Challenging Enmeshment: The Lunch That Began 20 Years of Healing With My Dad

Dr. Margaret (way before she was “Dr.” Margaret) had realized the deep level of enmeshment she had with her mother. This post describes her first step in challenging that enmeshment.

 

The first step in challenging enmeshment… 

I was 23 when I took my first step toward breaking enmeshment with my mother. I called my dad and asked him to have lunch with me. He hesitated for a moment and replied, “Don’t you want your mom to come?”

“Well, Dad, no…this time I want it to be just you and me.“

“Okay. Sure. Where do you want to meet?“

Up to that point, when I’d call home, the conversations would always begin like this, ”Hey Pris!” he would gaily exclaim. “How are you? Let me get your mom.” I would hear him put the phone down, footsteps trailing off to go find my mother.

“Betty, Margaret’s on the phone…”.

It’s not that he wasn’t interested. I’m sure that after the call, he’d ask my mother what we’d talked about — what tidbits I’d shared with her of what was going on in my life. Yet my dad and I didn’t talk much. One on one.

How realizing enmeshment can begin to change families…

But I’d changed. I’d been in therapy and had begun to realize what enmeshment was. There weren’t appropriate boundaries between me and my mom. I’d served as her confidante in many ways. And she knew far too much about my life.

I wanted to get to know my father; I longed for a more direct connection with him rather, than through my mother.

We had that lunch together. It felt awkward, but it also felt like I was creating a new chapter in my life, and trying to begin changing a dynamic that I’d recognized as damaging. 

Creating this enmeshment hadn’t been malicious on her part. But I needed to shift away from a strange and unhealthy loyalty to my mother which inferred that I was doing something wrong by having a relationship with my own dad — apart from her.

The process took my father and I about twenty years to accomplish; slowly but surely, we got to know each other. Years later, my dad explained his distance from me during one conversation, “Your mother needed you more. So I stepped out of the way.”

Families are complicated.

How breaking enmeshment changed me… and what I could see…

Don’t get me wrong, my dad was there when I needed him. I knew I could rely upon him. Sadly, I gave him more than his fair share of opportunities to prove this to me, as it took me years to gain any true emotional maturity.

Here’s an example.

I was sitting in the middle seat of a U-Haul, with my father driving. He was helping me move out of the first house I’d ever bought; I was getting divorced, leaving that husband and house behind. As we drove away, I was bouncing around in the front seat, chatting it up with the guy seated to my right who’d helped us move my stuff out. I was already involved with him romantically, and I was acting as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

I glanced over at Dad. There was a single tear rolling down his cheek. I had to look away. 

That tear etched itself in my memory, causing me inner shame for years. One night, many years later, I apologized to my father for the immature, self-centered girl that I’d been on that day. Regretful tears slipped down my cheeks, he looked at me with a little surprise. And forgave me.

Why do I tell you all of this?

Because creating that bond with him, having a simple lunch, was the first step toward change. Otherwise, he might never have known that I’d seen his disappointment. That I’d seen him. And that I was sorry I’d created pain in him. 

Fathers can be so important, from childhood and well into adulthood. You may not have a father like mine. You may have had an abusive, angry, or controlling father or stepfather. Or perhaps your father was not part of your life at all, due to tragedy or absence, in which case you have to mourn the void left where there should have been a loving, supportive parent to guide and nurture you. 

When is it safe to be vulnerable with a parent?

Perhaps my story makes you wonder if you could have a conversation with your own father. Maybe you want forgiveness, or maybe you want an understanding of things that happened. Perhaps it might be time to have a conversation with him about difficult or complicated feelings that you’ve had for years. It can be very vulnerable to do this.

So, what do you first need to consider?

You have to decide if he’s capable of having that conversation without becoming defensive, irrational, angry or blaming. And of course, you need to be able to do the same. 

If not, it’s not a good idea to try. You’ll get hurt all over again. But it can help in a way to realize and accept that he isn’t withholding something from you that he’s capable of giving. He simply doesn’t have it to give. 

My father did have that to give, and more. He gave me the gift of understanding and forgiveness. It’s a gift that I’ll never take for granted.

And one I wish for you.

By the way… 

Send me a message about what your own mom was like!! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!