Mother-Enmeshed Men: What Does A Mother-Enmeshed Man And His Mother Have In Common?

If a man is in a position where he spends a lot of time focusing on and doing things for his mother, his own life is going to be neglected. What this comes down to is that he only has so much time and energy.

It would be different if he could be fully focused on himself and his mother but this is not possible. Of course, there is a big difference between being there for her from time to time and being solely focused on her.

Out of balance

Being there for her from time to time, if this is what he chooses, is not going to cause him to overlook his own needs. However, being solely focused on her is naturally going to cause him to overlook his own needs.

Instead of acting as an interdependent human being, he will as though he is an extension of his mother. Her needs will then be what matters, while his needs will be of secondary importance.

The Norm

Nonetheless, if this is just what is normal, there will be no reason for him to see that something is not right. That doesn’t mean that behaving in his way won’t have a negative effect on him, though.

He could often feel frustrated and spend a lot of time in a very low state. What is going on for him will be there to let him know that he is out of alignment with himself and needs to change his behaviour.

The Similarity

Unless he is able to wake up, then, he is likely to continue to behave in this way and ignore himself. Based on how he behaves, he is going to be more like a boy than a man.

This is because a boy will want to stay close to his mother and his survival depends on her; whereas a man won’t have the need to stay close to her and his survival won’t depend on her. Yet, although he is a man, he will still behave as though his mother is the centre of his world and his survival depends on her.

Stunted

So, what this is likely to show is that since he was a boy, his physical and mental self have grown but his emotional self hasn’t really grown. He will then look like a man but a big part of him will feel like a boy.
And, as this is what is going on for him at a deeper level, it is not possible for him to be there for himself and live his own life. If he was to do this, he is likely to soon feel uncomfortable and it won’t be long until he goes back to how he was.

Deeply deprived

During his formative years, he is likely to have missed out on the attunement and love that he needed to grow and develop in the right way. What he needed was an attuned mother who could love him but he probably had a mother who had been emotionally shut down and unable to love him.

Consequently, he would have been forced to adapt to her and lose touch with his feelings and a number of his needs. If he did express himself, she might have punished him in some way, sending him the message that there was something inherently wrong with his needs and that it wasn’t safe for him to express them.

The Outcome

Being deprived and deeply wounded would have stopped him from being able to move beyond the stage where he was dependent on his mother. This is why his emotional self would have stayed anchored to this stage of his life.

If she hadn't been emotionally shut down and was able to love him, he probably would have moved through this stage. What this illustrates is that as strong as she may appear to be, she is not in a good way emotionally.

Way Back

During her formative years, she is likely to have also been deprived of the attunement and love that she needed to grow and develop in the right way. If she does come across as strong, it will show that she developed a disconnected and inflated false self.

This would have taken place automatically and been the way that she was able to handle the pain that she was in. But, under this false self will the pain that she experienced when she was ignored, rejected, and abandoned.

The Connection

With this in mind, although the man won’t be in his power and his mother can come across as strong, they will both be developmentally stunted. The man might have a different temperament and have been wounded slightly earlier than his mother, for instance, but neither of them will have received what they needed to become emotionally interdependent.

Thus, part of the man won’t want to leave his mother and live his own life and part of his mother won’t want him to leave her and have his own life. This shows how her own lack of development and self-awareness prevented her from being able to provide her son with what he needed to gradually break away from her.

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.

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk