Episode #116

Family Enmeshment, Boundaries & CBT

Are you involved in your own life, or are you involved in other peoples' lives?

Your answer to this question could say a lot about the boundaries you have with your family.

Family enmeshment can be a challenge to identify and unravel yourself from.

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I discuss family enmeshment and how you can set healthy boundaries.

Click to listen now!

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi, my name is Dr. Julie, and I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Welcome to my CBT podcast!

I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

I'm pretty excited about my topic today. As I was making notes and doing some research, I actually received an email that was spot on from one of my listeners. Again, I really appreciate you guys writing in. I read, I respond. I love your different ideas that you give me. I got permission to read some of the email, and I wanted to just start off with that before we delve into the topic.

It says,

“Dear Dr. Julie,

“I listened to your boundaries episode and heard you mentioned that boundaries are about caring for yourself within the context of relationships. I've had a fairly porous boundaries, but I'm working on this area. I have a strong mom who tends to be bossy and a dad who pretty much follows her lead and really sticks up or asserts himself, himself. My mom can be overbearing and lacks self-awareness, but I know she sees herself as a sweet, loving, kind person.

“My partner has had issues with my mom's behavior, and the fallout has become a source of tension for us. My partner has asked me to be protective of her, stand up to my mom and set boundaries.”

She went on to share an example of a situation that happened when her mom was rude to her partner. She didn't apologize, and her partner's greatest injury was that neither her or her father addressed the moment and was not even appalled by it as she was. Instead, they explained and excused the behavior saying it was just how her mom is. She said she's tried to repair things, but she knows that there's still some issues lingering.

“I want to be there for my partner, but I'm just not sure how to proceed.”

She went on to ask one question that whether taking on her mom's problematic behavior on behalf of her partner is really a matter of boundary setting. Another is how much care and compassion is showed towards her mom as she tries to make her aware and call her out on things. She feels like she's going to hurt her feelings, and she'll probably get defensive. She's wondering how to walk through this difficult situation.

Then she went and asked me for some guidance or suggestions and resources to look into what would be helpful and would be greatly appreciated and then thank you.

This was perfect because like I said, I was writing my notes and talking about family enmeshment because I had another viewer send me an email asking me to do that as well. Obviously, we know this is a big issue. Let me first start off by having you ask yourself a question, which is, am I involved in my life or other people's lives? If your answer is that you're involved in other people's lives and not your own, you probably have a meshment. Having a meshment means that you have no boundaries in your life. It's a really hard behavior to decipher at times because a lot of times it's all you know. If you've been raised in a family where there's a lot of enmeshment, it can be really toxic at times too. I'm going to educate you a little bit more on what family enmeshment is, and then we'll talk about how you can use your CPT tools to make changes and help. Another question you can ask yourself is to say, Where do you end and they begin?

Sometimes there's a lot of gray there, and people don't even know where to start with that. A trait of family dysfunction involves really poorly defined or even non-existent boundaries. There are unhealthy relationship patterns, and there's this lack of independence among the family members. Children who grew up in a MES families often carry similar patterns forward into adulthood, and a lot of times they're unaware that this cycle is even perpetuating itself because like I said, a minute ago, it's all they know, and they don't even understand that it's a problem. A mesh parent struggle to let go of their children, and they may also make decisions for them, which can create feelings of anger, resentment, and guilt in the child in the long run because they don't have their own autonomy. Family members are fused together by anthe healthy emotions, and a MEShment is usually rooted in some trauma or illness. A parent may have an addiction or mental illness that others end up stepping in and taking care of them, and it's too enmeshed there. It's not the typical roles of a parent-child. And a child may have a chronic illness, so then there's a lot of care that goes on, and the parent may have to make a lot of decisions, and the parent may have to be really on top of the treatment, especially when the child's little, so it becomes enmeshed.

