Daughters can be enmeshed with either or both parents. The daughter who is her mother’s companion to replace her absent father may over identify with the mother’s anger and distrust of men and relationships. She may overeat as a way to exert control in the face of feeling smothered by her mothers’ neediness. Daughters who paly the role of daddy’s girl may be enmeshed with him in a more romantic way due to him displacing his needs for companionship onto her. She may act this romanticized relationship out in sex and love addiction patterns. The following are some common characteristics of enmeshed daughters.
- Perfectionism
- Excessive Caretaking
- Lack of differentiation between self & others
- Over-reliance on parents into adulthood
- Poor internal and external boundaries
- No clear sense of who one is
- Fear of intimacy
- Love addiction: obsession with fantasy & rescue
- Lowered expectations of romantic needs being fulfilled
- Tolerance of poor treatment by others
- Codependence & emotional care-taking
- Overbearing (e.g.,becoming a mother to a partner)
- Confuse sex for love
- Self-objectification
- Hypersexual or sexually avoidant
- Increased risk of being sexually victimized
- May utilize sex as a form of power
- Food restriction may serve as way to control how much “mothering” gets in for mother-enmeshed women
- May exhibit covert aggression toward female friends
- Competition masked as friendship
- May be more comfortable with male friends
- Likely to hold back and not shine brighter than friends
- May befriend women who they perceive to be less attractive or threatening
- May feel overwhelmed by the duties of parenting and need to be emotionally present
- May be depended on their own children for unmet needs
- May entrap children into same pattern of enmeshment
If you find yourself identifying with these traits, there is hope. You can break free from enmeshment and still love your parent.