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Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go. Today we are talking about enmeshment, specifically mother enmeshment, because mother enmeshment is one of the most common experiences underneath attachment to porn for men. There are many childhood experiences that contribute to turning to porn neglect, neglect, abandonment, abuse and enmeshment. Out of all those categories, enmeshment is the most confusing one. It's the most difficult one to identify and yet it is so important. Maybe you need to outgrow enmeshment on the way to outgrowing porn. So in this episode you will learn, first of all, what is enmeshment and what does mother enmeshment look like? How does that set you up to struggle with porn? What are some sexual symptoms of this? And then, finally, how do I heal from enmeshment? Here we go.

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What is enmeshment? Broadly speaking, it's a dynamic in relationships where the two people are depending on each other inappropriately and excessively. So when you were a little boy, if you felt like your mom or maybe your dad were depending on you to meet their needs in some way, rather than reading and responding to your needs, then there is an aspect of enmeshment there, of inappropriate dependence on you as a kid. When you grow up enmeshed, there's often a sense that mom or dad need me, they're depending on me, they're counting on me and therefore I need to parent them. In a way, it's almost like my mom or my dad is the child and I'm taking care of them. Or, on the other hand, enmeshment can leave you feeling like, no matter how old you are, you still depend on mom and dad.

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The opposite of an enmeshed relationship is a disengaged relationship, where there's a lack of closeness. There's a lack of closeness. It's distant, Maybe it's shallow, or there's not enough connection. It's easier to notice when a relationship is disengaged than when a relationship is enmeshed, because for many of us we thought enmeshment was intimacy. Maybe that's the version of love you grew up with, and so it's hard sometimes to tell the difference between an enmeshed relationship, which is all tangled up and people are overly dependent on each other, and authentic intimacy, or what we might call secure attachment. In a securely attached relationship, both people have a sense of individuality and autonomy, even as they are connecting and interdependent on each other Not independent, not dependent. Interdependent Enmeshment is when you become overly dependent. So enmeshment is a big category. You could be enmeshed with your wife, with your girlfriend. You could be enmeshed with your male friends. You could even be enmeshed with an organization where there are not enough clear boundaries.

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Or what we're going to talk about most today is enmeshment between a parent and a child, which is sometimes called covert incest, as described in the book Silently Seduced. When Parents Make their Children Partners by Ken Adams. By Ken Adams, Silently Seduced is by far one of the most difficult, disturbing and important books I have ever read and is the best book about enmeshment that I would recommend to all of you who want to learn more about this.

Speaker 1: 4:40

First, let's talk about what mother enmeshment looks like. If you grew up feeling like a mama's boy or man of the house, I want you to strongly consider the possibility of enmeshment in your story. And if you picked up on your mom's stress or her suffering, well, naturally you want to help. You want to make things easier for her. Or maybe your mom was able to connect with you in a way that she wasn't able to connect with your dad or with your other siblings. There are a million reasons why you may have become the stereotypical mama's boy or the man of the house, and I'm not judging you for that. Boys often have very good reasons to allow their moms to depend on them. If you grew up enmeshed, you may have given up on your interests and your dreams to make life easier for mom. You may have sacrificed time with friends or opportunities that you had so that you could stay close to her or help her with her work, and I know that in many cultures it's normal and important for sons to take care of their parents, for sons to take care of their parents, and that is totally appropriate for adults. Kids should never be put in that position In general.

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Here's what a boy needs from his mom in order to develop healthy sexuality. First, it's to connect. The life of a boy begins inside his mother's body and she becomes his source of nourishment and nurture and ideally, as you're entering this world and in your first few years of life, hopefully that connection is really strong. Eventually, as you get older and as you go through puberty, you need to find a healthy separation from mom so that you can become a man. However, sometimes this process gets interrupted In a healthy mother-son relationship. Over time, as a boy gets older, his mom learns to let him go and to release the type of intimate relationship and touch and appropriate dependence that she once had with a little boy in her arms. But in mother enmeshment she tries to hold on. What happens if your mom feels the need to be close to you, maybe even closer than she was to your dad? What happens if she holds on so tightly to her connection with you that you never get that healthy separation?

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Enmeshed mothers feel threatened by their sons becoming more independent and choosing more of what they want in life. They may even feel threatened by a potential romantic partner. Here's the point. Some mothers have a very difficult time letting go of their sons to allow them to go and grow up and be adults and make their own choices and move away if they want to. And it's often because of this inappropriate dependence, enmeshment where the relationship exists to meet the needs of the parent rather than those of the child. Again, it's possible to be enmeshed with anyone, like your dad or a friend or an organization, but it's often very common for men to have an enmeshed relationship with their mothers. Here's an example with their mothers. Here's an example. Maybe falling asleep in bed together with your mom wasn't the picture of closeness and connection that you originally thought it was. Maybe that was her way of meeting her needs through you.