But obviously, it sounds like, Well, of course, a parent is going to help your child if you're ill. That's normal. That's good parenting. But to still allow that child to be an individual and to let them make some own decisions when they can and to individuallyate is really the goal. Again, it's not easy. It's not black and white. But the enmeshment is when it's just too entangled. Again, you don't even know where you in, and they begin. You just don't set boundaries in your life and you let people just do whatever, say whatever. Just like that email was such a great example that here's this mom that tends to be rude and makes comments, and then people just make excuses, and you have somebody come into your life that's like, What? That's not okay. I'm not going to sit here and put up with your mom's bad behavior because that's your pattern with her. That's not okay. Just saying that somebody is a certain way, we've all heard somebody say, Well, that's just how they are. No, I don't have a boundary with that. I'm not going to. If that's just how they are, that means I have to put up or settle with their bad behavior?

No, and I wouldn't suggest anybody else to do that. That's where we have to start understanding when it turns into this enmeshment and really unhealthy. Because there's a lack of boundaries and roles and expectations, they're all confused. What is what? And parents will be overly and inappropriately reliant on their children for support. Children aren't allowed to become emotionally independent from their parents, and they often lose their sense of identity as they grow up. Because their individuality is not valued because this parent is wanting them to be enmeshed and to be as one. There's a lot of consequences that can come from this that you can only imagine. There's a lot of mental health issues, such as personality disorders, low self-esteem, due to that lack of identity, and years of being cut down by a possessive family member. Being cut down, meaning you may have a suggestion or want to do something or have an idea. Oh, no, we're going to do it this way. Oh, that won't be good for you. Oh, let's do it my way. Okay, okay, okay. They're convincing you that their way is the right way because they love you and they're coming from a good place, but it really isn't.

The children end up having low levels of autonomy or independence and high levels of inappropriate intimacy. That's where a parent is telling a kid too much. You got to understand what the difference is being close with your kids, maybe sharing fun stories in the past or things that happen to you. But you don't have to tell your children everything, and children don't want to know everything. It doesn't mean we're super close because I tell each other everything. It's like, what's appropriate? It's your job as the adult to manage your own anxiety, your issues, not to put that on your child and then have them give you support. That's being enmeshed. Again, that's where we don't know who starts where, who's supporting who. The roles get all blurred. When a parent is oversharing about their adult problems and they want the child to validate their feelings, that's enmeshment. In volatile homes, maybe domestic violence is going on, drug abuse, whatever may be going on, the child may feel like they need to protect the parent, and they up having unhealthy loyalty to that parent, and the parent allows the child to protect them. Like maybe, Oh, go talk to your dad.

He'll listen to you. Maybe if you talk to him, he'll stop hitting me or things like that. It's all this time like, Oh, my God. Now I'm this adult that's having to try to stop this violent person so my mother can't protect me or vice versa, whatever the situation, what's going on in the house. Or a sibling might be violent towards the parents, and they're putting it on you. That's that enmeshment. It's not howhealthy, it's inappropriate, and the child's job is not to protect the parent. And if a parent notices that, a healthy parent is going to be like, No, I appreciate you wanting to help me, but I'm the adult here. I'm going to handle it, and you're going to be okay, and I'm going to take care of you. That's the response that you would want to have, even in the worst-case scenarios. The relationship obviously becomes really entangled, and the parent ends up exploiting the relationship, which is really manipulative. They exploited by the parents inappropriately relying on the child to meet their emotional needs. What's going to happen? The kid's going to feel confused, and then it ends up creating a lot of really negative core beliefs.

Core beliefs of the child thinking they're unloved, feeling abandoned, unworthy of care. I'll talk to you at the end about other podcasts I've done that address some of the issues we're talking about here. But core beliefs are developed through traumatic experiences that could be long-term or could be a one-time issue. But being in a meshed family, it's going to be long-term that this is going on and on and on, and then the child ends up developing these core beliefs, which is going to affect the rest of their lives until they get help. I know I've talked a lot about parent-child here, but let me expand on this a little bit. Again, a meshman happens when two people are over-involved with each other on an emotional level. One or both of the people may feel responsible for the other's emotions and may struggle to even recognize their own feelings. This can happen within a marriage, any committed relationship. Husband and wife, it might look very loving like, Oh, they're so connected, but they really can't move on without each other. They're so focused on each other's feelings that they don't even know their own. If you don't know your own feelings, how are you going to set boundaries for yourself and know what's healthy?

