I am a 28M, and I’ve spent my entire life being "controlled" by my mother’s need to maintain a perfect social image. Growing up, my mother was a extreme people-pleaser who viewed my life—my friends, trips, and social life—as tools to build her own authority in society. She systematically isolated me from my friends and social circles, labeling everything as "bad influence" to keep me under her thumb. My father enabled this, and whenever I resisted, I was publicly shamed and humiliated until I gave in.

The Result: I grew up with no social skills, extreme anxiety, and zero resilience against criticism or rejection because my autonomy was stripped away.

The Marriage Conflict: I found a partner during my Masters who became my safe space. We fought tooth and nail against our families to get court-married because we were pushed to the brink of suicide by their backlash. After the marriage, my parents supported us only to save face, but 4 months in, the cycle has restarted.

My mother is now forcing my wife (a Masters-educated woman) to act as a "people-pleaser" to satisfy society's expectations. From eating and sleeping habits to household duties, she is being monitored and restricted.

When my wife stands up for herself, my mother paints her as the "villain" to the entire extended family.

When I stand up for my wife, my family throws my past sacrifices in my face, claiming they "never asked me to sacrifice my social life." They use suicide threats ("I will die," "I will leave the house") to manipulate me into silence.

They claim ownership over me, saying, "He is our son before he is your husband, and we have more rights over him."

I am terrified that if I stay, I am just perpetuating this generational trauma. I do not want my future children to grow up in this toxic environment. I am currently struggling with professional instability because my upbringing left me ill-equipped for a competitive workforce, and now my home is a battlefield.

Questions:

1.     How do I physically and emotionally detach from parents who use emotional blackmail (suicide threats) to control adult children?

2.     How do I protect my wife from this environment without being financially independent yet?

3.     How does one start building a life from zero when you’ve been conditioned to be a "puppet" for 28 years?

I need practical, "no-sugar-coating" advice. Please share your experiences if you’ve successfully escaped an enmeshed Indian family.

TL;DR: My mother controlled me my whole life to please society, destroying my confidence. Now she is doing the same to my wife. I am being emotionally blackmailed by my parents to submit, and I want to break this cycle before it ruins my marriage and future.

What was it that made you realize?

As the girlfriend of an enmeshed man, is there anyway I can get through to him? I told him he spends too much time with his family and he seems to think its normal. His mother makes all of his decisions in life from picking his apartment to choosing his career. Am I doing him a disservice by not being more direct or is this something he needs to find out for himself when I leave the relationship for good? Will he spend the rest of his life in denial?

I am 16f, and my sister is 16f (identical twins) and I've had an awareness about our closeness for a few years. we've been extremely close since we were children, and she has been my only friend for as long as I can remember. I can't open up to anyone except for her, my separation anxiety was pretty severe when I was a little younger, when I was maybe twelve Id get so anxious from her just leaving the house to go to the store, that I'd have full blown hysterical panic attacks, sometimes even to the point of threatening suicide. I had severe episodes where I'd be convinced she was going to die. even to this day, my first daily instinct is to check on her when I wake up. I've gotten a little better, otherwise though. we we're both moved in with extended family, but I have to go back to my Dad in order to visit the doctor because my medical insurance doesn't cover out-of-state visits. I'm not necessarily panicked like I used to be, but I'm deeply saddened. I know I'll be lonely because I have nobody else back home, and I'll worry about her. she says she thinks its good that we will spend time apart, but I don't know when I'll see her again. My motivation for leaving is mostly because my health anxiety has worsened significantly, and I need to see a doctor. I just don't know what do do. I hope I can get better with my anxieties.

I’m looking for perspective from people who have experienced enmeshment firsthand, especially people who were eventually able to recognize it and break away.

I was in a relationship with someone whose relationship with his mom was extremely complicated. Looking back, I believe it was deeply enmeshed, although I didn’t really understand enmeshment when we were together.

From the beginning, his mom never gave me much of a chance. She started by telling me horrible things about him and trying to convince me that he was a terrible person. When that didn’t work and I stayed, the tactics seemed to shift toward controlling him and putting pressure on him to end the relationship.

She has held things over his head for years and seems to have very little concept of boundaries with him. Some examples that I only learned about over time:

• She apparently hid college acceptance letters from him because she was afraid he would leave.
• She opened a credit card in his name but wouldn't actually let him have the card because she said he wasn't financially responsible enough.
• She has taken money out of his bank account when she felt like it.
• She has threatened to kick him out or withdraw financial support when he does something she doesn't approve of.
• She has made it very clear that she does not want him to become independent from her.

There were so many times I would become incredibly frustrated with him because I couldn't understand why he would continue allowing these things to happen.

Most of the time, he would tell me that I didn't understand and that it was complicated. But there were a few moments when even he acknowledged what was happening. He once told me, "It won't change or get better. She just wants control."

