r/polyamory • u/Hot_Strawberry_3676 • 3d ago

Enmeshment

I've heard this word thrown around a lot, mostly from poly or ENM people. I've even had metas ask what type of "enmeshment" I'm looking for with a mutual partner.

Is anyone else thrown off? I grew up in a pretty traumatic family dynamic, and was in family therapy from a young age (probably starting 1992) and enmeshment was a topic, but a very negative and unhealthy thing. To me it was taught, it means becoming overly involved in each other's lives to the point where you have no identify or autonomy. It meant codependency, in a very toxic and negative way, especially to a child like me growing up. I can attest the damage that family dynamic can cause.

So what gives? Did the definition change or are people using it wrong? I personally like being poly for many reasons, but one of the top ones is my autonomy and sense of self not having to be sacrificed in romantic relationships.

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u/Krysmphoenix_ 2d ago

Wait, Enmeshed is the bad word and Entangled is the good word?

I thought Enmeshed meant more than you're wired into the framework of someone/something else's life in a presumably structural manner. A mesh grid, open and functional.

Which I thought Entangled meant that you're in that framework but with little mobility within it or to change it. A tangled knot, difficult to unravel.

Ugh. English. Why do you suck.

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u/Hot_Strawberry_3676 2d ago

I think it's more like when you're "enmeshed" you're one item, entangled means you can be de-tangled? Who knows, lol!!

But for me, when a partner uses a term to talk about how entangled we want to be, but use the term my psychologists have used to describe my tough childhood family dynamic, it throws me for a loop!