(This video belongs to Seeking Integrity and Jon Taylor of White Pine Recovery. Taylor works with Dr. Ken Adams, a pioneer in the phere of mother-enmeshment. I’ve compiled a few clips of his recent video for this blog post. Many thanks to all for putting this material into the recovery community. Please check out their websites and ascribe them for this video content.)

Please excuse my crude video tactics and the poor audio. I’ve recorded clips of this excellent video from Seeking Integrity. You’ll certainly want to see the entire video. Don’t miss Part 1 either.

Jon Taylor does a masterful job of drawing attention to the crux of the attachments wounds in enmeshed addicts and how this affects their inability to partner or care sincerely for a mate. This is critical to understand, in particular, for nice guys or christian men in recovery because they can “do the things” while still missing the key components of intimate partnership. They can go to church and look the part, go to therapy, do recovery, be very nice to their spouse while not really “having their spouse’s back” in any real way. Author Sue Johnson says attachment means “do you come when I call?” Many addicts can get some parts of life very right – they believe in God, provide financially, take their wife on dates. They’re a delightful person in many aspects. Yet they rip the heart out of their marriage by breaking the most sacred agreements in the marriage (sexual fidelity) and real heart care for their partner. They lie and hide very pertinent information from their spouse. They can even breeze through a recovery process without ever making their wife feel seen or loved. It should hurt to hurt the person you love. If it doesn’t, why not?

Notes from the video clips:

(clip 1) Kids who are enmeshed in their family system HAD to perform for another but they couldn’t share their needs or wants. Enmeshed kids, often living in rigid family systems, can’t share their heart or be seen with their vulnerabilities or imperfections. Therefore in marriage, they don’t understand sharing and protecting the particular vulnerabilities they and their partner bring to their specific partnership. “The identity of the child is built around the needs of the parent.” They then go into adulthood denying they have needs or being willing to meet the needs of their spouse. (clip 2) Intimate partnership means “you have my back no matter what. You go to great lengths to understand me because I don’t want you to leave you feeling alone. This is the specialness of a committed relationship…Belonging, love, uniqueness.” Addicts share a well-manicured mask instead of the real self. They believe if someone sees the real self, they will not love them for who they are. They also struggle to have their partner’s back, to lean in, to answer a cry when their partner hurts, to forsake others and cleave to one person, to be all in. This is because they’re programmed to perform and self-protect all the time. As kids, they had to escape the pressures of the enmeshing, intrusive family system. It’s hard to let that tendency to “eject connection” go. They will self protect at all costs. They can go along in a marriage OK when things are calm, but as soon they detect threat (which is often imagined or misinterpreted), they blow up, disappear, stop co-regulating, control, self-defend, wall off, etc. Taylor says the difference with controlling in an intimate partnership versus sincere mutuality is risk of vulnerability. You know me and I know you. Enmeshed people interpret intimacy or vulnerability as dangerous, suffocating, engulfing. As a wife is trying to be healthy and interdependent in marriage, the enmeshed person is interpreting her moving close and expressing needs as threatening. Instead of allowing people to be themselves (which wasn’t allowed in their home growing up), they just want everyone to appear nice and approvable. Messiness and struggle, especially of the emotional variety. They worked so hard as kids to please the adults that they can’t tolerate a wife’s disapproval, even if warranted. In my marriage, if I spoke to Phil about something like him over-working, he became secretly vindictive.

(clip 3) When your partner expresses needs, it’s an INVITATION. “In a committed relationship you’re there to protect/produce for each other. [Wife,] hold the line for secure functioning. Resist turning the relationship or meeting each other’s needs [into] OBLIGATION. Let’s make this good for each other.” Those statements are excellent for recovering couples! (clip 4) Mother issues must be worked out separate from marriage issues or those dynamics will be seeping into the man’s psyche all over the place. He will force his wife to behave like his mother. (clip 5) Marriages should have a sense of fairness, mutuality; regarding practical needs AND EMOTIONAL needs as well.

(clip 6) “We are on the same team. Give your partner [your] playbook. We must be playing the same game at the same skill level….In phase 2 “same team” takes on a different meaning: co-constructing. This can only work if the offending person, in phase 1, has paid up. They’ve become sensitive, empathetic, are a team player, they share information, they share everything.”