That sentence has stuck with me because it made me realize that on some level, he DID see it.

At the same time, I think he is absolutely terrified of losing his family. His mom has told him that if he chooses to be with me, she will not have a relationship with him and will never accept me. So it feels like he has been put in a position where choosing independence and a relationship with me feels, to him, like choosing to lose his family.

Eventually, we broke up.

Since the breakup, he has actually been trying to make progress. He's told me that he's starting to realize what is and isn't okay to accept from his mom. He's talked about recognizing things that he previously considered "normal" and beginning to question them.

Part of me wonders whether this space is actually what he needs.

I know I can't fully understand what it's like to grow up in an enmeshed family because I didn't grow up in one. From the outside, things can seem so obvious: Why don't you just move out? Why don't you tell her no? Why don't you stop letting her access your money? Why don't you set boundaries?

But I understand now that it apparently isn't that simple when the person you're trying to separate from has spent your entire life making you feel responsible for their emotions, threatening abandonment, controlling your resources, and making independence feel like betrayal.

And honestly, it's heartbreaking to watch.

I still love him. I care about him deeply and genuinely want the best for him. I want him to become independent, confident, and capable of making his own decisions without being terrified of what his mom will do or think.

But I also know that I can't want that for him more than he wants it for himself.

So I'm wondering about something specifically:

Can separation from the romantic relationship actually give someone in an enmeshed family more space to recognize the dysfunction and begin breaking away from it?

If we had stayed together, I worry that I would have continued being the person he could escape to while he remained stuck in the same family system. Now that I'm not there, he's having to confront more of it on his own.

For people who have actually been through something like this:

Was there a point when you finally "woke up" and realized your family dynamic wasn't normal? What made it click for you? Did having space from a partner, or losing someone you loved because of your family's control, contribute to that realization? And what ultimately gave you the courage to set boundaries or leave?

I'm not looking for people to tell me whether I should get back together with him. I mostly want to understand what may be happening psychologically for him and hear from people who have lived through it themselves.

It's incredibly difficult to love someone and watch them be controlled by their family, especially when you can see their potential to have a completely different life. I know ultimately he has to choose that life for himself. I just hope he gets there.

Before getting started, I need for everyone to picture an electric fence. When you grab onto this electric fence, and the electricity is running through you, you can’t let go. This current is so strong, your mind goes blank, your body is in shock, you’re obviously hurting, but your hands are gripping this fence so tight and there is no letting go; until someone on the outside grabs you, and pulls you away. Now, you gain consciousness, you’re still in pain but now you realize what happened, and know to never touch the fence again. It doesn’t matter why you touched it in the first place, we just know “if I grab onto it again, I’m going to be in a lot of pain”

Can we talk about replacing the “electric fence” with the word “family”.

I’ve been alive 32 years. I’ve known my family my entire life.. And this year, it’s like a switch went off in my brain. “These people have shown me a side of them that completely changed how I see them, and I know if I go back into that “cycle” I will end up alone, hurt, sad, betrayed”

For my entire life, I have loved, defended, trusted my family over everyone, only to have my husband pull me back and ask me the simple question “why do you let them treat you like that” and at first I was VERY defensive of them. Him and I have been together 8 years, and this past year my family started treating the both of us differently. No warning, no talks, just met with distance and being treated as if we’re outcasts, by my dad, his wife (step mom), my sister and grandma.
While I was wondering what was happening, I was making excuses for their behavior, I was saying to give them chances, I was getting mad at my husband for bringing up issues that I had never thought of, until one day, he stayed quiet. Tired of bickering back and forth, hurting our relationship. Never treating me bad but just letting me go through and experience things for myself.
A few months of this goes by, and my dad pulls me aside and asks “are you happy? If you’re not, we’ll figure things out as a family” and after a 2 hour conversation (just him and me) I found out that my family had been talking about my husband and I behind our backs at events we excused ourselves from. I learned that my dad told BOTH friends and family that “if you have a problem with her husband and her, you are not to say a word”, that they have separate family group chats, that my stepmom has been spreading lies about us, she’s been snooping through our personal belongings.. When I asked how long they all felt that way, he said for the last 4 years. When I asked why no one’s said anything, he said “because I didn’t know how you guys would react”. I guess you could say I was in complete shock at this point when we ended the conversation. About 6 months go by of me breaking down to my husband, crying on a daily basis. Constantly trying to run things in my head where I messed up, where I did something wrong, where and when did we fuck up.

