She wants you to prioritize her over your partner
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. Even if, later, it turns out there was no emergency.
Your enmeshed mother will test your commitment to her this way to ensure you’ll serve her first and foremost.
8. You have commitment issues
You’re likely to have commitment issues in your romantic relationships if you’re enmeshed with your mother. You can’t commit to anyone but your mother.
Your mother-son enmeshment leaves no room for you to show commitment in your romantic relationships. As a result, you might find it challenging to sustain your romantic relationships.
9. You lash out at your partner
Enmeshment is suffocating. Your resentment against your mother piles up over time. But because you can’t go against your divine mother, you’re helpless to do anything about it.
You then unleash all that resentment on your partner, an easy target. You feel suffocated in your romantic relationship, but this suffocation actually stems from your mother-son enmeshment.
Your desire to escape your mother-son enmeshment takes the shape of your desire to escape from your romantic relationship. You blame your partner for suffocating and smothering you when it’s your mother you should be blaming.
10. Your father is distant
Fathers are known to be distant. But, in your case, your mother-son enmeshment has likely contributed to it. Because you’re so busy catering to your mother, you hardly had any time or energy left to connect with your father.
11. You lack assertiveness
Your dynamic with your enmeshed mother spills over to how you relate to people in general. Since you don’t know who you are and what you want, you find it hard to express and assert yourself.
You put others’ needs and feelings before your own. You become docile and do nothing even if people take advantage of you- exactly the dynamic of your mother-son enmeshment.
References
- Barber, B. K., & Buehler, C. (1996). Family cohesion and enmeshment: Different constructs, different effects. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 433-441.
- Hann-Morrison, D. (2012). Maternal enmeshment: The chosen child. SAGE Open, 2(4), 2158244012470115.
- Bradshaw, J. (1989). Our families, ourselves: The consequences of codependency. Lear’s, 2(1), 95-98.
- Adams, K. M. (2007). When he’s married to mom: How to help mother-enmeshed men open their hearts to true love and commitment. Simon and Schuster.
Hanan Parvez( Author )
Hi, I’m Hanan Parvez (MBA, MA Psychology), founder and author of PsychMechanics. PsychMechanics has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Reader’s Digest, and Entrepreneur. Feel free to contact me if you have a query.
Mother Son Enmeshment Signs - Bestdevlife
Our family background has a significant impact on whom we are. This impact could be positive or negative. Respectively it could help you to become healthy or unhealthy. But family is not everything in life. You can still change. Be a better person. That’s why it is helpful to know mother-son enmeshment signs.
What did we mean by mother-son enmeshment signs?The common characteristic of an enmeshed family is their lack of healthy boundaries.
Everything goes in the opposite direction in this kind of family.
Normally, parents take care of their children. But in an enmeshed family, they expect their children to take care of them. There is no boundary to what a person should do. They don’t understand each other.
This kind of behavior is not good for children. A family shouldn’t be run by parents’ emotions. Everyone in a family has the responsibility for their emotions. Anyone cannot force them into someone.
You can be in a family like this. It is worth knowing that and taking the right actions to change that. Do you think your mother and you are in an enmeshed relationship? Check mother-son enmeshment signs to make sure.
- What did we mean by mother-son enmeshment signs?
- Son exists to meet his mother’s needs
- Son can’t do it without his mother
- Don’t be like those other people
- It’s selfish to have your dreams apart from your mother
- Don’t trust yourself
- You need her to rescue you
Now we explain them one by one.
This is probably the most common and worst sign among signs of mother-son enmeshment. Did you ever feel in your life that you are doing what your mother wants you to do? If yes this is the green sign for you.
Parents are responsible for teaching their children disciplines. But not how they should live. This whole thing leads children to lose self-identity. After growing up they do not know what to do with their life.
A mother should have a boundary regarding what she expects from her children. A healthy boundary that doesn’t destroy their future. So don’t exist only to meet your mother’s needs.
Son can’t do it without his motherThis is another way of keeping children to fulfill parents’ needs. Kids gain abilities as they grow up. They can do many things without their mother. They should know how to do things without their parents. Otherwise, they will make trouble as adults.
It is true for very young kids (Under 3 years). But wrong for grown-ups. This not keeping children safe. This is using children. If you saw these mother-son enmeshment signs, don’t think you are nothing without your mother. Try to do things by yourself. Making mistakes is normal but try not to repeat them.