This last clip really spoke to me. I’ve been thinking about it all week. In my marriage, I’ve always been taken care of financially. Phil was at church every Sunday. He’s taken me on countless wonderful dates. We’re compatible and have built a beautiful life together with an incredible family. And yet, he never asked me how I was doing emotionally. I served his physical needs with devotion, but he didn’t do that for me… Why not? In our case, it’s because he was busy at work or with the kids… There are many ways to keep your partner at arm’s length emotionally, right? What’s hard to accept is that this is still very hard for Phil, even 5 years into a good recovery process. His wiring tells him to always protect himself where I am concerned. Practically this comes out as long stretches of good relating, then BAM – he gets defensive, critical, loud, complaining, etc. Some men might withdrawal. It’s a painful cycle in recovery.

It’s hard for me to accept that even after Phil receiving my devoted care for decades, during which I never behaved like his mother, he still can’t see me in a distinct category from his mother. This takes deeper work. It also hurts that he was able to take years of service from me without a deep conviction that it should be reciprocal. He now says he was so very needy that all I did was never enough to make him feel safe or OK. These are effects of the dysfunction he grew up in. He took it out on the wrong woman, and I’ve paid a high price due to no fault of my own. You can’t be vulnerable with someone you don’t trust. His ability to trust was damaged very early in life. I did trust him before Dday, but now it’s hard to be vulnerable because I don’t see consistent concern on his part for my well being. You’ve heard the phrase “don’t work harder, work smarter.” With enmeshed men, the statement should be “don’t impress everyone, press into the heart of one.” Phil even works hard to impress me, but this misses the mark of my heart at times. Ultimately impressing everyone is very hard work. Harder than pressing in to one heart. This is a big shift for enmeshed individuals.

Other good quotes from this video: “Rebellion is the crude form of a boundary. ‘Boundaries’ isn’t where the journey ends.” Taylor is showing us this isn’t vulnerable connection for a couple to function in… True love and care goes much deeper. “It’s hard to get 2-person oriented as long as the enmeshment is unresolved.”

He addresses covert incest at minute 15 minute mark, and at minute 38, he shares why enmeshed addicts separate intimacy from s3x. It’s excellent.

Phil and I have had a chance to talk about these things and he is thinking about a daily checklist to help him be aware of these issues. I’ll pass along a short list for anyone reading who would like some things to watch for regarding the effects of enmeshment that could creep into their marriage.

1. Be aware when you’re doing things from a sense of guilt or obligation
2. Be aware of what you really like. Take action on these things
3. Be aware of ambivalent attachments to things that are yours- spouse, kids, job, choices, etc. Own your life. Be all in. Embody what’s yours. Protect it. Be the opposite of ambivalent
4. Don’t ask for permission to do things that a grown man should be able to do (for married men in recovery, be sensitive that she does need to have access to your decisions while you’re rebuilding trust)
5. Don’t see your wife as a mother. She is the woman you CHOSE
6. Do things in life with an awareness that you’re CHOOSING what you want
7. Make decisions in alignment with your identity
8. Work on strengthening and developing your individual identity
9. Notice when you’re using appeasing behaviors as a way to gain approval. This can be dishonest and manipulative
10. Things others have obligated you to, work on disregarding them as irrelevant to you. Don’t give your time to these things
11. From the video, work on unraveling your s3xual template that may have been shaped as rebellion to enmeshment. Notice what you like and your needs.
12. Be aware of triggers and needs and ways to do good self care. Don’t expect your wife to fill this role for you
13. Be aware of rigidity or boundarylessness in your life – and shifting between the two. Find the adaptable, connected middle ground
14. Connection to God, SELF, and others is not to keep others happy. It’s how you stay empowered to live the life you want. Stay connected to what you CHOSE
15. You’re not a puppet – you’re the puppet master FOR YOURSELF. You don’t have the power to control or stabilize others. The two can be confused for enmeshed folks
16. Lived loved. You’re God’s precious son. Nothing can separate you from his love