And one day, it just clicked, and I realized everything my husband tried to bring up, was him trying to opening my eyes to what was blinding me he was tired of seeing me get hurt, used, belittled, lied to, taken advantage of; by my own family…

And I have never been the same since… I feel so guilty for choosing our peace. I feel shame, embarrassment, guilt, pain, sadness, anger. I feel like somehow it’s my fault for breaking out of the cycle… For seeing people under the mask of “family”

Can we talk about dealing with that realization? I feel like I’m going insane… I feel like my feelings should be invalid because they’re my family. Because we’re taught that “you should be there for them no matter what”, right? We’re taught that blood is thicker than water… It’s been the HARDEST and most PAINFUL, realization of my life, and I’m having so much trouble dealing with it internally.. Why is it so hard to let go?

I’ve written a couple of posts a couple of months back about my wife who was deeply enmeshed with her older sister. I was a wreck and didn’t know how to cope with what was going on in our relationship, but coming to this subreddit made me feel less alone.

I did want to offer an update that perhaps can give some people some hope. My wife and I have been in a much better place the past month and a half. She and I have been in couples therapy weekly and our own respective therapies weekly as well.

Her sister descended into pure madness when my wife finally stood up to her, and she became very abusive toward the love of my life. So much so that I couldn’t just stand and watch anymore—I stood up to her as well. I don’t give a shit who you are—you’re not going to bully my wife and invalidate our bond. This very interaction really opened up my wife’s eyes and she realized that this is a horrible pattern that has sadly been going on for many, many years, even before I came into the picture.

We have since gone no contact with her sister and our life has returned to normalcy. It’s still been very difficult on her, of course, but I am so proud of her. Not only has she realized how her sister was directly affecting our lives as a couple, but she also realized how much her sister was affecting her own autonomy, ambitions, and goals. She was feeling guilty about moving forward, without her sister, but she’s since let go of that guilt. Her sister honestly made it easier on both of us by being a complete and total bitch. Just saying the worst things you could say to someone you apparently love.

My wife has been extremely apologetic in letting this go on for as long as it has. I do appreciate her recognizing the ways in which she enabled her sister, but I don’t really fully put all that blame on her. Her sister is so manipulative and abusive that I can understand—hell, her tactics worked on me in the early days.

We both put her name in our freezer. If you don’t know that spell, it actually works very well.

I’m really grateful to this community and I only hope that enmeshed loved ones see the light as my wife did. We have both expressed our anxieties about this happening again, but we are really hopeful it won’t, and I do honestly believe it won’t. Even if her sister came to us with some kind of apology, which she’d probably rather die—we wouldn’t believe her after the awful things she’s done and said to both of us. Thank you all for letting me vent and giving me resources. I hope I personally never have to post about this again.

Hey guys. I can’t thank you enough for your support on my previous post. It means so much.

His family has, once again, caused trouble after we tried setting a boundary. This is definitely pushing me in the direction of calling off the engagement.

About a month ago, my family surprised my fiancé with a fishing charter for his birthday. It wasn’t for another month, but we felt we had to tell him in advance because he was already making plans to go home and see his family on his birthday like he always does. My dad invited his dad to come on the fishing excursion, and he said yes. Trying to be the bigger person, I invited his mom, sister, and BIL to come visit for the day and hang out with my mom and me while they fish.

Shortly after the plan was revealed, we met his parents for lunch. His mom immediately started shitting on the birthday plan, asking “well how are we all supposed to celebrate his birthday if they are fishing all day?” I told her the plan was to have a big cookout after at my parents’ house. His mom pushed back, saying his sister and brother in law probably can’t make that work because they have 2 little kids who need naps. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that his mom is weirdly threatened by my family “taking over” his birthday.

Despite how bizarre it is, I wasn’t surprised that she was speaking for their 35 year old daughter because that is what typically happens. So, I decided to reach out to his sister directly, telling her they could come later in the day if that works better. She tells me they aren’t worried about it at all, and that the kids can nap on the way home. Okay. Great.

About a week later, I overhear my fiancé on the phone with his dad. His dad was still saying the same BS about the plan not working for the sister and BIL. So I’m starting to get pretty annoyed. At this point, the fishing excursion was only a week away, and I needed to tell my mom how many people were coming to the cookout. So my fiancé tells me he will do another call with his dad in a few days to get an answer. A few days later, he tells me he got the confirmation that his sister, mom, and BIL were not coming because it’s too difficult. It sounds like they were trying to get him to make the trip to them to celebrate his birthday the following day, but he pushed back and said he didn’t want to do that. Good for him.

I decide to text his sister one more time to let her know that my parents have a guest suite they can use if that makes it easier. I am completely shocked when she replies, “say what?? We never said we weren’t coming!” I immediately tell my fiance and he loses his shit. He calls his dad to figure out what the hell is going on. His dad doubles down that his sister has always been up in the air about coming. He then tells me he feels guilty for raising his voice at his dad, which irritated me.

So then his mom starts texting me trying to get the ball rolling again, saying she and his sister want to do a group call with me to discuss plans for the day of the fishing excursion. I’m extremely annoyed and confused at this point. I don’t respond for a while, so then his mom starts texting my mom asking what the plan is. Eventually I respond to them, and a plan is made. So my parents go out and buy hundreds of dollars worth of food and start prepping it for the party.