This can happen in many different relationships. I know I'm going to give a lot of examples of parent-child because I'm really talking about enmeshed families, but it can also be a messed relationship. If you're like, Well, I think things were okay here, but I can see this relationship I'm in isn't good. Just letting you know that could be what's going on. Again, if you can ask yourself, do I have boundaries in my life with others or those that I need to have boundaries with? If you don't, you're probably meshed with others. That's a starting point. Again, it's very difficult to make changes on your own and recognize this. This is one of those issues that I really would recommend some therapy because, first, your therapist can help you even explain what's going on. Going back to the example I gave when a child is protecting a parent, you can rationalize all day that, of course, I had to protect my parent. Or I was the only one that my other parent would listen to or I could handle the situation. It's very hard to be like, What? Well, was I not going to protect my parents?

Walking through all this with a therapist is going to be very important to start understanding. It's again, not black and white. It's not that to never step in and help, obviously, if someone's being hurt. But if this is the pattern and the parent had relied on you to protect them and told you intimate information about maybe your parents' marriage or things in their life that were not appropriate, that's when it's a problem. So having a therapist, a professional walk you through this and be able to say, What's normal? What isn't? What's healthy? What isn't healthy? Then you can start to figure things out and understand where can I go forward so I can make some changes and start creating some boundaries in my life. I know we have used the word boundaries a lot already in this podcast, and you're going to keep hearing them from me, but that is definitely the place to start. What's a boundary? A boundary is having limits within your relationship. A boundary is I will accept this behavior, I'm not going to accept this behavior. It starts with communicating your needs. You might say to somebody, when you feel strong enough and you're clear enough on what you do need, it might be, for example, I need you to respect my decisions or I need space to pursue my own goals.

Because if you grew up in a MES family, you're going to need to develop your own identity and then be able to say, Okay, what are the decisions I'm going to make for myself? What are my goals? The good news is healing. Like most everything out there is definitely possible with good support and making different choices and learning new ways of approaching boundaries in all of your future relationships. You can definitely heal and make really healthy choices. But you're going to have to get to that place where this does not work for me anymore. My email that I read to you guys, now it's affecting the relationship. I don't know if that relationship will survive if changes aren't made. Another term, we've used like a mama's boy. There's another example, right? You get into a relationship with someone who what's a mama's boy? They're always going to their mom for advice. They let their mom tell them what to do. You're a grown man, for example, Oh, well, we're going to do it this way because that's what my mom suggested. Or they're not supposed to be a third person. You always have your mom in your life somehow or over at the house, and your partner comes home and thinking, Oh, I just want a nice night with my partner tonight.

I'm like, Oh, there's the parent again, or there's the family member. They're just always involved, always involved. There's no boundaries to say, Hey, me and my partner are just going to have time together tonight and to make that okay. The parent will make you feel guilty, and you end up feeling like there's a third person in the relationship. If there is a third, that's a problem, too. That's a way for you to say, Yeah, they're not supposed to be a third person. We're not in this relationship. That's not where we're choosing, right? That's an example. I know of relationships where there's been that dynamic of a mama's boy, and it'll make or break a relationship for sure. For sure. That's an example of you growing up within a MESH family, you don't realize it. You go and get to a new relationship. That whole family, you guys are all still a MESHed, and everybody thinks we're just loving each other until somebody else comes in and says, This isn't okay. I'm not okay with that. I have boundaries. You don't. We're going to have to work on this or it's not going to last. Just being frank.

What is healthiness? What is closeness? Closeness in a family is emotional intimacy and caring with healthy boundaries. Again, healthy boundaries are limits we set with others to let others know what type of behaviors we're willing to accept and what we're not willing to accept. If you've never set boundaries, I'm feeling it for you. I have a lot of empathy. It is not easy. It's scary. Why is it scary? Because others aren't going to like it. The people you're in mesh with are going to push back. They're going to be angry. They're going to make you feel guilty. Don't you love me? We always do it this way. You're going to let this new person come in your life and get in the way? What does that say about us? I'm your mother. I'm your mother. Right? You have to really be clear and steadfast and really create that identity and that self-worth that I can still love my parents and I can still have a healthy relationship. Again, if you've never set boundaries for yourself, I'm asking you to be patient and give yourself some grace and just taking some baby steps at the beginning.

