Mother-Enmeshed Men: Why Does A Mother-Enmeshed Man Hide His Needs In A Relationship?

What a man could find, that’s if he was to take a step back and reflect on his life, is that he ignores his needs when he is in a relationship. As a result of this, he will act as though he doesn’t have needs.

He can find that he is focused on his partners' needs and does what he can to please her. In the beginning, this can be something that allows him to feel good but, as time passes, behaving in this way can cause him to feel angry and resentful.

A Big Difference

This can then mean that he will be very easy-going and happy for a little while and end up being passive-aggressive and unhappy soon after. Most likely, this will just be something that takes place as opposed to how he has consciously chosen to behave.

But, considering the fact that he would have neglected himself for however long, this is to be expected. He won’t have been happy about what was going on and this will have been made clear indirectly.

Confusion

If this is what takes place, it can mean that his partner would have wondered what was going on; it can be as if he had become someone else entirely. He would have looked the same but he simply won’t have been the same person.

Naturally, people change as time goes by in a relationship but there is a big difference between being one person at one stage and another person entirely at another stage. Consequently, this may have led to a lot of conflict and caused her to emotionally pull away over time.

A Current Challenge

He may even be in a relationship right now and see that he is not listening to or taking care of his own needs. There will be two people in the relationship but he will act as though he is just an extension of his partner.

This could be the first time he has been in a relationship and thus, doesn’t have anything to compare it to. Or, he could find that this is what happens just about every time he is in a relationship.

Enough’s enough

Now, regardless of whether he is or isn’t in a relationship and has or hasn’t been in this position before, he is likely to want to know what is going on. Still, if he is in a relationship, his need to find out can be greater than it would be otherwise.

The reason for this is that if he wasn’t in a relationship, he wouldn’t be focused on someone else’s needs. At the same time, he may find that he spends a lot of time being there for his mother.

The Connection

What could stand out at this point is that how he is with a woman with who he is in a relationship with, is how he is with his mother. In both instances, he will lose touch with himself and be totally focused on what is going on for them.

As his relationship with his mother was the first relationship that he had with a woman, taking a closer look at what his relationship was like with her during his early years is likely to shed light on what is going on. The view that he has deep down, of what women are like, will have primarily been shaped by her.

Back In Time

So, as he ignores his needs when he is with a woman and he does this around his mother, in all likelihood, his mother used him to meet some of her adult and unmet childhood needs. This would have meant that he had to lose touch with his needs from a very young age and had to focus on his mother's needs in order to survive.

If he ever expressed his needs, he most likely would have been punished, disapproved of and/or abandoned. This would have trained him to ignore himself and to be there for others.

A Big Risk

Many, many years will have passed since he was a child but at a deeper level, expressing his needs will still be seen as something that would cause him to be harmed and/or abandoned. Hiding his needs is then going to cause him to suffer but revealing them will be seen as being far worse.

For his life to change, he will need to question what he believes and to resolve the trauma that he is likely to be carrying from this stage of his life. Unsurprisingly, this is not something that will take place overnight; it will take 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.

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