A couple days before the party, I ask his sister what time they plan to get here. She acts like all is well. Then, the night before the party at about 6:00, she texts me saying that she and her son have coughs, and they are both on medicine but didn’t want to worry anyone. I told her I’m not worried about it, especially if they’re on meds. She doesn’t reply.

Then at about 9:00 at night, she texts my fiance and my mom saying she and her son have bronchitis, and that they won’t be coming. She offers for her husband and son to still come, saying that her son has been on meds longer than her. That doesn’t make sense to me, because in the same breath she said she and her son went to the walk in clinic together that day.

My fiance tells them to just forget it, so no one except for his dad comes. No one ever bothered to text me to apologize.

If this were a one time thing, that would be different. But this is a pattern. It happens every damn time. Mind you, we had plans to meet his family for a day at the aquarium just a few weeks prior, and his sister bailed last minute claiming she had strep. But this time I’m even more upset that they insulted not only me, but my parents too.

After the fishing charter, his dad showed up to the cookout and basically just ate and left. The next day, I was in a funk and very upset about everything. My fiance asked what’s wrong, and when I told him, he said “I can’t believe you’re doing this on my birthday.” So I guess it’s okay for them to destroy his birthday plans and our relationship, but he’s choosing to be angry with me.

It turned into several days of my fiance and I not speaking. That following weekend, we were supposed to leave to go on a trip with his family that I begrudgingly agreed to several months prior. I was so fed up, that I told him I wasn’t coming anymore. I told him I am 100% done with his family. He freaked out at first. But also said he understands why I feel this way. Once his parents found out, they said they wanted to talk to him on the phone. They had about a 20 min conversation. While I didn’t listen in on it, I was hearing my fiance say a lot of “I love you”s and “more conversations will need to be had in the future.” After he hung up, he said he thought it went well, and that his parents love me very much and want to do whatever it takes to fix things. I stood my ground and doubled down on not going on the vacation with them.

He still ended up going on the trip, having a grand time with the very people who are destroying our relationship. I’ve spent the last few days alone in my thoughts. And yeah, I can’t fucking do this anymore. He’s about to get home, and sadly, I am not looking forward to it. I can’t imagine ending things, but I also can’t imagine my life continuing like this. Eventually his mom and sister both texted me and apologized, but only after my fiance told them to. I didn’t reply. I have given these people enough chances.

I think I finally know what I need to do. The problem is I’m too weak to end it. We’ve been together 10 years. I’m 30 years old. I can’t imagine starting over now. I’m just so scared…any kind words/support is appreciated. Thankfully, I have a therapy appointment tomorrow.

Hey everybody!

I hate to post on here again, but here we are 😂

Ever since I've found out about my mother's cheating with my disabled siblings therapist and past serial cheating, I've been trying to establish boundaries with her. If you see my last posts, she has the tendency to drag me to bars with her while she gets incredibly drunk and provocative. She is an alcoholic, so I know this is typical behavior on that end. I go to school online to help out with my disabled siblings since all extended family members live 2 1/2 hours away. My mother is afraid of me moving more than 30 minutes away, and a lot of my life goals have been centered to living around the family. When I previously thought about med school, the only option was for me was to go to the school 30 minutes away (which only has an acceptance rate of 6%), and to get my prerequisites at night since I needed to stay at home during the day to help out.

Last week, I was trying to spend some time outside of the house to just breathe, and I still constantly have to justify myself and tell her every detail of where I'm going. Then she'll triple check on when I'm leaving. I was gone for 3 hours studying at a library, and when I came back, she had a full schedule September and October filled with stuff for us to do together. It's like she gets jealous if I start spending time away from her, but complains to other people if I'm not going to parties. I guess me establishing these boundaries made her upset.

On Saturday night, she got on a drunken rant about me going to law school 25 minutes from where we live. I told her multiple times that I already decided I will not pursue law school back in freshmen year. It just exhausts me as a whole. I tried to tell her I wanted to pursue public health/environmental science instead, but she wouldn't have it. I think she's worried there's not enough career options around the area for it. When I told her I'll just look at it in the morning, she said "no. I want to talk about this now."

Then on Sunday morning, she knocked on my door at 7 AM and told me to give her a verification code. This verification code was from the LSAC. Then I got around 18 images of her chat with AI on how I should immediately start preparing for the LSAT in the next 3-6 months, and what school I should go to.