Some baby steps where you say, Okay, maybe a baby step is just saying, Hey, this relationship really isn't healthy for me anymore, and this is how I see it, and I need to make some changes. I still love you, but I'm working on things. I'm going to take it one step at a time. That might be your first boundary is just letting them know you're working on this. Again, it's going to be tough. I talk about in my podcast you guys can listen to on Boundaries, is that you have to be prepared that people are going to push back. Because when you have an enmeshed relationship, that other person most likely likes it and benefits from it. When you start setting boundaries, they're going to push back. That you have to be ready for and not to give in. Because I think the most important thing with setting boundaries is to be consistent. Be consistent. As soon as you give in, you just lost that boundary. You're going to have to start all over again. They're not going to be, Oh, yeah, she had this boundary for a while, and then she stopped. So if I keep pushing, I make her feel guilty, she'll probably change things.

That it's really important to stay steadfast, so you have to really be ready. That's why I think getting professional help and coming up with the plan and role-playing with your therapist and making it comfortable. Your therapist can bring up all these possible things that the other person will say. What if they say this? What if they say that? You can role play with your therapist and really have a plan of action. Remember what I mentioned earlier as well that you might not even know the difference and thought that you were just really close. But you got to remember that true intimacy, true closeness allows you to be your true self, not giving into somebody else. Boundaries are about freely making choices about your life, your life. A couple of steps, and then I'm going to get a little more specific with some CBT, is what are some steps to get started? One is to obviously set boundaries. Another one is you really got to work through your issues of guilt. Because like I said, guilt is going to be a huge factor here, probably from the other side and even from your side, because you're thinking maybe you're not being loyal anymore and you're going to feel probably very confused.

Working through your feelings of guilt. If you're working with The Mind Over Mood book, chapter 15 is on anger, guilt, and shame. That's a good chapter. I also do have a podcast on guilt you can listen to. Another step is recognizing your own autonomy. What does that look like for you to be autonomous, to be feeling good about the choices you're making, feeling positive about yourself, knowing you're making the right decisions, even if other people aren't going to like them? Another step is to start communicating your needs. Like my example I gave earlier about that I need some space to pursue my own goals, that's a need. I need you to respect my decisions, that's a need. So what are your needs? Not to maybe say to the parent, if they call a couple of times a day, I need you to maybe just call me once a day at this point. I need you to let me know before you just stop in. I need you to respect the relationship I'm in now. That's communicating your needs. You also want to work on developing your identity. Who am I? I've always been their daughter.

Or maybe I've always been their husband or their wife, their partner. Who am I? You want to figure that out, work through that. Again, I'm going to talk about my CBT stuff in a second because that'll really help with working on that goal. Then another one, which I've said already, is just getting support. Not just through a therapist, but through friends, other family members that might feel the same way, have experienced this relationship, and see if they can give you support. In this particular email, she shared that her dad wasn't going to give her support, and he just goes along probably to keep the peace as my guess. That's not a person she can go to. But if there's siblings, if there's aunts, uncles, cousins, other people have some good insight and they'd be like, Oh, yeah, I've always seen your mom like that. I didn't know what to do. I just try to be there for you. That thing. They could be the people to talk to to get support and have others acknowledged that what you're saying is true and they understand what you're going through. I hope so far you're understanding what is a meshman, what does it look like.

Now, as always, we need to have some tools to make some changes. I just shared with you guys a bunch of steps you can get started. Let's go back to the fall record, because that's a great tool to always use to be able to understand what's going on and understanding the behaviors. I always accentuate to everyone. It's cognitive behavioral therapy. It's not just cognitive therapy, the kind that I do at least, CBT. There's a lot of behavior changes going on here when we want to start changing the relationships. We want to be clear on what it is, which is our thoughts, and then what am I going to do? A lot of times, we can change behaviors quicker than thoughts. Behavior might be, if you say to, I'm just going to make it simple for us here. Let's say it's a child and mother relationship. If you say to your mom, the behaviors that I need you to just start calling once a day, I need you to let me know when you want to come over. That's just a quick behavior change. You can do that pretty quick if you're ready. If you're not even clear on how to handle everything yet.

