Mother-Enmeshed Men: Can A Man Still Be Enmeshed With His Mother If He Doesn’t Speak To Her?

If someone was to think about a mother-enmeshed man, what is likely to come to mind is a man who is overly focused on his mother. This will make complete sense as if he is entangled with her, his life is surely going to revolve around her.

Based on this, if a man doesn’t speak to his mother and perhaps doesn’t live anywhere near her, he won’t be entangled with her. Consequently, this is going to be something that is black and white.

More to It

However, what if it is not black and white and a man doesn’t need to be focused on his mother or live close to her to be entangled with her? This can be hard for someone to accept.

But, as this will go against their view of what a mother-enmeshed man is like, this is not going to be a surprise. At this point, it will be important for them to have an open mind.

A Different Reaction

What this illustrates is that if a man was deprived during his formative years and was unable to emotionally separate from his mother, it doesn’t mean that he will have responded in a certain way. When it comes to how he responded, what can play a part is the stage that he was deprived.

So, if he received what he needed during the first few years of his life but was deprived after, this may have allowed him to develop the foundations that he needed to live his own life. Therefore, his sense of self would have been developed enough for him to physically leave his mother but not emotionally leave her.

On The Surface

Additionally, the type of temperament that he has is also likely to have played a part. As an adult, he can have a successful career, numerous friends and even have had a number of relationships.

From the outside, then, he can appear to have very little in common with a man who is caught up in his mother’s world. If someone knows what to look for and looks close enough, though, the signs will be there that he hasn’t truly left his mother’s world.

A Closer Look

What they can find is that he is emotionally shut down and is unable to get close to a woman. The relationships that he does have, then, are going to lack depth and they might only last for a certain period of time.

Further, and even if he does have relationships with women, he could often have casual encounters. What this will do is allow him to meet a number of his physical needs but he will be able to keep his distance emotionally.

Self-Protection

If he was to allow himself to emotionally attach to a woman, he is likely to soon come into contact with how he felt around his mother. There is even the chance that this has happened at least once, with this being a time when soon had the need to pull away.

Most likely, he would have believed that the woman caused him to feel a certain way. As a result of this, getting away from her would have been seen as the right thing for him to do.

A Strong Need

This will have been a time when his sympathetic nervous was active, with him going into flight mode. When it comes to a man who is focused on his mother, on the other hand, his parasympathetic nervous system can typically be active, with him spending a lot of time in a frozen and shut down state.

Anyway, along with him losing touch with his feelings very early on, he would have ended up fleeing from her once he got to a certain age. So, now that he is an adult, the same thing will take place whenever his repressed feelings that relate to this mother are unlocked and enter his conscious awareness.

Inner Mother

This shows that the mother that he had lives inside him and, when he gets close to a woman, he will unconsciously see her as his mother. For this to change, he will need to become aware of what is going on and to resolve his inner wounds.

This is something that can take place after he has arrived at the stage where he has had enough of pulling away from women and ending relationships that were going in the right direction. He will no longer be able to handle the pain that this is causing him.

Drawing the Line

At this stage, he can begin to explore why he is experiencing life in this way and to see how the relationship that he had with his mother is being replayed with women. He will see that although many years have passed and he is no longer a boy, he is still carrying baggage from this stage of his life.

A big part of that will allow him to let go of this will be for him to face and work through the pain that he is carrying. This is something that will take courage and 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.