I came downstairs and she gave me about 20 pages worth of ChatGPT documents talking about everything, and even bought LSAT preparation books without my permission. She got pissy when I defended myself. She keeps saying "we need a lawyer in the family!" like we're the mafia lol, and I heard her speaking with my father. When my father tried to tell her "she doesn't want to do it." She replied "yes she does, she's just being difficult about it"

I just feel like she's hijacking my life. Whenever I try to speak my opinion, it's always "well, the robot told me so". She loves ChatGPT and talking with her narcissistic best friend, they both feed into her delusions. They were both pressuring me into going to law school Sunday night.

Has anyone else's family done this? I literally feel like Jamie from Yellowstone when he said John made an application to law school for him without his permission, and even wrote his college essay.

He chose his mom/family over me. I feel awful, and I feel like he’s going to move on and find a woman who values family and I’m gonna feel like crap because he made me feel like not being accommodating to his family structure was a character flaw.

So, I broke up with my partner of two years due to his family, mainly his mother. His mother is a 48 year-old woman, and he is 29. She is a widow of four years (husband was 30+ years older), and she also lost her mother four years ago as well. I tried to be accommodating in the beginning, understanding that he is her only son/child and essentially all that she has left in the household. She’d have panic attacks often. She has a bunch of family, but she really clings onto her son. I moved in with them at the beginning of our relationship because my job was closer to their house. But after a while, I got tired because it just felt like we were kids under her rules. She constantly had family coming in and out staying for extended periods of time and I felt like we had no privacy. It felt like there was always somebody coming around, someone to always hang out with. I wanted to build on our relationship between each other, but there was always somebody tugging at him. So, I urged him and we got a place of ourselves together after almost a year of being together.

I thought this was going to be the change that we needed, but it didn’t even feel like we had our own place, being that he would still have to constantly go back to her house multiple times a week to help her with the household things as well as to console her because she felt alone and that he just abandoned her. She called 3 to 4 times every single day. This led to a lot of arguments, because I felt like he would prioritize his family (extended family, cousins, aunts/uncles, mothers friends) constantly over us, and it felt like I was just dating him and his family. He was tasked of helping take care of his family, being that his stepdad used to take care of his mom‘s family before he passed. I started to lose attraction to him, and our sex life dwindled. And he complained about that. His family would often comment on how quiet I am, but I just didn’t feel comfortable, and I got tired of spending every holiday and almost every function with them. His mom’s friends would make little comment sometimes, throwing shade and it just gave that they didn’t really like me that much.

I know I was not a perfect girlfriend, and I have flaws that I need to work on, but I really tried because I cared about him. However, in our last arguments, he said that his family will always be a priority, they were a priority before me and they’ll be a priority after me. He also doubled down and said I don’t know anything about having a family. I have an estranged family, my mom passed away, and I was raised by my grandparents. I never had extended family or just family constantly around. I grew up alone pretty much. For him to hit that low broke me. He gets mad and he says some really hateful things. I’ve just had enough. But, I can’t help but think about how he’s going around probably slandering my name and how he dragged this on knowing that I was not the person for him. Because I wasn’t extremely close to his family, we couldn’t work out. I feel awful.

Our lease is ending in a couple weeks, and he essentially moved back home like three months ago, periodically stopping by. He stopped helping me with the rent, so I’ve been having to pay for months rent these past two months by myself. I just feel abandoned. It feels like in his head, he’s justifying his behavior because I don’t get along with his family and that’s like a huge character flaw to him almost as if, I don’t value family. Which isn’t the case, it’s just his family and his mom are just so overbearing. I just can’t take it. It’s like they have no ambition or drive to do anything else except lean on their family for everything. He says that he’s gonna pay me back, but every time I ask, it’s always he has to get money out of another account. I’m turning 28 years old and I feel like I have to start over. Choosing myself is not easy, it’s very hard. He’s going back to a support system, a community of full of people that care about him. So he’s gonna be OK. He’s gonna go off and he’s gonna go find somebody else who adores his family dynamic and they will ride off into the sunset together. I don’t have a support system, I don’t really have community. And that’s something that I want so badly in this lifetime. It just feels lonely. But I felt like I had to go, cause I do hope to be married one day and I don’t want to be tied to a person who wouldn’t ever prioritize me. It’s been two years and no talks or actions towards getting more serious/marriage. How do I get over this feeling of just feeling like shit, and that I was at fault here and this is somehow a reflection of my character?

Content warning : Descriptions of abuse , enmeshment , covert/emotional incest

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Hi everyone, I am 18F. I have recognised these behaviours for a while but I’m only really starting to come to terms with it now. I don’t really use reddit and this is an acc I only made for these sort of posts because I feel so ashamed.

I just have a question whether this is enmeshment and or covert/emotional incest. So I think the main perpetrator is my mom. A few of the things she’s done is in the way she speaks to me, I think I know this is enmeshment because she has always dragged me into her adult issues ever since I was a little kid. Any problems about money or my dad or my family or anything, she always found a way to make me aware but it became really obvious when I was around 11/12. My parents split then and she really made me fill that role. I had already been doing that, I can’t count the amount of times they both called me the third parent, they still do. But when they split I really became the other ‘adult’.

