When He's Married to Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts to True Love and Commitment
Kenneth M. Adamsamazon.com
When He's Married to Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts to True Love and Commitment
Placators tend to be compulsive and impetuous in romantic or sexual situations. They leave out the early to intermediate stages of courting (Chapter 7). They go from interest and attraction to sex or (fantasizing about) marriage too quickly. They neglect to consider whether they like the person they’re dating.
Lonely men can make do with lives focused on work and pornography and imagine that nothing is amiss. Lonely mothers can turn to their little boys for emotional support, not realizing the potential damage that can result.
John and Linda Friel put it this way in their book The 7 Best Things Happy Couples Do: “Really great couples are willing to end it all, and so they never have to.” What the Friels are expressing here is that by having clear limits that could lead to divorce, each person in the couple affirms commitment to a healthy, clarified relationship.
There is a universe of difference between a mother who loves her son dearly and a mother who makes her son the primary focus of her passion and preoccupation in an attempt to compensate for her own emptiness.
However, as the MEM becomes more aware of his unconscious responses, he can use his left-brain awareness and “reason with” his very protective right brain. Then he can correct his first reaction and respond more reasonably.
It can never be a son’s job to soothe his mother’s emotional wounds, lift the burden of her loneliness, or listen to her while she vents about her frustrations.
If a MEM remains firm in his reasonable requests to his parents, they may acquiesce. If not, at least he is more clear on who he is and what he wants, an achievement in itself.
A role is an outside presentation to the world that does not reflect the True Self. Roles enforce a rigid response to life that would otherwise be more naturally variable. Families are often containers and reinforcers of roles that are sustained by the denial of feelings, the denial of reality, and escape into numbing comforts.
A MEM like Arthur seems so indecisive because he is only vaguely aware of what he wants while at the same time he is clearly aware of “what is expected of him.” Because his deeply entrenched Lost Identity supports his False Self at the expense of his True Self, a MEM cannot marshal his own will and determination to act in his own best interest. He
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