My MEM said but how do you show a MEM that he is in an unhealthy relationship? He is certain is mother didn't know she was creating an unhealthy dynamic within her family. She never recognized that she made him her partner. She never thought she did anything to tie him to her emotionally and physically by not wanting him to leave far from her residence. She relied more and more on him because she needed a partner. It wasn't because she wanted to keep him from having a healthy relationship with a partner, she simply didn't know what she was doing was unhealthy.
He said the same about him. He said he didn't realize how he treated me was abuse. He felt he could justify every time he yelled, shoved me, or put me down. He always had reasons to blow up and his reasons mattered more than mine. He wasn't concerned about my feelings or emotions, only about his and protecting his mother.
A MEM is so tangled up with mother's ropes, it is impossible for a MEM to see it. They are so trained to live their emotions through mother.
Once we were committed, or at least I thought we were, I became the enemy of the family. Even he fought me every time he thought I was threatening his closeness to his mother. He saw me through his mother's eyes and emotions. I wasn't right for him, only she was. I needed to be put into place to keep the relationship between her and my MEM close. I was the threat to be exterminated or at least made so little and insignificant that I would never attempt to get in-between their relationship again. Sadly they almost had me there. Trying so hard for years to please and to figure out how to become part of the family takes a toll on a person. You give up your own interests and energy to work on something that will never work. Broken and wore out you realize you are on a dead end road.
One of the professionals I worked with from Germany was in a marriage with a MEM. They had complete separate lives. She had her set of friends and her business, he had his mother and no friends. He would go on vacation with his mother, he would “hang” out at his mother's house, help his mother with everything, and she was home living her own live with their two children. Neither had a good relationship with the absent father. She was enmeshed with her son. The cycle of mother enmeshment continued.
If a spouse of a MEM decides coming in second is not going to work forever and sets down the boundaries, the MEM either leaves relieved that he no longer has to be separated from mom or he actually looks a little deeper. Sadly most MEM leave or ask their spouse or partner to leave. They go back to mom feeling justified in having done the right thing in protecting mother and the dysfunctional family dynamic. For them that is most important in life. If they choose counseling and digging deeper they have a long road ahead of them in finding who they really are. No kidding, they really don't know who they are. I believe we lived with God before we came to this earth and had a personality there already. When we come to earth the parents should only guide the child to become who they already are but a MEM mother shapes and molds the child into something she needs, abuses the child to cater to her without ever finding out who he is. My MEM has changed in so many ways since counseling and cutting contact with his family. He is finally finding himself and it is a good self. Much kinder, much more caring than he ever could be tied up in his mother's emotions. He simply could not show kindness, that was disloyal to his mother and her wishes. His mother said not too long ago: “I don't know who you are anymore.” I believe she actually spoke the truth. Without being entangled in her emotions he was free to become who he was meant to be from before he was born. He actually started liking himself. As Dr. Gabor Mate says, “Aggression is the result of frustration.” My MEM was severely aggressive because he was always frustrated by not being allowed to be himself. Once he was allowed to be himself and started to get to know himself, the aggression became even obvious to him. He still couldn't control it but he noticed it and noticed how some of the triggers were simply ridiculous. How his anger and frustration controlled him and it gave him a place to change.
MEM mothers are evil but for most it is probably circumstances that made them evil. Their innate need to have someone care for them. To establish a balance in the family with two partners leading the family. A need to be emotionally intimate with a partner. It is sad that it makes a puppet of the son and he will never know himself, know his potential nor ever find true happiness and love in his life.