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Enmeshment with a parent or with any other person is more common than you think, and it's a perfect setup to struggle with porn. While a mother may have taken care of you and expected you to take care of her in return, porn takes care of you and asks for nothing in return. In porn, you have a partner who gladly meets your needs and then freely lets you go, with no expectations, no obligations and no feelings of being controlled or smothered or guilt-tripped or overwhelmed. Here's another way to look at it. In one of the earlier episodes of Husband Material years ago, Andrew Bauman said something I'll never forget. He said your mom asked everything of you emotionally and gave nothing to you sexually, while porn gives everything to you sexually and asks nothing of you emotionally.

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Here's the point. Porn does not need you. Your mom may have needed you, your dad may have needed you, other people may have needed you in ways that caused you to focus on everyone else's needs and neglect your needs, but porn promises to meet your needs. It serves the dual function of mothering you or fathering you, while at the same time distancing you from real relationships with people who have real needs and that's part of why it's so appealing with people who have real needs, and that's part of why it's so appealing. Porn provides a perfect combination of symbolic intimacy and symbolic autonomy, and that autonomy piece is what's missing in enmeshment. That's why enmeshment, especially mother enmeshment, is a perfect setup for boys to grow up into men who struggle with porn.

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The puzzle piece of porn fits perfectly into the puzzle piece of enmeshment, Because when you feel engulfed by enmeshment or overwhelmed by the needs of other people, porn provides escape. It gives you autonomy. The desire to escape being engulfed or smothered is good. The desire to have autonomy instead of being controlled by someone else or overwhelmed by their needs is good. Guys, if we want to outgrow porn, we need to outgrow enmeshment. This is a core issue.

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So how do you know if you have experienced enmeshment, especially mother enmeshment? This is a core issue. So how do you know if you have experienced enmeshment, especially mother enmeshment? I'm curious if my description of being a mama's boy or man of the house may have resonated with you. In any case, if you want to look at your life today for signs of enmeshment.

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Here are 10 sexual symptoms of enmeshment, specifically mother enmeshment among men, and I'm specifically talking about sexual symptoms. So there are other symptoms of enmeshment which I'm not going to talk about, such as failure to launch or living with your parents well into adulthood. That can be a clue that enmeshment is present. However, we're going to focus on the symptoms that specifically relate to romantic relationships and sexuality. I recognize that not all of these symptoms will resonate with everyone who has experienced enmeshment, and some of these symptoms can have a wide variety of origins, not just in enmeshment. Let's go through all 10 symptoms. I'm going to list them out first and then I'll explain each one. So here we go.

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What are some sexual symptoms of mother enmeshment among men? Number one aversion to women. Number two avoidance of intimacy. Number three inappropriate guilt. Number four repressed anger. Number two avoidance of intimacy. Number three inappropriate guilt. Number four repressed anger. Number five hyperattunement. Number six low self-confidence. Number seven emotional dependence. Number eight fear of commitment. Number nine lack of authenticity. And number 10, preference for transactional sex.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Let's go back to number one aversion to women. If you felt like your mom needed you and it was your job to take care of her, naturally you may develop a negative association toward romantic relationships with women. You may experience a lack of attraction toward women and again, this is not the only reason why that can happen. It is a common one, especially when it comes to intimacy with women. And this is number two avoidance of intimacy. When you get emotionally or romantically close to a woman, if it feels icky or scary or smothering, it could be a trigger of enmeshment, reminding you of a relationship where the most important woman in your life was depending on you for her emotional well-being or for her survival. It makes sense that men who grew up enmeshed too close, so to speak, would feel the need for more distance and detachment in relationships, especially romantic relationships with women, which often connects with number three inappropriate guilt. This is one that I've experienced a lot feeling like if somebody else is not okay, especially in the context of a romantic relationship, it's my job to make that person feel better. Here's part of why that really kills intimacy in relationships.

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Guilt implies obligation, and obligation is the opposite of arousal. So if you feel obligated in a romantic relationship, that is going to kill any sexual arousal that might otherwise emerge. If you feel pressure to perform as a man, if you're trying to force a specific outcome, or if you feel like everything in this relationship is my fault and so I'm the one who needs to change. All of the time and it's all on me that inappropriate guilt might be pointing to a deeper story of enmeshment. Another way to describe inappropriate guilt is shoulding all over yourself. Many of you know that I have a sign that I like to hold up, like in this video right now, that says don't should all over yourself, Because so many of us carry inappropriate guilt and shame, and oftentimes that goes back to a relationship with mom where I was doing my best but it was never good enough, because rescuing a woman is a burden too big for any boy to carry.