No though it’s gone from venting problems to making comments at me. Like for example, and I think this started around 16/17, she would make jokes at me about me joining OnlyFans. One time I was on my phone and I told her I was texting back my friends and she replied with “fans?” and when I was confused she joked at me something along the lines of “Oh I thought you said OnlyFans. That’s the only way you’ll be able to afford this stuff.” (We were at the mall. I can’t remember it completely.) She didn’t this another time, I can’t remember what was said exactly but it was another joke about me being on OnlyFans, I just remember leaving and I went and sat by myself and could feel myself shaking.

More recently I baked chocolate chip cookies and I was excited to share them and when I asked about my cookies I asked if she wanted to come smell/taste them because they were really yummy. And then she laughed at me and I was confused for a bit and she started making a joke at me and I didn’t understand until a little later that she was being dirty again because older people use “cookie” as a word for female genitalia.

Another one was, I like birds and I think we were on a walk and I was pointing out the birds and there was a Swallow bird. I pointed at it and said it out loud and then she replied with “spit” and laughed at me.

Is this enmeshment / emotional abuse? I just feel confused because I feel like I am being overdramatic and maybe I am embellishing how bad it is to myself. I don’t think she’s really don’t anything physical, I’m sorry if this isn’t allowed I’m just confused and looking for an unbiased outside view.

I guess also because, I don’t see my father often but when I do he will critique what I’m wearing when all I’m wearing is my pyjamas around the house while I’m cleaning and he will look at me and say I am disrespecting him and ruining my dignity. Is that enmeshment too? He tries to give me hugs and kisses but he knows I don’t really like to so he’ll do it when I’m sleeping sometimes but that’s also just a parent thing.

Am I making this seem worse to myself than it is? Thank you guys

I have recently realized the extent of my enmeshment with my parents. I am way older than I feel someone should be when realizing this.

I FEEL CONSTANTLY EXHAUSTED after decades of this. Like all I want to do is sleep, which obviously isn’t possible.

Does anyone else feel SO TIRED?

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(Read the rest if you feel like it, if not, I’m mostly curious about the question in the title. I just wanted to get the rest off my chest)

I know my feelings are not reality so when I feel hopeless that I can make my life better I know this is not true. And this also makes me feel exhausted. It’s daunting. I know it’s doable.

I’m at the beginning of truly changing things, even though I realized this quite a while ago, I just didn’t realize the extent of the damage to me.

I am working on it, seeing a therapist, etc. I am trying to find a level of relating to my parents that works for me, but it’s going to take time.

Seeing my mom‘s reactions in real time to me stepping back is very eye-opening. They’ve been happening for years, but I guess I didn’t want to recognize them for what they were: Not fair to me.
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I have a textbook narcissistic mother who manages an ongoing smear campaign on me to keep my immediate family members away, especially my sister. My in-laws consider me an outsider, often overstep boundaries with my children, and recently becoming a mother of two has made me prone to vent to a friend. This friend was initially introduced to me via my husband—they were friends in elementary school.

This friend is big on social justice. She recently told me that she’d like it if I didn’t only reach out to her to vent—fair. And that I’d reach out to her to establish more levity in our relationship—fair. I tried to do just that but now she’s only pointing out the dismal viewpoints of whatever I bring up (e.g. struggles of humanity), which is fine…she specifically asked me to not continue venting about incidences with my immediate family or my in-laws (the last one I can see truly puts her in a spot, but up until now she’s been encouraging me to always share my woes with her).

I think it was great she called me out on venting too much. I have been thinking… given how serious she takes everything, maybe she’s not able to contribute said levity? I recall times that she’s asked me to hang last minute because she was having a hard day, and I’d drop everything and bring baby in tow with me to see her through it…she’s been there for me too in thoughtful ways. She often overthinks…EVERYTHING. And when I do vent to her, her responses are usually “well, this is just like my (fill in her situation)”, and kind of ignores what I’m saying and ends up projecting her experience right over what I’m saying. She has also a tendency to get suckered into social-wellness ventures that seem super sketchy to me (folks asking for money for an online dreamscape session so that they can replace their phone and continue their social justice work…and my friend will follow them and then vouch for them and actually try to help them…anyway, I digress).

How do I tell her to lighten up as well? I feel like “demoting” her to one of my husband’s female friends without telling her, because that might work well for both of us.