If you feel like I got to do something today because it's really affecting my life, those are some steps you can start taking. But if we do a thought record, we would first look at what's the situation. Let's just use these emails and... Let's use this email as an example. Here's this, the family's over. The mom says something rude to her partner. Everyone just ignores it and doesn't say anything. There's a situation. The person that wrote the email, this is the child, not to confuse you guys, this is the child, and she is feeling hurt, scared, frustrated, confused, anxious, maybe even overwhelmed. Lots of moods going on. And then we want to say, What are your thoughts? I'm going to just assume what her thoughts are here. Her thoughts will be like, I don't even know where to start. My mother will never change. I can't really do anything about this. I'm not sure how to support my partner. I'm scared it's going to ruin the relationship. I don't think I can handle the stress. What if my mom decides not to talk to me and my father doesn't support me? Does that mean I'm not going to have a family anymore?

Do I have to pick one over the other? These are all the questions. If you're using Mind Over Mood book in column three, where you write down your thoughts, there's seven, eight questions, and I'm basically answering these questions. This helps you really get down to those automatic thoughts and identify the ha thoughts. Most of them, I just said to you right now are ha. I think they all are ha, actually. They're not a hundred % true, but they're really fueling these strong emotions that she's going to be having, really having to address this for the first time in her life. Without telling her age, she is a senior, I would say, citizen. This is her whole life. This is like part of her DNA, dealing with her mom. Of course, she's going to have all these scary thoughts and being scared on how to handle it. We can identify the thought is my mom will never change. That's a good one. What's the evidence for that? She's always been this way. This is just the way she is. She doesn't listen to any other person's feedback. That's true. But the evidence that doesn't support that thought that she'll never change is I've never addressed this with her.

I've never set boundaries with her. I've never explained to her how her behavior affects me and how it's not working for me anymore. I think there's evidence, too, that the relationship is close enough and important enough that if she's consistent, her mom will work with what she needs because she's not going to want to lose the relationship. What would be a more balanced alternative thought is that although my mom's always been this way, I've never even addressed this with her. If I can work this through with her and let her still know I love her, but I need to have boundaries in my life, most likely we can work things out. There's your thought record. There's your new alternative thought. We don't know if it's 100% true, because now the behavior changes have to come in. The behavior changes in this situation are boundaries. I know all of this can sound pretty overwhelming, especially if it's been going on for all of your life, most of your life, if you've just identified it. Again, let's just take small steps. Identifying it is a step, deciding if you want to address it is a step, and what's that going to look like?

Boundaries change, right? They're not set in stone once you start them. Some might be, but again, they change where you're going to just start setting small boundaries. As you get more confident and you see that you can do this, and then if you're consistent, and if you communicate well using I statements, I need this. I need you to respect this. I need you to give me space. I need to take some time away. I need to start managing this relationship differently. Using the I statements is you taking responsibility for the changes you want to make and will increase again your confidence in yourself knowing you can do this and you can do this. But you probably do need support, whether it's professionally or through friends or other family members. Sometimes we just need someone to say, Yeah, you're right. It's okay. You have a right to do this. Even if we know in our heart, it's just good to hear from others. We all need support in our lives. Again, I would just start asking yourself my first question, do I have boundaries in my life? And if I don't, then I have some enmeshed relationships.

It's not just for me to change, but it's going to help the rest of my life, my children. I don't want to continue this. To understand again, what's the line between being close to somebody and being enmeshed, that's a toughie, that we need a process that we need to really work through. That's where the thought records can help. Also doing what we call the double standard technique is if somebody shared with you their story of an enmeshed relationship, what would your advice be to them? Usually, we have really good advice for other people to be for ourselves, but I always tell everybody, Whatever your answer is for someone else most likely is your answer. If you'd be like, No, that wasn't okay. You should have spoke up for your partner when your mom was rude, then that's your answer. Sometimes doing that double standard and understanding how we would support someone else is a good step for us to start going forward. I would say most people probably have experienced this on some level. It doesn't even mean you're a mesh, but you might have met somebody to try to get a mesh with you and you're like, Oh, I don't like this.

