Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Genesis 2:24 KJV

Passage: Genesis 2:20-25

There can be no cleaving without leaving. A husband and wife cannot fully join to each other until they have severed dependence on their families of origin. While connection with extensive family networks can be a great source of support and encouragement, they were never meant to be a controlling factor in the lives of a married couple.

Many spouses are still as connected or even more connected to their families of origin as they are to their spouses. Clear signs of this are when one or both spouses excessively serve the family of origin and allow the family of origin to crash into their lives whenever and however they choose. There are no boundaries on the family of origin’s impact.

Whether geographically close or not, extended family relationships can be unhealthy to a marriage. This enmeshment may show up as an adult child calling her mom several times a day and depending on her support instead of her spouse. This often means the wife or husband is in second place to the mother. I’ve also encountered situations where sons place their parents before their wives, perhaps insisting that major holidays be spent with them.

According to Dr. David Hawkins,

Families, fellow church members, coworkers, friends, and acquaintances of all types are capable of damaging individuality. Families can be too distant and detached from one another, but they can also be too close. It may be hard to picture too much closeness, but closeness can be stifling. When individuals are too bent on pleasing one another, healthy engagement gives way to unhealthy enmeshment.

• Each person has to know what the others are doing.
• No privacy and no appropriate secrets are permitted.
• Gossip is rampant.
• People tell one another how to behave and feel.
• People talk for one another.
• People tell others how the others are feeling or what they are thinking.
• One or more family members is overly controlling.
• The family has a “right” way to do things and no other way is tolerated.

Before I heard the term “enmeshed families,” I had developed my own definition for these behavioral traits: a big wad of tangled snakes writhing together and biting each other. My analogy was based on the realization that such families are tangled in each other’s lives to the point that you can’t tell where one starts and the other stops. And they often live from one “biting” episode to another. Or somebody is not talking to somebody else at any given time. It’s a cycle of twisted, negative behavior.