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Men who grew up enmeshed often feel the need to be a savior, to rescue another person, especially a woman, and that is an example of inappropriate guilt and obligation. We are not created to be saviors. There's already a savior named Jesus, created to be saviors. There's already a savior named Jesus and he's really good at what he does, and our job is not to save anyone or to rescue everyone. But when you grow up with that constant sense of moral obligation and pressure and guilt, you often also feel number four repressed anger. Feel Number four repressed anger.

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Ken Adams describes guilt and anger as two core experiences of enmeshment. On the one hand, there's a sense of obligation that I should be there for my mom or for these people who depend on me, or for my partner, and there's also resentment about my lack of freedom or what it's costing me in order to play this role. It's common for men to think I'm not an angry person I never get angry because we've repressed our anger and that anger can come out in different ways, including sexually. Different ways, including sexually. So if inappropriate guilt often kills arousal, repressed anger often leads to sexually acting out through porn or through some other way of rebelling, of retaliating against this system of enmeshment that we feel trapped in and smothered by and controlled by.

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And while enmeshment is certainly a form of relational slavery, it can also give you superpowers like, number five hyper attunement. If you grew up in an environment where you felt it was your job to read and respond to everyone else's needs, or to your mom's needs, for example, then you probably became hyper attuned to the emotional states of other people. Maybe you become preoccupied with micro reactions. Why is that the case? Well, if I grew up feeling like if mom's not okay, then I'm not okay, then I need to be hyper-attuned to her micro-reactions. I need to be able to sense if she needs something so that I can meet that need. It's sad that we had to develop that superpower and yet some counselors and therapists have credited their childhood of growing up in an enmeshed relationship, as giving them this superpower of being able to read and respond to other people's needs with precision and skill. It's something we developed in order to survive in order to survive. Unfortunately, sometimes this hyper-attunement leads to misreading people or personalizing a situation and thinking well, if they're not happy, it must be something that I did, or if they don't like me, you know I should have done something different.

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Men who grew up enmeshed are often scanning other people's nonverbal signals to try to discern how people are doing and if we are safe. We become so focused on reading the emotions of others, while we often struggle to notice and name our own emotions or to know what we are feeling, and one belief associated with this is that other people's needs are more important than mine, and that leads us to number six low self-confidence. Men who grew up in mesh often feel inadequate, like I'll never be good enough or I'll never be good enough for her or I'll never be good enough for him. And I think part of this is because if you grew up believing that it was your job to rescue someone, whether it was your mom or someone else or your whole family that was an impossible job. You were never going to be able to do it. It's so sad when your beauty and strength as a boy and the desire in your heart to help others ultimately leads to low self-confidence because you were carrying a burden too big for any boy. Men who grow up enmeshed have been carrying burdens since we were little boys to try to save others, help others, make a difference, and yet we also feel like what we're doing is never good enough.

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Sometimes enmeshed men allow themselves to be treated really poorly. That was me in my first romantic relationship. While I was trying my hardest, I still had such low self-confidence because, no matter how hard I tried to love my girlfriend, because it was never good enough for her and I thought the problem was with me. I judged myself based on how she felt about me, which reveals number seven emotional dependence. It's that belief I referenced earlier that if she's not okay, then I'm not okay, or if I'm not okay, then she's not okay. Enmeshed men have a tough time learning to be okay even if other people are not okay, and learning that it's okay to not be okay. Enmeshed men have a tough time learning that, even if other people are not okay, I can still be okay in myself and in the context of safe, healthy relationships, it's okay for me to not be okay.

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I don't always have to be someone that others can depend on. I don't always have to be someone that others can depend on. I still remember when I was in college, a wise older man helped me outgrow enmeshment. He said I don't need my wife. I love her, I want her, I enjoy her, I delight in her, I pursue her, I desire her, but I don't need her. In the end, I will be okay without her. I desire her, but I don't need her. In the end, I will be okay without her. That blew my mind. I realized, oh my goodness, what I thought of as love from when I was a little boy was actually neediness. It was over-dependence. And that forever changed my life To realize that in a relationship I need to go from thinking I need this person or this person needs me to. We want each other, we desire each other, we love each other and we don't need each other. That is a huge shift that is so important in order to outgrow enmeshment.

