This was my Mem's grandmother. The next generation, my MEM was disgustingly enmeshed with his mother and his father is disgustingly completely enmeshed with his youngest daughter he shares with a different woman. When she married he made her move in with him, which of course drove the husband away after only a few month. The dad's philosophy is that nobody can take care of his little woman like he can. Needless to say she is living with her dad and emotionally distant mother again. The next generation had 2 highly enmeshed children, my MEM's nieces and nephews. Looking into the third generation, each one of my mem's siblings has an enmeshed child but the intensity varies a little. Two are beyond help. I believe it is because they NEVER had a secure relationship. They cannot bond with a spouse. It has to be a power over relationship of enmeshment to feel some kind of connection and control. My Mem's oldest sister has her youngest son hopelessly enmeshed. He fled into drugs, which is now how they connect and stay together. He is an addict and she enables him under the guise of caring and loving him most of all. One of the mem's brothers has a daughter he takes on dates and drives around and adores like they are dating. It is his oldest daughter and interestingly they sent the second daughter to live with the maternal grandma, she was in the way of his relationship with his oldest daughter I guess and the mother had never bonded with her, even as a baby I saw her only be cold and distant to her. This poor girl needed too much attention for this dysfunctional couple to handle so she ended up living 5 hours away with grandma who has already raised a couple of dysfunctional children but they are OK sacrificing their child to get her out of the way.
The fourth generation mainly remains unmarried and childless, however, the two, both daughters from my mem's oldest sister with the drug addict son, who have children, are already highly enmeshed. They each have one son and that is who their little man is. Neither is married, they raise their little man alone, totally helplessly victimized by emotionally inept mothers who never had a secure relationship. Power over is all they can handle in order to control their surrounding and their little man. I am sure the enmeshment will continue into many more generations since nobody is stopping it and it is all that is familiar to them. Enmeshment is a disease that affects generations.