They might have been like, Oh, yeah, I ended that relationship pretty quick, or I wasn't okay with this. It just was automatic like, That's not healthy. That's not how I want to be, because hopefully you didn't grow up in a relationship like that. I look back on my relationship growing up with my dad that I know I've shared with you guys my parents divorced. I was eight years old. My mom moved away, and my dad raised me, and my brother, and my sister. I'd see my mom once a year. But my dad was so great at really keeping that parent-child relationship. Never talked poorly about my mom to me, allowed that relationship to be what it was. My relationship with him was just typical daughter-father relationship, him having boundaries with me or rules, I guess. Maybe didn't like, but he never shared his struggles when I was growing up after their divorce and all that he had to deal with, I wasn't aware of, which is how it should be. It wasn't my burden to bear. He went and got support. He went and talked to a social worker. I found out years later and talking to friends and wanted to make sure he was going to be a good parent and he was able to keep that boundary.

I never felt like I had to take care of his needs because of what happened with our family breaking up. It was really difficult. That's what's healthy. That's what's healthy. I'm grateful for that, that he was able to still be a parent to me and manage his own issues and his own stressors and get the appropriate care. I can look back and that was a really good example for me. I hope you have good examples in your life you can look at. If you don't, that's again, where some help could come in, where someone can... You can learn what is a healthy relationship and what feels good. Again, I can't cover everything in this podcast because I know there's just so many layers of emotions that if you're really having to step away, it might take a few times before you get comfortable, or it may take a few times where you set boundaries and you see that person still trying to hold on. Sometimes you need other people in your life again, as support to say, No, that's really manipulative. That's not you helping. That's her being manipulative. That's him being manipulative. Be open to what other people say, and it can really be a life-changer for you to explore who you are, create your own identity, have healthy boundaries, and feel good about yourself, and to be able to start changing those negative core beliefs that have been developed by being in this toxic, enmeshed family relationship.

I hope I got you thinking. As I talked, I just thought, Oh, wow, I could go on for a long time with this one because there's so many layers. But that's where you want to go seek some help, get in the Mind Over Mood book, Feeling Great. All those Cognitive Behavioral Therapy books that I recommend can be super helpful. I have so many podcasts. Again, just to review, I have one on boundaries, I have one on guilt, I have one on healthy communication. Those would be some ones to maybe get started with and start thinking how to incorporate that into making changes. If you want to understand more about one of the core beliefs, I also have one on core beliefs where I share my own personal story and how changing that just changed my life, as well as my CBT tools that I use. There's lots of resources. Please, as always, reach out. If I didn't answer something or you're confused, or you got a question, or you want some direction, I've made a lot of updates on my website. I have a blog that comes out every other week now. I have resources on where to find CBT therapists in your area if I'm not able to work with you and you reach out.

I am able to work with you if you live in California, Washington State, Colorado, and South Carolina. Those are other places that I'm licensed in. But you can always reach out. I have helped many people find other therapists in their area. I'm here for you guys no matter what you need. Right? What was my intention in starting this podcast I told you at the beginning is to just teach people CBT, empower you, change your lives, be happier, have more peace, and have tools. When things come up, you're going to know what to do, and that's going to just help you reach the goals that you're working for in your life. You're all super courageous. The fact you're listening to me, and you give feedback, and you listen, and you say, Yeah, I take notes, and I practice, and I share this with people like, you're all courageous, you're all so brave, and you can do whatever you choose to do and make the changes you can make. I'm here to tell you that because it's just important. Don't minimize like, Well, that's just how life is, or, That's just what I should have done. It takes courage to make changes in your life.

You all have enough courage because you're here with me and you're trying to make a difference in your life.

Remember, make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.

Again, you guys know how to reach me. You can find me on my website at mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

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Keep sharing your thoughts, your concerns, your questions. I love hearing from you guys. Again, please pass this along to others and subscribe. Any reviews you can give me would be helpful to get the word out more.

Keep taking care of yourselves. Until next time.