the.com/enmeshment
when love forgets where you end and someone else begins.
means a family pattern where personal boundaries dissolve, so one person's feelings, choices, or identity get absorbed into another's.
from coined by family therapist salvador minuchin in the 1970s, studying families where closeness curdled into fusion — kids became emotional caretakers for parents, or parents lived vicariously through kids, and nobody could tell whose feelings belonged to whom.
opposite patterndisengagement, where family members are emotionally distant
common siteoften mistaken for closeness or devotion
therapy goaldifferentiation, not distance — separate selves, still connected