Joining a MEM family is impossible. The entire family is a unit who agrees that you are to be kept at a distance. Often the mother is passive aggressive or/and a communal narcissist. They wouldn't do anything that would raise anybody's suspicion of actually hating their son's partner.
There are so many ways a partner of an enmeshed man is put into her place. There are a few that pop right into my head, from my own experience.
One is the gaslighting. Wikipedia explains it “as a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's belief.”
I was being accused of things I didn't do or say. When I brought up my concern to a sister-in-law, I was told that I don't remember correctly. I was told the problem is that English is not my first language and therefore I simply do not understand the mother correctly. She would have never said anything mean.
I was explaining a phone call where I was accused of being verbally abusive to my MEM's mother. I simply said that I didn't know that my MEM could visit her every other week like he had been, after we got married and we had to pay for an apartment and two cars, instead of just a room in the dorms. She called everybody in the family and said I won't allow her son to come and visit and she was devastated by my behavior telling her that her son couldn't visit anymore. Totally lied to everybody but of course, everybody who is part of the dysfunction, believed her. Trying to defend myself did only convince them that I was the evil perpetrator who tried to make their mother look bad. The MEMs mother received more support rather than my feelings being validated. It was a clear sign that I was the one out of my mind and I would never be able to explain myself or be validated because they all already are indoctrinated against me.
Your experience is never validated. You are always told that you are wrong. Your emotions are not real. You can't trust yourself.
Another subtle way to show you without words, that you are not a member of the family is, that they will not eat what you bring to family functions. You are tolerated to some extend because they have to tolerate you but you are never accepted. We were always asked to bring something to any family function and I always took my entire contribution home again with me. Nobody would eat any of the food we brought. It was a very subtle way to show me that I have no contributions to make to the family, I am not valued, not accepted, and not wanted.
In Psychology today, Jefferson M Fish Ph.D. wrote
“Acceptance goes a step beyond tolerance. If a sign of tolerance is a feeling of “I can live with X (behavior, religion, race, culture, etc.)” acceptance moves beyond that in the direction of “X is OK.” You can tolerate something without accepting it, but you cannot accept something without tolerating it. For example, when a son or daughter tells a parent about an unwelcome career choice, marital partner, or sexual identity, he or she wants that information not just to be tolerated, but to be accepted.”
In a MEM family, as a partner of a mem you will never be accepted. Tolerated at times to safe face but never part of the family.
Being invisible to the family is another way. We went to a funeral of a great aunt. During the entire visit my MEM's mother would not speak to me unless a distant relative was around. The close family didn't ever question her bizarre behavior. If she didn't want to talk to me, they thought it was my fault. The extended family however, wasn't quite as dysfunctional. So whenever one of them would come around she would acknowledge my presence but not really include me. Just enough that the extended family wouldn't catch on but not enough to actually make me feel welcome. The visit was completely uncomfortable. It was a punishment. She had already organized a ride for her MEM without me. She did not want me to come. She wanted to be the woman by his side. Her and her children were very good at excluding me from all conversations and activities. I spend time with the extended family who was much nicer anyway but it still was a very uncomfortable and weird visit that left me feeling that I never want to do anything with that family again. Exactly what they were aiming for.
In exploringyourmind.com, The Silent Treatment, Psychological abuse in disguise, the author states:
“The silent treatment involves actions such as: refusing to speak to someone, not acknowledging what they say, pretending that you can’t hear them, distancing yourself or avoiding their company as if they were contagious, ignoring their express requests or needs, or any kind of behavior that seeks to make a person feel invisible or invalid.
These types of behavior are quite harmful. Not only do they demonstrate immaturity, meanness, and a lack of emotional intelligence, but they can have serious consequences for the other person. Engaging in this behavior is an attempt to control and harass and it doesn’t represent anything positive for a relationship.
A person who is the target of the silent treatment can feel very intense negative emotions. Ignoring a person means that they are worth nothing, that they don’t matter.”
The subtle ways a MEM family finds to let the partner of the mem know she is not welcome are endless. All are abuse and designed to “break” the partner, to get rid of her, to keep her at a distance, and to make sure she knows she is not accepted. No matter how hard you try, you'll never be accepted. The only way to deal with dysfunction like this is to avoid it, no contact, don't try to understand them, it is impossible as a good person to understand this type of dysfunction.