Mother-Enmeshed Men: Did A Mother-Enmeshed Man Have To Disconnect From His Need To Be Seen?

If a man typically acts like an extension of his mother, he is likely to seldom if ever truly be seen by her. What this will mean is that she won’t be able to acknowledge that he has his own needs and feelings.

It will then be as if the only reason he is on this earth is to be there for her and make sure that her needs are taken care of. Naturally, this is going to mean that his mother will take a lot from him but she won’t give anything back, at least not emotionally.

More of the same

And, if he doesn’t have any close friends and is not in a relationship, he is also going to be emotionally deprived in these areas of his life. Now, he might work around a number of people that are able to acknowledge his existence but this is not going to be the same.

What he will need is to have people in his life that are able to see him as a separate being that has his own needs and feelings and care about his well-being. These will then be people that are able to tune into him and be there for him.

Unaware

However, although he will be missing out on what he needs, it doesn’t mean that he will be consciously aware of this. The reason for this is that his need to be seen could be repressed.

Thus, even if another person was to point out what is going on, it probably wouldn’t have an impact on him. He could deny it and/or make it clear that he is happy to be there for her and doesn’t need anything in return.

An Odd Scenario

If this is what takes place, it could be hard for someone to understand how he could behave in this way. It will be clear what is going on and yet it won’t be possible for him to face reality.

This will show that his brain is not allowing him to face up to what is actually going on and it will be doing this to protect him. It is then not that he is consciously choosing to avoid reality; it is something that is happening automatically.

The Outcome

Not being seen is then going to deprive him and it will have a negative impact on him. For example, he could often be very down and have very little energy but he could do his best to avoid what is going on for him.

If he was to become aware of the fact that the often feels low and has very little energy, he could believe that he simply suffers from depression. As a result of this, he could end up going on medication and continue to behave in the same way.

What’s going on?

If he is out of touch with his need to be seen as well as other needs and is not aware of it, it is likely to show that this need was repressed during his formative years. Most likely, his mother was unable to accept that he was an individual at this stage of his life.

She was probably emotionally underdeveloped and unconsciously placed him into a parental role and he was then forced to be there for him. And, as he was powerless and totally dependent, he would have been forced to adapt to her.

Deeply Deprived

The outcome of this is that he would have had to lose touch with a number of his needs and feelings, so his true self, and develop a disconnected false self. Not only would he have come to believe that his needs were bad but that his need to be seen would not be met.

This would have caused him to feel hopeless and helpless, and this pain would have automatically been repressed. The years would then have passed and his conscious mind would have forgotten all about his need to be seen.

Further Down

Even so, his unmet developmental need to be seen as well as other unmet needs will still have an impact on his life. From behind the scenes, so to speak, this need will give him the need to try to be seen by his mother and others.

Without realising it, then, being there for her and neglecting himself will partly be a way for him to finally be seen by her. But, if she is emotionally underdeveloped and in a disordered state, this will never happen.

Trapped

What will also play a part is that engaging in this struggle to be seen and loved by her will allow him to keep his true feelings at bay. If he was to become aware of what was going on and changed his behaviour, he would soon start to come into contact with this pain.

Ultimately, he will have been deprived of the love that he needed to grow and develop in the right way and this will have deeply wounded him. Putting this stage of his life behind him is then going to take courage and 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.