Don’t be like those other peopleSometimes mothers in enmeshed families say similar things like that. They want kids to do it the way they do it. But can a mother’s way be always the right way? I don’t think so.
This behavior is bad in many ways. It discourages a child’s decision-making skills. Something that will be essential for them in the future. Mothers do this because they hate someone. Hatred is not good for children.
Children must be unique. They don’t necessarily follow their parents blindly. Respect kids and their choices. If you think they are wrong try to explain what is wrong rather than forcing them to follow you.
A destructive sign of a child’s future. Kids follow their dreams. They often achieve them if they have courage and proper guidance. But sometimes mother-son enmeshment ruins it.
Mother-son relationships are very different from one culture to another. We see these mother-son enmeshment signs often in Asian families. Their parents want the child to become a Doctor, Engineer, or some other they want. But kids want to go on a different path. Some parents think it is a selfish act. But what they don’t realize how bad is forcing children to do something they don’t like because of selfish reasons.
Don’t trust yourselfThis is not something a mother should tell her young son. Especially school kids. Whatever they do, they have to trust themself. They have to become someone they can trust. Saying this is a great way to destroy a child’s dreams.
Did you know pulp fiction director Quentin Tarantino decided not to give any penny to his mother from his successful carrier? The reason behind this is a sarcastic insult she did when Tarantino is young. She said “this little writing career that you’re doing” in a sarcastic way. He said he stuck to his word during the podcast The Moment With Brian Koppelman.
We don’t know whether Quentin and her mother had an enmeshed relationship. But saying things that make kids lose trust in themself is bad. It could have been a motivation for him. But not for everyone. That is why every parent should know their words has consequences.
You need her to rescue youShe means if you get in trouble you require her involvement. This is another way of saying you can’t do it without your mother. But that is the opposite of what they should do. Here is why this negatively affects on child’s life.
Whoever saying this must assume you get into trouble in the first place.
So it is a huge discouragement. But making children over depend on parents is worst than discouragement.
A mother should teach her child to take care of their body, and how to handle situations very well. Not just make them depend on you without boundaries.
Wrapping things up for mother-son enmeshment signsHealthy boundaries are the main characteristic of healthy family background. Rescuing, Possessiveness, Criticism, Parentification, and discouragement is all you get in an enmeshed family. Mother-son enmeshment signs help to identify toxic behavior. Both of them together can create healthy boundaries and ultimately achieve a healthy relationship.
Mom and son filmed a confusing detective about the theft of a duck
A humorous video about a son who stole food from his mother's plate and tried to hide it became popular on Twitter. The authors turned a family sketch into an exciting detective drama with references to history and memes.
Viewers have already compared the video with the films Mission: Impossible and Parasite, but most importantly, they are sure that it is very funny.
A twitter account called travel shares various weird and funny videos without any captions or explanations. For example, a cute video with a monkey that mom does not allow to communicate with a person.
But one of the videos caught the viewers' attention when it was retweeted by another twitter user ? v. In a December 29 post, he called the video the most frightening scene in cinematic history.
This atmosphere.
This music.
This is voltage.
This is a minor display of emotion.
All to create the most brutal and frightening scene ever filmed.
The captivating plot of the video is easy to retell, but only at first glance. At the beginning of the scene, the mother of the family is preparing lunch or dinner, and her son is waiting nearby in the kitchen.
When a woman puts a dish of poultry on the table (judging by the long neck, it is a duck) and leaves to cook further, the son does not have enough patience to wait for her return, and he secretly begins to eat himself.
Now the duck is missing a whole piece, and it needs to be somehow replenished so that mother does not guess anything. The young man makes several distracting maneuvers: he turns off the gas in the house, puts a dog treat on the floor to attract the dog, and for some reason leaves a candle nearby. Oddly enough, it all works, but in the end, the mother returns to cooking.
In the extra time the guy has won, he manages to bake something resembling the part of the duck he ate. It looks almost convincing, because in the end mom doesn’t notice anything. And so that she does not suspect fraud, after tasting this piece, the son files her chopsticks. As a result, the forged piece slips out and flies into the trash.
It would seem that the prank was a success, but it wasn't there: the mother notices something, which makes her start to suspect that something was wrong.
Further, under the famous soundtrack to the film "Mission Impossible" with Tom Cruise, something difficult to explain, but very similar to a cool spy thriller, begins to happen.
Wanting to expose her son, the mother even resorts to tests in the laboratory, which she conducts herself, pulling a suspicious piece of duck out of the trash can.
