Mother-Enmeshed Men: Can A Mother-Enmeshed Mans Split-Off Infantile Parts Cause Him To Be Enmeshed?

If a man is caught up in his mother’s world and his own life is being overlooked, he could have well and truly had enough. He could be sick and tired of acting like her parent and abandoning himself.

However, on the plus side, at least he will be aware of what is going on and have the need to do something about it. The alternative would be for him to be oblivious to what is going on and for his life to continue to go in the same direction.

Inner Conflict

Yet, although he will want to go from behaving like an object that his mother owns to being an individual who owns himself, he can experience resistance. He can find that when he thinks about standing up for himself and doing what’s right for him, he feels as guilty and ashamed, as well as anxious and fearful.

Due to this, it will be as if changing his behaviour is wrong and a threat to his survival. At this point, he could believe that this is irrational as there is no reason for him to be this way.

Another Angle

But, if he were able to go back in time and observe what is was like for him as a boy, how he is behaving as an adult might son make sense. Practically from the moment that he was born, he might have been deprived of the care that he needed to grow and develop in the right way.

This would have deeply wounded him and stopped him from being able to go from an emotionally dependent to an emotionally interdependent being. And, along with missing out on the emotional nutrients that he needed, his mother might have also used him to meet some of her needs as time passed.

One option

As he was powerless and dependent, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to change her behaviour and make her into a loving mother. He also wouldn’t have been able to find another mother who could love him.

The only thing that he was able to do was to lose touch with how he felt and a number of his needs. These feelings and needs would then have been removed from his conscious awareness but this inner material wouldn’t have completely disappeared.

A Strong Need

Many years will have passed since he was powerless and dependent on his mother, of course, but parts of him will be frozen in time. These parts will be made up of how he felt when a need or a number of needs were not met.

Therefore, these parts will include feelings and one or a number of unmet developmental needs. And, as these split-off parts are frozen in time, they won’t realise that it is too late to meet the needs that were not met and that the mother he now has is the not the mother he had.

The Same Story

One thing that these parts want to do is to attach to his mother, so that he can receive the love that he missed out on and break away from her. Therefore, as annoying and frustrating as it will be for his adult self to focus on his mother, his infantile parts will be hoping that this will allow them to receive what they need.

It is then not that his mother has a net that she is using to keep him close to her; no, it is partly, if not fully, due to the fact that parts of his own consciousness are attached to her and don’t want to let go. But, as he wouldn’t have been aware of this, it would have seemed as though he had very little, if any, control.

The Moment Has Passed

The trouble is that as he is now a man and not a boy and it is too late for him to receive what he missed out on, focusing on his mother and doing what she wants won’t allow him to move beyond this underdeveloped and fractured state. She could then be emotionally available and loving but it wouldn’t matter.

Additionally, not only will behaving in this way be a way for him to receive what he missed out on; it will also serve as a defence. It will be a way for him to stop the pain that he experienced very early on from entering his conscious awareness.

A Brutal Time

Throughout his early years, he is likely to have often been rejected and abandoned and had the experience of dying without dying. The anxiety and fear that he experiences when he thinks about breaking away and changing his behaviour are then going to be there to let him know that if he does this, it will cause him to be rejected and abandoned and for his life to end.

In reality, he will have already been rejected and abandoned by her and died without dying, but, as he had to repress the inner experience he was having, to keep it together and function, what did happen will be seen as something that will happen. If he had been able to attach to her and then to break away, it would be different but he wasn’t able to attach to her, which is why he wasn’t able to break away from her.

Moving Forward

For him to no longer look for what he missed out on and be able to separate from her without feeling as though he is going to die, he will have pain to face and work through and unmet developmental needs to experience. This will take courage, patience and persistence.

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