Mother-Enmeshed Men: Did A Mother-Enmeshed Man’s Mother See Him As Her Parent?

If a man, who is overly focused on his mother and spends a lot of time meeting her needs, were to reflect on how he behaves, what might enter his mind is how he is more like his mothers parent than her son. This is because he won’t just be there for her from time to time; his life will revolve around her.

Unless he is at work, then, he can be going things for her, or he can be listening to her problems and doing what he can to cheer her up. Now, as out of balance as he will be, he can find that this is what feels comfortable.

Inner conflict

Therefore, if he were to think about changing his behaviour, let alone actually changing his behaviour, he could soon experience tension. After this, he could find that he feels guilty and as though he is betraying his mother.

From this, he will realise that it is not going to be possible for him to just change his behaviour, even though behaving in this way is not serving him. What might enter his mind after this is that he needs to speak to his mother about what is going on for him.

The next Stage

Assuming that this were to take place, he could tell her that he needs to be more focused on his own life and can’t be there for her as much, or something similar. After this, she could say that she understands and that it is important that he is there for himself.

What this will show is that she can accept that he is a separate individual who has his own life to lead. He is likely to greatly appreciate her validation, understanding and support.

Another Scenario

Alte
atively, after he has told her about what is going on for him, she could respond negatively. So, she could ignore what he says and change the subject, or she could end up criticising him.

Either way, it will be as though she is unable to accept that he is a separate individual who has his own life to lead. After this has taken place and he is by himself, he can feel angry and frustrated, and then he can feel guilty and ashamed.

Back To Normal

What can enter his mind is that he has no right to live his own life and that he has to be there for his mother. But he can see that, as he is her son and not her parent, he is not responsible for her.

Thus, he can see that even though he believes that it wouldn’t be right for him to implement boundaries with his mother and spend more of his time and energy meeting his own needs, this is actually the right thing for him to do. After thinking about this, he can wonder why he can’t fully accept this.

A Closer Look

Most likely, the reason he can’t fully accept this is due to how his mother treated him as a child and the impact this had on him. During this stage of his life, his mother probably didn’t provide him with the attunement, care, mirroring, support and love that he needed to grow and develop in the right way.

Also, she probably used him to meet a number of her needs. Consequently, not only would he have been greatly deprived and deeply wounded, but he would have had to give at a stage when he needed to receive.

A Challenging Time

To handle not receiving what he needed and being forced to give, he would have had to lose touch with his connected and feeling true self, and develop a disconnected, unfeeling and outer-directed false self. He would then have gone from a human being who freely expressed himself, to a human doing who had to perform for his mother.

Along with how he adapted, he would have come to believe that his needs and feelings were bad, that he was worthless and unlovable, and that he was responsible for his mother's needs. How he feels compelled to behave as an adult will then be a continuation of how he had to behave as a child.

The other Side

And how his mother behaves now will also be a continuation of how she behaved when he was a powerless and dependent boy. There is a strong chance that she was greatly deprived and deeply wounded during her formative years.

She probably developed a disconnected, unfeeling and inflated false self to handle what happened and to keep it together and function. As she was in an underdeveloped state, she would have unconsciously projected the mother and/or father that she needed into him.

A Natural outcome

By seeing him in this way, she would have felt entitled to his attention, just as she would have felt entitled to her parent’s attention when she was a child. Time will then have passed, but she will be just as underdeveloped as she was when he was a boy.

What this illustrates is that she is not choosing to be this way; she is too underdeveloped to behave differently. With this in mind, how she is behaving isn’t personal.

Moving Forward

For him to be able to freely express himself and no longer be entangled with his mother, there are going to be a number of steps for him to take. He will have beliefs to question, pain to face and process, and unmet developmental needs to experience.

This will take courage, support, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this and he is ready to change his life, he may need to reach out for exte
al support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.