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So if you experience excessive emotional dependence on another person or you have another person excessively emotionally depending on you, consider if that might be a symptom of enmeshment. Another really common one is number eight fear of commitment. For men who grew up enmeshed, commitment carries with it that sense of guilt, obligation being smothered, being controlled. There's a fear of being trapped in that urge to escape, controlled. There's a fear of being trapped in that urge to escape, and this can come out through an urge to cheat, to violate the relationship, or maybe to go through a series of relationships, whether that's dating one person after the other but never fully committing, or having multiple marriages. Again, there are many reasons why that can happen. Yet fear of commitment is one of the most common symptoms and if you're married and you feel a conflict between what your wife is asking of you and what your mother is asking of you, you may want to check out the book when he's Married to Mom by Ken Adams, and these conflicting commitments might be evidence of enmeshment.

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Symptom number nine is one of the ones that makes the most sense to me. It's a lack of authenticity. If I'm constantly focused on meeting the needs of others, as enmeshment are prone to do, then it makes sense that I would feel the need to adjust my appearance or my style of relating in order to try my best to fit into what the other person wants. And while that can be helpful in certain contexts, it's also tragic. It's lonely, it creates a barrier between you and other people because you never actually share your real thoughts and feelings, your real, authentic self.

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And meshed men can be very perfectionistic and feel the need to constantly do things right and make people happy, and in that there can be such a lack of authenticity. I recently learned about a book called Imperfectionism and I just thought that was a marvelous word. Instead of perfectionism we can pursue imperfectionism, because imperfection is actually necessary for connection. But when you grow up enmeshed, sometimes there's not a lot of space to be imperfect. And finally, the last symptom and perhaps the most important sexual symptom for men outgrowing porn is number 10, a preference for transactional sex, In other words, instead of a real sexual relationship, which can be messy and imperfect or where the other person has needs that you might feel threatened by.

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Something like porn or a hookup gives you very clear expectations, very clear boundaries, and that is very appealing in the context of enmeshment. Having a sexual situation where you know what's going to happen and what you want matters, and when it's done, it's done and that's it. There's no more guilt and obligation. There's a lot of power in that for someone who often feels the pressure to meet the needs of others and that's it. Out of those 10 symptoms, how many resonated with you? Maybe you might want to add another one to the list. I know this is not comprehensive. I'm still learning about this topic and yet I hope that some of it may have helped to explain why porn and other types of unwanted sexual behavior have so much power, because they symbolize the separation that we need in the middle of enmeshment.

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Ultimately, if you have experienced enmeshment, what does healing look like? Here are a few suggestions Study your story, Study the role enmeshment played in your childhood and how that may have impacted your sexuality and, eventually, your relationship with porn. And as you do that, please give yourself grace and space to grieve, Because this is so dysregulating it can be disturbing to realize the role that enmeshment or covert incest may have played in your life. For me, it was ridiculously dysregulating Because I was reinterpreting what I thought of as love from the person who loved me into existence. Thankfully, I have been able to do a lot of work in my story around this and set healthy boundaries, and that's ultimately what enmeshed men need. We need healthy boundaries and here are some examples of what that might look like.

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Especially in your relationship with your mom, you may want to put boundaries around touch the way she touches you or hugs you or kisses you. This is something I had to do with my mom and we've talked about that in an episode of Husband Material called Healing with my Parents and I'll put the link to that in the show notes If you'd like. There was a period of time when I wasn't comfortable with being kissed by my mom because it was so triggering. So you may need to set boundaries around touch with your mom. Also, boundaries around topics, Like if she wants to talk about your dad and complaining about him, you may need to set a boundary of saying I'm not open to that topic. Maybe you need to set some boundaries around time If she's constantly asking or demanding your help in some way, or boundaries around tasks that she's asking you to do, or maybe things that she is doing for you that you might not be appreciating. In any case, set boundaries and, in your relationships, learn how to go from I need you to I love you and I don't need you.

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Enmeshment is a type of relational slavery that robs you of your sense of self, of connection to your own emotions and your own desires. So when you heal from enmeshment, when you study your story, give yourself grace and space to grieve, set healthy boundaries and learn how to have a relationship based on want rather than need. You will take ownership of who you are, regardless of how someone else responds. You will take ownership of how you feel, not just being focused on how everyone else feels, and you will take ownership of what you want as you outgrow enmeshment on your way to outgrow porn. If you want help with this, I would encourage you to join the waitlist for Husband Material Academy.

Speaker 1: 30:39

Go to joinhmacom. We are going to launch a new cohort in a few months and HMA is a great program to help you study your story, give yourself grace and space, learn how to take steps toward healing and redemptive risks, like setting personal boundaries, working on your relationships and taking ownership of who you are. We would love to see you in HMA. Go to joinhmacom. Check out some of the resources in the show notes if you want to learn more about enmeshment, and always remember you are God's beloved son. In you. He is well pleased.