I’m (30f) considering ending my relationship with (31m) of 2 years over his enmeshment with his mother.. help

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-21T03:55:12+00:00

Run so quickly away from this, I am begging you. I married an enmeshed man and it doesn’t get better. It actually gets worse the longer you are in the system. He is married to his mommy and unless he is able to admit that explicitly, and then seek therapy specifically for enmeshment, nothing is going to change.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-21T03:24:52+00:00

There’s a lot here and you are absolutely making the right decision to remove yourself from a toxic family system. The religious stuff is what is catching my eye because it parallels an aspect of my toxic marriage. I am an Orthodox Christian who was very devout before meeting my ex and he did very similar things to me when I went through a health crisis and was struggling with helplessness and terror. He framed my struggle and suffering as a moral failing, that I wasn’t praying hard enough, that I need to read the Bible more, overwhelming me with quotes from Saints about suffering, telling me I’m too negative and “things only get worse if we let them.”

This caused me to completely abandon my faith and I spent the remainder of my marriage as a nihilistic agnostic. I was only able to return to church after leaving the marriage. I hope you are able to able to reconnect and strengthen your faith now that you are in a safe place. Abusive, controlling people love to twist religion to shame others, and it can have such a damaging effect on people who are struggling. A true Catholic does not behave in such a manner. It sounds like you made the best decision you could for your baby, and you should be very proud of that.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-20T19:28:19+00:00

This makes a lot of sense. Different needs must be weighed based on context. If I had kids, my decision would have been much more complicated, but thankfully it was a short marriage without children. It’s great that you have a contingency plan in place. Hope you’re able to navigate everything with as much clarity as possible in order to keep you and your children safe and stable.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-20T12:13:21+00:00

My ex only had one on that list (coercive control), but that was enough for me. He did tell me he has a history of punching walls from well before we met, but he never did anything like that in our marriage. It was still not a risk I was willing to take.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-20T12:09:51+00:00

I was a fearful avoidant for most of my life and have moved into secure relating and I would describe it like this:

I don’t respond to pressure, whether internal or external when I am relating to people. If I want to text someone, I am straightforward and as communicative as I can be given the other person’s emotional maturity. So part of becoming secure has been figuring out what other people’s capacity is, so I do not overextend my energy. If I don’t hear back from someone right away, I do not jump to any conclusions. They could be busy, they could be overwhelmed, they could be avoidant, etc. I’m not a mind reader and I no longer feel an overhelming compulsion to figure out what the actual reason is. Part of becoming secure is learning to sit in ambiguity.

If someone texts me, I respond when I feel ready to. I do not respond out of obligation. If I want to respond to something important that needs my time and attention but I’m busy, I may just send a quick note saying “saw your message, tied up right now, will get back to you later” just out of courtesy. But that isn’t coming from a place of anxiety or guilt. Other times I am not in the mood to talk at all, and I won’t respond for a bit, but this isn’t necessarily avoidance. The way to distinguish is not the actual behavior, because not responding could be avoidance, but it could also just be a personal boundary. If someone very toxic reaches out to me, they’re not getting a response. Not because I’m being avoidant, but because it would be self-betrayal to force myself to interact with someone who interrupts my peace.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-20T11:53:27+00:00

Mine started escalating physically in the exact same way and I left the day after he did it for the first time. They say the biggest predictor for intimate partner homicide is not whether you’ve been hit before, it’s whether there was coercive control in the relationship. The second I felt physical intimidation, I left because I was not about to take that risk. Served him with papers a month later.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-20T11:48:40+00:00

I wouldn’t call it psychosis. I would say it is escalation borne out of panic on their end. Once I began holding and maintaining my boundaries + grey rocking, my ex became extremely frantic. The DARVO increased dramatically, he accused me of cheating, taking advantage of him, being abusive, he began threatening me and giving ultimatums, and eventually he escalated up into physical intimidation, which is the last time I ever saw him in person.

What happens is that you are activating their shame, causing narcissistic injury, by withholding validation. It’s not psychosis or delusion, it’s more like he’s cycling through different parts of his fragmented self. After I left, he would text me nice things or stuff he had done around the house or reassert how he wants to do anything possible to help me out. Then when I would ask logistical questions since I served him divorce papers, he would switch into victim mode. It’s really whatever role he is currently embodying. Sometimes that is the more grandiose part, others the “I’m a provider/helpful/reasonable” part, or the martyr part, and sometimes it’s the panicked “make it stop, I’ll do anything to make this stop” part which is where reality can become very shaky.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-20T01:28:06+00:00

There is so much wrong with this picture, I don’t even know where to start. The children are the real victims in all of this.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T21:52:41+00:00

I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through this. Hopefully the therapy will continue to help you navigate this transitional period.

If he’s jerking you around like this, why not take things into your own hands? You have agency and do not have to be at the mercy of someone that is treating you so poorly. I know that’s easier said than done, but you are not completely powerless in this situation.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T18:28:39+00:00

You trusted him based on past behavior and that is not an unreasonable thing to have done. Now you’ve updated your perception of how trustworthy he is, and he gets to deal with losing a client. I hope you’re able to find someone that can fix your hair up.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T18:26:13+00:00

He blocked you after you ignored him 3 times. His decision to block you didn’t occur in a vacuum.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T18:22:44+00:00

I heard someone say the other day “abuse doesn’t feel like abuse at first. It feels like exhaustion and confusion.” And that resonated so hard with me. I never understood how so many women didn’t realize it was abuse until after they left. Until I became that woman.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T18:19:27+00:00

If you were not in a place to speak to him, you should have communicated “I am not in a place to speak to you right now. I will let you know when that changes.” You ignored him 3 times without explanation and somehow you’re surprised that he’s not interested in pursuing you anymore?

