Enmeshment vs Connection: What Separates the Evolving Couple from the Stuck Couple

Connection

The foundation of a vibrant intimate partnership is the experience of feeling connected to each other. This is akin to some kind of attuned flow state between two people. It’s a couple’s homebase. From this fertile connectivity, anything is possible.

When two people don’t have this kind of connection as a ground to return to, and they don’t make it THE primary issue to focus on, they get distracted and loop in symptomology.

Attending to the ever-shifting, dynamic, relational current between each other, is a daily practice for the committed couple. To work their connection, both parties need to take on, as a devotional practice, their connection to themselves. I’ll struggle to connect to you, if I’m not connected to me.

Their core connection requires that both people are committed to their own sovereignty in the relationship (differentiation), while simultaneously attending to the garden between them.

Enmeshment

The challenge of course, is that many couples confuse this core connection with the feelings they experienced during the honeymoon stage where most things felt good, where both people were emotionally fused in a temporary love fog. They keep trying to come back to that fleeting feeling of fantasy and projection. Both couples here get hooked in an immature view of relationship and intimacy. They believe the fairy tales and movies and feel constantly frustrated when they can’t return to the warm fuzzies of the first few months. They then get trapped looking to their partner for their own sense of okayness. At some point, they abandon themselves in service of the relationship. When trying to correct this dynamic, they often get very focused on symptoms, rather than the real issue.

Understanding this key distinction moves a lot of couples from frustration to satisfaction if they are up for the real work of relationship.

related post: Co-Dependency