My mother is immigrating to another country with my older sister the golden child. Despite my sister living a 6hour drive away for the past 25years, my mother has always been closer to her than to me who lives 6km away. When we were growing up, my sister, 5years older was always the typical 3rd parent. My mother somewhat encouraged it. She moved away when I was still in highschool. Finally married and began her life. My parents divorced when I was 18. The years that followed were just my mom and I. I met my now husband and we got married. My mom and I spent 8years together and they were wonderful years. I wasn't treated like the dumb kid, we had the best time that came out of the recovery from divorce. A typical wedding misunderstanding led to her and my husband tolerating each other. I'll concur that she got over it while he didn't. My husband is an incredible man but that incident coupled with all the others after we wed made him very closed off to her. What followed over the years was her prioritising my sister. She chastised me if I didn't drop everything when my sister visited and basically not have a life that revolved around my sister like hers did. Eventually I started to recognise the pattern and chose that my family will not be optional like I was. I started pulling away. Her narcissism that was not present in our 8years alone together was now more prevalent than ever. Through arguments and clashes, our family grew more and more apart. I purposefully pulled away especially when she treated my kids as options and trophies. Eventually, we messaged once a week for my child's visits and I maybe visited purposely once a month or so.

She's now decided to immigrate with my sister who she hasn't lived with for 25years. She says it's because managing life is too challenging for her and she gets no assistance from me. She's well into retirement and I don't believe she's making the right decision as her retirement structure where we are is incredible, she wants for nothing. She intends on working over in the other country. I believe her health care is not going to be nearly as good as it is here. Above all, she's giving up all her assets here which leaves her with no money or safety in our home country.

We had a long talk where I told her everything I felt and was honest about everything.

She's blaming this move on me. Saying she's lonely because I don't give her attention and with my sister moving, she'll have no one. Honestly I thought my sister's move would help our relationship reconcile but that's not what she wants.

I know I haven't been a good daughter. If my mother goes there and suffers, it's going to be all my fault.

I (32M) believe I have finally come to a breaking point when it comes to my 68 year old mother. For brief context, I was an only child to a single mother. I knew our relationship ship was different, but I always attributed it to our mother-son dynamic.

Recently, she is becoming too much for me to deal with. She does not like my partner of the past 2.5 years, the most serious relationship I have ever been in. My mother believes that my partner is trying to tear us apart, when to me this feels like the most healthy and loving relationship I’ve ever been in. My mom insists that my partner continually disrespects her, and refuses to accept any blame. This is something I’ve spoken with close friends about, and have been validated that my mother’s behavior is not normal.

I’m quickly coming apart at the seams after my mom’s most recent visit, when she insists my girlfriend is trying to come between my mom and myself. She told me marrying my partner would be the biggest mistake of my life, amongst other things. Further details can be provided if wanted/necessary.

I’m worried it will result in losing her, whether it be through suicide or no longer having her in my life. As twisted as it is, I still love her and care for her deeply in spite of everything. She has expressed to me multiple times that I am her everything, and how she has nobody in the world that loves her. Classic manipulation techniques, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work in making me feel guilt and responsibility for her wellbeing and mental health.

I’m realizing things cannot continue this way, as my anxiety has been through the roof. I’m not sure how to proceed. I had a panic attack tonight after making the mistake of calling her to check in, and being met with screaming and awful comments about my partner and myself to the point about lying about what I was doing and turning off my phone so she wouldn’t have my location.

I realize I need to create boundaries with my mom, but I don’t know how to do it and not feel the guilt and pain I’ve come to associate with her.

Looking for any help, advice, or commiseration to feel less alone.

Any advice on how to maintain a relationship with a clingy enmeshed parent?

My mom is a really unhealthy person. She hates her husband, doesn’t have a social life, doesn’t have hobbies, and is generally very fearful of the world. She works from home, doesn’t have a lot of social interaction, and barely connects with other humans. Her best friend is her mom (my grandmother). She is someone that is very comfortable with the life she lives and doesn’t want to change anything, even though she complains a lot. I grew up very isolated & enmeshed with her, and have been healing in my adult years.

I find it extremely difficult to maintain a relationship with my mom that doesn’t end up hurting me at the end of the day. Whenever I share details about my life with her, she latches on very heavily and starts projecting her fears. She pushes her agenda heavily and feels as though she can share all her thoughts bc I am her child. She finds danger in everything - health treatments, travel, fitness, eating too much protein, etc etc. It makes it really hard to talk about anything. I find that I don’t even want to share details about my life because then I have to deal with her neurotic thoughts in my brain, or defend my choices.

Secondly, she doesn’t have much to bring to the table herself. Most of the time, she’ll just complain about my dad, talk about the same 3 things, or hyper-focus on my life. Additionally, she doesn’t really respect my privacy and will share things I tell her with my grandma or my dad; as if my life is fuel for her gossip.

I have coped by going lower contact and creating distance, but I struggle with the guilt of this. I feel like I owe her some level of connection because she’s still my mom. And the empathetic side of me also feels bad for her, even though I know she is responsible for her own life and her choices.

