Untangling Enmeshment
The Path to Differentiation and Self-Love
There can come a moment in our relationships, when we feel the weight of being too entangled. Our mood shifts when theirs does. Our sense of worth hinges on their approval. Our needs are buried beneath a constant scanning for theirs. This is the lived experience of enmeshment.
Enmeshment can feel like love, care, even intimacy. But it’s often rooted in fear, shame, and early adaptations where we learned:
"To be loved, I must merge. I must abandon myself to be accepted."
Over time, this survival strategy becomes a pattern of overfunctioning, people-pleasing, and losing our sense of self.
What is Enmeshment?
Psychotherapist Pia Mellody, a pioneer in healing codependence, describes enmeshment as a boundary issue that occurs when two people become emotionally fused. There’s little room for individuality, and the relational field is driven by anxiety, guilt, and unspoken expectations.
Facing Codependence – Pia Mellody
Differentiation: The Courage to Be Yourself in Relationship
Differentiation, according to Dr. David Schnarch, is the process of maintaining your sense of self while staying emotionally connected to others. It's not about distance or disconnection, it’s about holding your truth in connection.
Passionate Marriage – David Schnarch
You can care deeply, but not collapse. You can love fully, without becoming responsible for someone else’s emotional state. You can disagree and still remain connected.
“You can’t be intimate with someone you can’t stand up to.” – David Schnarch
Signs of Enmeshment
Here are some red flags that you might be caught in enmeshment:
You feel guilty for prioritizing your own needs
You over-identify with others’ emotions, often feeling what they feel before you know what you feel
You avoid conflict or strong opinions to keep others comfortable
You feel anxious if someone pulls away emotionally
You lose track of your own boundaries, values, or desires in close relationships
What Differentiation Looks Like in Practice
Let’s make this real:
Enmeshment: Your partner seems upset, so you cancel your plans, even though you want to go, because you feel responsible for their mood.
Differentiation: You notice their upset, feel compassion, but still honour your plans, trusting they can process their emotions while you remain available later to connect.
Enmeshment: You say yes to a request because saying no feels too scary or guilt-inducing.
Differentiation: You pause, check in with your truth, and say no clearly and kindly, because integrity matters more than approval.
Fear and Shame
When we begin to set boundaries or take space, it often stirs up fear:
“Will they leave me?”
“Will I be seen as selfish or bad?”
Beneath that is often shame, the belief that who I am, as I am, is not enough.
Dr. Brené Brown speaks extensively about the role of shame in disconnection. She reminds us that shame thrives in silence, secrecy, and judgment, and that healing begins with honest, self-compassionate expression.
The Gifts of Imperfection – Brené Brown
Check out my mindful guide to shame
From Codependence to Conscious Connection
Codependence says:
“If you’re not okay, I’m not okay.”
Conscious relationship says:
“I am responsible for my emotions, and I can stay connected to you without losing myself.”
This is the heart of radical self-responsibility, a key principle in Relational Life Therapy by Terry Real, who teaches that maturity means holding ourselves accountable for our emotional reactivity, projections, and unmet needs.
Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship – Terry Real
Self-Love is the Foundation
Differentiation cannot happen without self-love. When we cherish our own needs, values, and feelings, we stop outsourcing our worth to others. We stop performing care to feel needed. Instead, we relate from fullness, not lack.
Self-love is not abstract. It is:
Pausing before reacting
Speaking your truth even when it’s uncomfortable
Tending to guilt or fear with compassion
Saying “no” without over-explaining
Choosing integrity over harmony
Check out my guide to Self-Compassion
A Process: Not an Overnight Cure
Enmeshment usually forms in childhood, often through family systems that lacked boundaries, emotional attunement, or safety. Differentiation, by contrast, is a lifelong process.
Dr. Schnarch reminds us: growth requires tolerating anxiety, not avoiding it. Every time we choose truth over fusion, we build inner strength.
The Pain We Justify
Enmeshment often disguises itself as deep love, but sometimes, what we’re truly attached to isn’t the person in front of us. It’s the fantasy of who they could become if only they healed, changed, or saw what we see.
We say:
“They just need time.”
“If I love them enough, they’ll change.”
“But I know who they really are underneath it all.”
We’re not in love with the person, we’re in love with a projection. And that projection is usually shaped by our unmet childhood needs.
We want the fantasy to be real because we are feeling:
So alone
So ashamed of our own needs
So afraid we won’t find love again
So convinced that if we just do enough, sacrifice enough, or love hard enough, it will finally work out this time
“We are most loyal to the fantasy that matches our oldest wound.” – Michael Vaccaro
My Story
Years ago, I was in a relationship that turned my life upside down. There was infidelity, chaos, and emotional volatility—and yet I stayed. For two years, I couldn’t leave. For some reason, despite how clearly unhealthy it was, I felt like leaving would make me the bad one.
Even when I finally left, I carried guilt. It took me another year of sitting in rooms at Codependents Anonymous, telling the truth, and facing the parts of me that had confused suffering with love. I began to see that what I had called “commitment” was often compulsive self-abandonment.
And Then, a Different Moment
Not long after, I found myself in another relationship that felt intense and unstable. I was in the middle of the Landmark Advanced Course, and my partner had a pattern of getting highly triggered and threatening to leave. I felt trapped and incredibly vulnerable.
I went to the course leader during a break and told him what was happening. He looked me in the eye and said:
“You don’t have to be with this woman.”
I tried to explain, but he interrupted me again:
“You don’t have to be with this woman.”
A third time, he said:
“There are roughly four billion women on the planet. You don’t have to be with this one.”
Something about his firmness broke the spell. For the first time, I felt the truth of what I’d always known conceptually: I am not dependent on my partner.
I returned and said:
“I understand that you’re unhappy and might not want to be with me. I care about you, and I want you to be free. If there’s anything I can do to support your transition, I will. I do love you. I do want to be with you, but only if you want to be with me too.”
To my surprise, she fell quiet. And then, after some time, she said:
“I actually do want to be with you.”
It wasn’t a tactic. It was truth. And it set us free.
We went on to marry and build a life together. But the point isn’t that differentiation will "win someone back." The point is: I was no longer outsourcing my worth to her decision. I was grounded either way.
When It’s Too Much: A Wake-Up Checklist
You may be justifying harm if you:
Constantly blame yourself for the problems in the relationship
Feel anxious, drained, or small around them more than safe, seen, and alive
Have to silence your truth to avoid conflict
Believe that your love will eventually “fix” them
Can’t imagine leaving, even though a part of you is suffering daily
Sometimes staying is not devotion, it’s self-abandonment.
Sometimes Leaving is not failure. It’s differentiation.
It’s self-love in action.
Always, being honest with your self, is liberating.
Integration Practice: Come Back to the Truth
Try this:
Two Columns:
Who they actually are (based on observable behaviour)
Who you wish they were
2. Reflect:
What part of me needs this fantasy to be true?
What am I trying to heal through this person?
What would it mean if I stopped hoping and started grieving?
Let the grief come. That’s where freedom begins.
If you’ve ever lost yourself in love, or shrunk to avoid disconnection, this is your invitation:
Differentiate.
Take radical responsibility.
Speak the truth.
Hold your boundaries with grace.
And love from your whole self.
Trust the you can survive and thrive when you are being fully authentic no matter what the outcome.
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