Mother-Enmeshed Men: Has A Mother-Enmeshed Man Been Conditioned To Sacrifice Himself?

If a man acts as though he is an extension of his mother and spends a lot of time meeting her needs, what can be clear to an outsider is that he is out of balance. The reason for this is that he is a separate human being who has his own needs, feelings and life to lead.

Therefore, by behaving in this way, he will be ignoring a number of his needs and how he feels, and he won’t be living his own life. However, while someone on the outside can see this clearly, he might not be able to.

Unaware

If he is unable to see that he is out of balance, there is going to be no reason for him to change his life. He will then continue to behave in the same way, abandoning himself in the process.

However, even if he is not aware of what is going on, it doesn’t mean that he won’t pay a price. He can, for example, spend a lot of time feeling low and drained, with it often being difficult for him to function.

Unable to See the Connection

But, as he is unaware of why he is this way, he can believe that he just suffers from depression. Then again, he might not even be aware of how drained he often feels because of how normal this is for him.

Either way, as he is not aware of the cause and continues to behave in the same way, his health is likely to get even worse as time passes. And, it might need to get a lot worse before he wakes up and starts to change his behaviour.

An Alternative

Conversely, he could start dating a woman, and this could lead to him being in a relationship. Assuming that this does take place, before long, the woman could realise that he is overly focused on his mother.

She could see that he doesn’t just do the odd thing for her; his life more or less revolves around her needs. Thanks to this, as time passes, she might not see him much, and when she does spend time with him, he could largely be mentally and emotionally absent.

Confusion

She might hope that, before long, he will do less for her and become more available. Alternatively, she might conclude that she can’t live in hope and needs to talk to him about what she sees.

If she does speak to him, he might not be able to accept what she says, or he might end up agreeing with what she says. Of course, what will be best not only for her, but for him, too, will be for the latter to occur.

The next stage

If this is what does take place, what might soon enter his mind is how this is not serving him. For him to find out why he behaves in this way, there is an exercise that he can do.

He can imagine that he is no longer focused on his mother's needs and is meeting his own needs and living his own life. At first, he can feel free, powerful and alive, but, as time passes, he can be anxious and feel guilty.

A Strange Scenario

What this will show is that not being there for his mother and being there for himself is seen as something that is a threat to his survival and is wrong. After this, he can wonder why he has this experience.

Nonetheless, if he were able to go back in time and observe his early years, he might gradually realise why he is this way. This is likely to have been a stage of his life when his mother was emotionally unavailable and out of reach, and used him to meet a number of her needs.

A Brutal Time

He would then have not only missed out on the attunement and care that he needed, but he would have had to be there for his mother. To handle being greatly deprived and deeply wounded, he would have had to lose touch with his connected and feeling true self and developed a disconnected, unfeeling and outer-directed false self.

When he did freely express himself and didn’t act as if he was an extension of her, she is likely to have ignored, criticised or left him. This would have caused him to associate his needs and feelings as being bad, and to see self-expression as something that would cause him to be disconnected and to die, and as being something that was wrong.

Another Element

Furthermore, if his father was around, he might have also criticised or harmed him if he didn’t do what his mother wanted. This would then have strengthened the view that his survival would be under threat if he didn’t please her, and that this was the wrong thing for him to do.

His father would then have enabled her behaviour and not been supportive or protected him from her devouring nature. He wouldn’t have been born into a family that could embrace who he was and give him what he needed to thrive; instead, he was born into a family where he had to become who his mother wanted and behave how she wanted him to behave, and his father ensured that this took place.

Two Wounded People

Most likely, his mother was in a developmentally stunted state and had an inflated false self, as she also had to adapt to and been used by one or both of her parents. She was then his mother, but she needed to be mothered and perhaps fathered and couldn’t give him what he needed.

As for his father, he was probably also developmentally stunted and had a deflated false self, as he had also been used by one or both of his parents. He was then his father, but he needed to be mothered and perhaps fathered and couldn’t give him what he needed.

Moving forward

Taking all this into account, how he was treated wasn’t a reflection of his worth or lovability, and his needs and feelings are not bad or wrong. For him to be able to freely express himself and live his own life, without feeling as though he is going to be on the outside and die, or as though he is doing something wrong, there will 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, among other things. 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 external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.