The ending is even more surreal: after getting to the bottom of the truth, the mother approaches her son, armed with a fork and for some reason dressed in a traditional Chinese costume.
A strange viral video received instant approval from users. In response to the post, it was even called the last good content of the outgoing 2010s.
Some of the jokes in the replays were about how unrealistic this scene was.
Basically, users have a lot of questions. Someone asked what was going on in this video.
Nevertheless, viewers were able to decipher some moments of the video.
For example, one person explained why Mom changed into a traditional costume at the end, a reference to a popular Chinese character who promises torture.
But even those viewers who understood the content still had questions.
For the heat of passion and the atmosphere in the replays, the video began to be compared with a real movie. For example, with the sensational Korean detective film Parasite, which was released in 2019.
And someone even thinks that this story is worthy of the classics - even such a cult detective series as "Colombo".
No one in the replies to the tweet ever pointed to the author of the video. However, in the travel account that originally posted it, you can find a few more sketches with these characters. In one of them, the son again tries to deceive his mother in order to get money from the piggy bank.
If we compare the gorgeous video with the film "Parasite", it is worth remembering that Hideo Kojima called the film his favorite of the novelties of the outgoing year.
Just do not rush to limit yourself to the game designer's list, because, while compiling it, he forgot a lot.
Another tweeter admitted that this video is cooler than any Rewind. It is quite possible that this is true, because the final videos from YouTube have been criticized by everyone for several years in a row. To fix everything, PewDiePie released his own Rewind - with the best memes and bloggers from 2019, and judging by the reaction of the audience, he succeeded.
"You will never find him" The mother hid her son and committed suicide. Eight years later, all of America wonders where he is . In early April, the missing boy showed up, but turned out to be an impostor. The tangled story of Timmothy Pitsen - in the material "Lenta.ru".
"You'll never find him" was the first line of a suicide note that police found in a hotel room in Rockford, Illinois, on the morning of May 14, 2011. It was written by Amy Fry-Pitsen, the mother of six-year-old Timmothy, who has not been seen since she picked him up from school three days before his suicide.
Timmothy was not with her mother when her body was found. Amy wrote that her son was safe and with people to take care of him. After almost eight years, for some time it seemed that the missing boy would still return to his family - April 3, 2019a young man from Newport, Kentucky, told the police that his name was Timothy Pitsen.
This news has attracted a new wave of attention to the case of the mysterious disappearance of a boy who was looking for the whole country.
Jim Pitsen: "I love you, be good"
The Pitsen family was an average middle-class family from Aurora, Illinois. Like everyone, they had problems. Amy and her husband Jim were experiencing difficulties in their relationship, but Jim could not even imagine what another quarrel would result in. Shortly before the disappearance of Timmothy, they often quarreled: Amy chose to spend her birthday with her friend, leaving her husband alone.
With three divorces behind her, Amy threatened her husband that their marriage, one way or another, would soon come to an end.
A few years ago, the woman had already tried to commit suicide, and after that she took antidepressants for a long time
Relatives suspected that Amy's mental problems were connected with her obsessive fear that Jim would forever take her son from her in the event of a divorce. After all, the court, given the attempted suicide of the mother, is unlikely to entrust her with custody of the child.
On the morning of May 11, 2011, Jim drove Timmothy to school. He waited a moment while the boy walked towards the caregiver, waving his Spider-Man briefcase. “I love you, be good,” he said to his son at parting.
Half an hour later, Amy took the boy out of school, citing family circumstances. CCTV footage captured Amy and Timmothy leaving school at 8:30.
Jim only found out about this when he returned for his son at the end of the school day. He hurried to find out what was the matter, but Amy was not at home, the answering machine answered the phone calls. The next morning, Amy and Timmothy Pitsen were reported missing.
Amy Fry-Pitsen: "Timmothy belongs to me"
Amy never answered her husband's calls after her disappearance. But she contacted her mother, telling her that she and Timmothy needed to rest for a couple of days, and soon they would return home.
She also called Jim's brother: "We're all right," she said. And firmly added: "Timmothy belongs to me."
While friends and family searched everywhere for them, Amy and Timmothy took a mini-vacation: they went to the zoo near Chicago, to the water park in Gurney, and then went to a resort in Wisconsin. Judging by the data from the security cameras, Timmothy behaved like a normal child, played with the truck and did not experience any stress or fear.
