Mother-Enmeshed Men: Why Would A Mother-Enmeshed Man Feel Disloyal For Living his Own Life?

What should feel comfortable is for a man to pay attention to his own needs and to live his own life. However, although this is what should feel comfortable, it doesn’t mean that it will be.

Instead, a man can have the tendency to be there for his mother and to do what he can to meet her needs. This can be something that takes place without him even needing to think about it.

One and the Same

There is the chance that he won’t know the difference between his needs and his mother’s needs. His mother’s need’s can be seen as his own needs and most of his own needs can largely end up being overlooked.

In fact, he might not be connected to most of his needs, so it won’t be as if he is overlooking these needs; he simply won’t be aware of them. This will show how focused he is on his mother and what it is that she wants and how estranged he is from himself

An Analogy

One way of looking at this would be to say that it will be as though his mother has a room and he has a room but his mother will have a lot of her stuff in his room. Due to this, it won’t be clear which room is hers and which room is his.

Regardless of whether he thinks about what is going on, he will feel as if both rooms are his mothers. Ultimately, he won’t have a strong sense of where he begins and ends and where his mother begins and ends.

Another part of her

So, he will be a separate individual, but he will act like he is an extension of his mother. Deep down, he can believe that his sole purpose is to be there for her and to take care of her needs.

As a result of this, he is going to neglect himself and his true self is rarely, if ever, going to see the light of day. For his life to change he will need to become aware of what is going on; unless this happens, he will continue to behave in the same way.

The First Part

What this comes down to is that as this is just what is normal, he is stuck; like a fish in a fish bowl, he doesn’t know what is going on. Something will need to take place to “wake him up”.

This is something that could take place if he was to get into a relationship or if he was to have a breakdown. Something in the external world will have shaken him up and given him the chance to see clearly.

The Second Part

If he is able to face reality and doesn’t simply try to carry on as before, it doesn’t mean that he will just be able to draw the line with his mother and live his own life. If anything, the real work will have only just begun.

At this point, he could find that just thinking about living his own life, let alone actually living his life, causes him to be filled with guilt and shame. If he is there for himself, as opposed to his mother, he will believe that he is being disloyal.

Changing Position

Consequently, what should feel right will feel wrong and what should feel wrong will feel right. To help him to see clearly, he can imagine that he has a child, assuming he doesn’t, and to think about if he would want his child to feel responsible for him.

So responsible, in fact, that his child wasn’t able to live their own life. Most likely, he wouldn’t want his child to neglect themselves for him; he would want them to live their own life.

The Right Thing

Moreover, if his child was to live their own life, he wouldn’t see them as being disloyal. He would see them as behaving in the right way and would encourage them to do what they needed to do, even if it meant that they wouldn’t be able to be there for him.

With his in mind, he can start to see how irrational it is for him to feel disloyal for wanting to live his own life. It will be vital for him to keep this in mind; as although this understanding alone won’t liberate him, it will play a part in this process.

Role Reversal

As to why he would feel this way for wanting to live his own life, it is likely to be due to what took place during his early years. This would have probably been a time when his mother used him to meet some of her adult and unmet childhood needs.

From the beginning, he had to be there for his mother and to focus on her needs; most of his needs would have been overlooked. If he expressed his needs, he may have been punished, disapproved of and/or abandoned, and this would have stopped him from receiving the nutrients that he needed to grow and develop, hence why he will still be enmeshed to his mother.

The Foundations Were Laid

These early experiences would have caused him to believe that his needs and his self were bad. Also, he would have come to believe that he is responsible for his mothers needs and that he has to please her to survive.

Thus, he will be her son but he will have been conditioned to be more like her father. There is a strong chance that she was also used in the same way by one of her parents and this is partly why this insidious form of abuse was passed down from one generation to another.

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