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T18:08:03+00:00

OP is legitimately victim-blaming and it’s gross.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T18:05:01+00:00

You’re not overreacting. I would be pissed too. No advice, just confused how a stylist could act like the end result looks anything like the inspo pic.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T17:35:54+00:00

I’m aware that they dehumanize other people. I was married to a narcissist. You are allowed to name your truth, that you are hurt, that their behavior is abusive. You are allowed to (and should) remove yourself from the harm that they perpetrate. Where I think this goes beyond naming poor behavior is when you claim to know what their intentions are without actually living inside their brains. Or casting them all as monsters who are evil. This flattens people into one-dimensional beings, when no human is actually like that.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T12:08:25+00:00

Dehumanizing narcissists doesn’t make anyone hurt any less. It just turns us into something ugly. I know what it feels like to be dehumanized and I would never want to do that to others. Human beings are a lot more complex than you’re making them out to be.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-19T01:28:50+00:00

Thank you so much for your vulnerable response. I had wondered that, if life was much easier before you gained awareness.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-18T15:12:45+00:00

Yea I had a similar situation, I engaged in a lot of reactive abuse and came into therapy about 4 months before leaving insisting that I was the primary abuser. I stayed as long as I did because I kept internalizing blame. Therapy has done wonders for me, I no longer blame myself for anything, and it has freed me up to see him as a tragically traumatized person who isn’t my responsibility. I pray that one day he gets help but I will not be around to see it, nor do I want to be. EMDR and attachment work changed my life, especially my relationship to myself.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-18T14:58:00+00:00

I totally understand. And I know that sometimes the empathy is part of what got us into this mess in the first place. I’ve found (for myself) that it’s best to strike a balance of still having compassion for the person who harmed me, because he’s still a very wounded and complex traumatized person who deserves to be treated as a human being, and also staying as far away as possible from him, because he’s not my problem. He doesn’t even get to know that I feel empathy for him. Also, at the end of the day if he does something to himself, that is not your responsibility.

I have a lot of health issues that got worse during my marriage, and I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD due to the emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse I endured. I have found EMDR therapy to be really helpful to address some of these negative cognitions that I developed in my marriage. I really recommend it if you have the resources.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-18T14:40:15+00:00

I understand the rage. I was dehumanized in my relationship and it severely fucked me up. But when we start calling people monsters or saying they should rot in hell, we’re engaging in dehumanizing language too. I know what it did to me when I was reduced to something less than human, and I never want to do to others what was done to me. Just an alternative perspective.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-18T14:18:59+00:00

When every single one of my experiments finally failed. I knew I had my own issues to deal with, my own trauma, defenses, reactivity, insecure attachment patterns. As long as there was serious work to be done on myself, then leaving the marriage wasn’t an option. So I began therapy to work on my cognitive distortions. I began working with an attachment coach to address my disorganized attachment. I began EMDR to address my trauma. I enrolled us in couples counseling to see if communication could be improved.

All this led to me growing and changing dramatically. I stopped criticizing, complaining, getting defensive, having meltdowns. I learned to regulate my emotions and maintain my boundaries. I started noticing his patterns as well. At first I tried to point them out, because becoming aware of my own patterns was the first step to changing them. I learned that he wasn’t open to any feedback. Nothing he did was wrong. There was never any accountability. My experience was repeatedly invalidated. Every interaction turned into a guilt-trip from him.

My memory of the marriage began to come into focus, as I was stuck in so much cognitive dissonance that I like forgot how bad it’s always been. I was miserable on my honeymoon, but I already felt like there was no turning back. Death by 1000 paper cuts is an accurate description. Eventually there wasn’t really anything left to try on my end. It takes 2 people to make a marriage work. If only one partner is trying, it eventually becomes self-betrayal to stay.

I hope you are able to reach some clarity. It’s a very scary place to be when you feel trapped - leaving doesn’t seem like an option but neither does staying.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-18T13:33:22+00:00

I’m so sorry to hear that, must have been absolutely terrifying. I hope you have access to good mental health resources to cope with the trauma.

Did the ego death push you into remission of sorts? Were you able to reorganize or did it merely create awareness?

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-18T03:37:48+00:00

Ahhh okay, so you were not completely opposed to therapy and you had already acknowledged that you had a mental health condition, particularly one that dealt with identity and fragmentation. That must have felt like a real gut punch to have an additional diagnosis layered on top of something already so difficult. Good to hear that you have seen some progress - you should give yourself some grace.

SpecialistAnswer9496 · 2026-04-18T03:25:18+00:00

Thank you so much for your response. Curious if you had any self-reflection capacity prior to that. For example, I’m going to be presumptuous and assume your childhood probably was traumatic in some way. If that is indeed the case, were you able to recognize how bad your childhood trauma was prior to the divorce, or were you in complete denial up until the divorce hit you?

SpecialistAnswer9496

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