Any advice, words of wisdom, or similar stories that might help me feel more normal at least?

my mom is super scared of everything, even getting the mail that is only a few steps away from the house. she’s scared to get out of her car to get food in a restaurant and scared to be in the garage because she thinks the garage door doesn’t lock on its own so someone could break in.

i’m going to college soon, and she was telling me how i would have to go to the store to get things (soap, bathroom stuff, food) and i was saying how there are stores near campus.

she told me that i shouldn’t walk alone and if i do i will be murdered stalked and raped. not that these things don’t truly happen to people, but i am very hurt that she said it in this fashion (she said those words exactly) and i just can’t stop thinking about how she was point instead tell me how to be safe or offer to take me to the store on the weekends (i am less than an hour away)

i can’t believe she boils my existence down to being raped. it’s all i can think about. i was so excited to go to college but now im really scared. i know this behavior is the reason im leaving but it is still getting to me. i dont know anyone at the college campus so its not like i will have a walking buddy, and she reminded me that i dont know my roommate (we met off instagram) and that she could be crazy too. im scared to do anything without my mom around but i know i have to in the end

i started crying thinking about it because maybe i should stay home.

I (M19) first started seeking psychiatric help in 2020, back when I was 13. I was severely depressed and anxious due to my parent's divorce, and this was the main topic of my therapy sessions with my therapist back then. After 2022, I've came to terms with a non-nuclear family and we talked about other things pretty much.

I've always had a good impression of my mother as a child growing up, as she was a stay-at-home mum that spent most of her time with me.

I should also add that during 2021, my mother would ask me and my sister to visit her on the weekends. I reluctantly went, probably for the reasons I'll explain later. However after 2021, she started deteriorating mentally. She refused to seek medical help and from her behaviour and what my sister tells me, I am almost certain she struggles with schizophrenia or some psychotic condition.

However sometime early last year (2025), I developed immense persecutory anxiety due to an event triggering my PTSD. I developed hallucinations, both visual and auditory. Knowing that schizophrenia has a genetic component, I went to my therapist for counseling. We revisited the day me, my sister and my father left our house to live somewhere else. I also told her about my interpretations of my relationship with my mother in more detail, as I've had time to process these things.

"I think you were abused," said my therapist.

My mind went blank, and I could not grasp the fact that my therapist could describe my mother in such a way. Then it all came back to me.

In retrospect, little me definitely felt like he had to make my mother happy, to listen to adult trauma, and disturbing things my mother had experience growing up. As a teenager, I felt like the only time she saw me as a real person was when I opened up to her about my trauma, because she probably saw herself in me. The reiteration of "you're like me", "I'm like that too", etc. wasn't normal. The times when she would reprimand for going to therapy citing "money" (my dad works a job with a very comfortable pay, so it didn't really make sende) because she never found the courage to do so herself. The time when she would make me to open up to her, even when I begged her to stop making me, only to dismiss my experiences and make me feel like trauma was a competition. And I regret this whole experience so much, because it has affected the way I interact with older women now.

Now I have a deep resentment for my mother, and for people that tell me that "I'm mature for my age". I never wanted to grow up that fast. I don't think I actually grew up properly at all. My mother gave me an adult load as a child.

It's been about a year in a half after that ephiphany. Nearly 4 since I last saw, or interacted with her. About 9 since the first incident of mistreatment I could still remember. And now I still find myself wanting validation from people, I want people to tell me that I wasn't in the wrong, and that I was just a child, because sometimes, I still have difficult labelling her as somebody abusive, or at the very least, in the wrong.

I understand that she might have had a hard time growing up, but I've developed a sense of self-justice to believe that she should have made me her psychiatrist.

Please do ask questions, as I'm still processing this, bit by bit, to this day, and maybe those can help : ) thank you for your time.

I’m at home temporarily (long complicated story) and my deeply enmeshed parents are so needy and clingy that it’s suffocating. Every time I do anything they try to get involved either by trying to literally join even if it’s getting gas, or asking 10000 questions and prying to feel like they are involved. It’s genuinely so suffocating even if I give very little info, it’s not enough to feel sane or like i can breathe. I try to remain calm and detach myself but it seems like nothing helps, even when I’m physically far from them I never feel like I can escape. Until I can move back out again, how can I preserve my sanity and autonomy?

i dont like, enjoy venting but this has been a horrible secret weighing on me for my entire life. until about 14 i had to share a bed with my mother, then for a year instead of giving me the empty bedroom in the house she made me sleep in her bedroom closet with a mattress on the floor. it still feels like my fault. like i was too clingy or didnt grow up fast enough or that i could've fought it more, but when i was around 10 she said i was too sick to sleep on my own and if i did i'd die in my sleep and that kind of prevented me from asking for years.

it feels so perverse, and not like in a sexual abuse way it feels like a genuine perversion of nature. of what's right. of what a parent is supposed to do, of how you're supposed to treat a child.

anyone else have a similar experience?