Timmothy was last seen on cameras at 10 am on May 13, 2011, as he and his mother drove out of the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin. At 8 pm that same day, Amy was seen shopping in Rockford. The boy was no longer with her.
She entered the hotel at 11:15 pm. The next morning, the maid found her dead in her room.
A syringe and a razor were found next to her body.
Only two words are written on Amy's tombstone: "Loving mother." Relatives and friends recall that she adored her child. She named him "Timmothy" with two Ms as she wanted him to always feel special.
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“She adored this little boy, and he loved her back,” Amy's mother recalls about the relationship between her grandson and daughter.
The police were trying to find out what Amy was doing during the last days of her life. They soon came to the conclusion that the woman had been planning to kidnap the boy for a long time. She had made several trips to Sterling in the month before the incident, and no one could say why.
Despite massive police efforts and extensive media coverage of the boy's disappearance, Timmothy's case remains unsolved and the police have no clue.
In 2015, a Florida resident called the police department. He said that there was a boy in his area who looked very much like Timmothy.
He never went to school, and his parents avoided socializing with new people. The man also added that his neighbors moved to Florida immediately after the Pitsen family was talked about across the country. The detectives soon determined that this boy, despite a very strong resemblance, was still not Timmothy.
The boy's father, Jim, often recalls that Timmothy knew how to call 911. Jim puzzles over what his mother could have said to his son so that he would not still try to contact his father.
Timmothy always had a special identification card with his full name, photo and fingerprints, which could help the police find his parents in case the boy got lost. This card was found in a hotel room, next to his mother's body.
All these years Jim Pitsen believes that his son is alive. He does not stop hoping and continues to build a treehouse in his yard. Timmothy always dreamed of such a house.
On April 3, when the police announced that someone in Kentucky was calling himself Timmothy Pitsen, Jim's world was turned upside down.
Newly awakened hope
In the early morning of April 3, a teenager ran up to a woman on the street asking her to call the rescue service. She recalls: “He said that he was kidnapped and sold to some people ... He just wanted to go home. He needed help."
A youth claimed to have escaped two kidnappers in the Cincinnati area and then ran across a bridge into Kentucky. According to him, for the past seven years he was held in the Red Roof Hotel. He described his captors in detail: two white men, one with a spider web tattoo on his neck, the other with a snake tattoo on his arm.
Detectives immediately went to Cincinnati, but found absolutely nothing that would match the teenager's words.
Alana Anderson, Timmothy's grandmother, upon hearing the news that her grandson had been found, could hardly hold back her tears: “We never forgot, we never stopped thinking about him every day, we were in constant contact with the police. We just prayed that when he got a little older, he would be able to contact us himself - that's all I dreamed about all this time.
The last time she saw her grandson was when he was six years old. When asked if Timmothy recognized her, she replied, "I hope so."
But these hopes did not come true. The very next day, DNA testing showed that the probability that the teenager is Timmothy Pitsen is zero.
His real name is Brian Michael Reaney. He is far from 14 years old, but 23, and most recently he was released from prison in Ohio, where he spent the last year and a half.
Brian Michael Reaney
Photo: Hamilton County Sheriff's Office
When word got out about the impostor in Aurora, Timmothy's hometown, local police promised to keep looking for him: "While we are disappointed that this all turned out to be a hoax, we are still diligently looking for Timmothy."
Timmothy's family members also hope that one day they will meet him again. “We know you are out there somewhere, Tim, and we will never stop looking for you, praying for you and loving you,” said Cara Jacobs, the boy’s aunt.
“We hope everyone will join in our prayers for the young man who has identified himself as Timmothy Pitsen.”
The boy's grandmother could hardly hold back her tears, trying to cope with her emotions: “It was terrible. We were full of hope, scared... It made us very tired.” She is also warm to the impostor and hopes that he can find his family soon.
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However, Brian Reaney is unlikely to have a happy ending. He faces charges for lying to detectives, which could result in a prison term of up to eight years. His brother Jonathan reported that Brian had already impersonated other people for selfish purposes.
He learned about Timmothy Pitsen from a TV show and immediately envied the love his family had for the boy. The impostor explained that he just wanted to get away from his own family. He always dreamed of a father like Timmothy, because if he goes missing, then his alcoholic father will only continue to drink. Brian's brother claims that he has mental disorders - Asperger's syndrome and bipolar disorder, but they could not prevent the attacker from acting rationally.
