If you are married to a mother enmeshed man, you often don't understand what is happening. Everybody tells you that your husband is such a wonderful son and has such a wonderful relationship with his mom and how nice that must be for you etc. Nobody seems to understand the damage is does to a relationship when mom is married to your husband first and foremost.
There is no place, that I could find, that supports spouses of enmeshed men or women. Fathers can also be enmeshed with their daughter. There are severe consequences for long term relationships and a healthy happy marriage is impossible.
I will be referring to MEM mainly because my experience is with a MEM. I have seen the detrimental effects of a father enmeshed daughter, my sister in law. Unable to have a healthy marriage or long term relationship, it is detrimental to ones own happiness and joy in life.
The enmeshed person gives up all joy and happiness to the parent. Spouses have no way of reaching their spouse in a deep emotional level. That place is sealed off because of the hurt that was build there from the loss of self.
When a child becomes the partner, the child stops maturing and is stuck in an immature way of dealing with the world. They see the world from the perspective of a child. Actually more a puppet in the hands of a puppeteer that they have no control over. The enmeshed person starts building resentment towards being trapped, caught, used, abused, made to honor the parents( which is just a way to control), and so on. The child has no way of knowing what is happening and they know not to upset the enmeshed parent. With their angry lost and abandoned feeling they are left alone. The feelings don't go away, they lay low most of the time because getting angry at the parent is not an option. The child has been taught to be completely obedient because mom is doing so much for you and loves you so much. Of course the love is not true love, simply control. Once the enmeshed child gets into a relationship with another woman, the mom becomes even needier and gets more and more involved with the son to make sure she wins any competition with the partner. The son is emotionally close to mom and keeps the girlfriend or wife at a distance. This enmeshed relationship between mother and son is the first priority and the son refuses to let anybody come close fearing this bit of attachment, although completely unhealthy, will not be destroyed by anybody, including their wife or children.
Mom wins every time. Because the relationship with the wife takes second place, the anger can safely be unloaded towards the wife. She is the sole recipient of avalanches of anger, often out of the blue, no warning whatsoever. And often the wife has no clue what she just did to receive this kind of reaction.
The wife becomes the abused. The enmeshed men works from the depths of his soul and often doesn't realize they are abusive because in their mind they can explain why they have every right to treat their wife as ill as they are. It is a vicious cycle that takes years to break, and only if the mother enmeshed men is willing to accept they are abusers and have been abused by their moms. That is the hardest step to take, to actually see and acknowledge they are abused children and in turn have become abusers.
As spouses of enmeshed men, life is difficult, very difficult. There is little joy, lots of arguing, lots of silent pain, lots of unseen tears, lots of deep cuts to the soul, lots of self talk, lots of feelings of failure, lots of loneliness, no hope of healing. Being a spouse of an enmeshed men is lonely, very lonely. Often it is made worse by the husband's family, who also receive unwritten permission from the husband, to abuse and belittle and put down the spouse as well. Some enmeshed families will do this openly, others will do it in subtle ways, but the feeling of being rejected and constantly betrayed by the person who should protect you the most, is devastating. It leads to the loss of your own soul as it is being cut into pieces by people you can't openly fight.
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