The Two Toxic Family Patterns Destroying Relationships | Enmeshment vs Disengagement

🎙️ Episode 66 - The Two Toxic Family Patterns Destroying Relationships | Enmeshment vs Disengagement

Why do some families feel emotionally suffocating… while others feel emotionally cold and disconnected?

In this episode of the Lion Counseling Podcast, licensed marriage and family therapist Mark Odland and counselor/coach Zack Carter break down three powerful family system dynamics that quietly shape marriages, parenting, attraction, boundaries, and emotional health:

Enmeshment
Disengagement
Interdependence

Using real counseling examples, attachment theory, trauma psychology, and even films like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, Mark and Zack explain why some people feel guilty setting boundaries, why others emotionally shut down, and how healthy families balance both connection and individuality.

They also tackle difficult relationship questions like:
“What do you do when your spouse wants you to want something you don’t actually want?”
And how do you lovingly tell the truth without becoming emotionally fused—or emotionally detached?

In this episode, you’ll learn:
✅ What enmeshment actually is and how it forms
✅ Why some men emotionally disengage from their families
✅ How childhood dynamics like parentification affect adult relationships
✅ The connection between attachment styles and family systems
✅ Why guilt becomes a weapon in unhealthy relationships
✅ How to set boundaries without emotionally abandoning people
✅ The difference between healthy sacrifice and resentment-driven compliance
✅ Why honesty is essential for emotional intimacy
✅ How to create an interdependent family culture built on truth, love, and responsibility

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https://escapethecagenow.com/books/

Click here to watch a video of this episode.’
💬 Comment below:
Did you grow up in a family that was more enmeshed or more disengaged? What helped you begin building healthier boundaries and deeper connection?

About the Lion Counseling Podcast
The Lion Counseling Podcast helps high-achieving men break free from anxiety, trauma, burnout, addiction, anger, and unhealthy relationship patterns through practical conversations grounded in psychology, EMDR therapy, leadership, and Christian wisdom. Hosted by LMFT and certified EMDR therapist Mark Odland alongside counselor and coach Zack Carter, each episode is designed to help men heal deeply, lead courageously, and become the men God created them to be.

New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Creators and Guests

Host

Mark Odland

Founder of Lion Counseling, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified EMDR Therapist

Host

Zack Carter

Zack Carter is a Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling LLC.

What is Lion Counseling Podcast?

The Lion Counseling Podcast helps men escape the cages that hold them back and become the Lions they were created to be. It exists to help men obtain success, purpose, happiness, and peace in their career and personal lives. The podcast is hosted by the founder of Lion Counseling, Mark Odland (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified EMDR Therapist), and Zack Carter (Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling). In their podcasts, they address a variety of topics relevant to men, including: mental health, relationships, masculinity, faith, success, business, and self-improvement.

Zack Carter: 00:00

This leads me to the the question that I was asking. Yeah. So what do you do with when your spouse says, I want you to want to do this thing. So I've seen this in clients where, for instance, I'll have a client whose wife wants to move closer to her parents. Yeah.

Zack Carter: 00:25

And the husband is willing to do it. He doesn't want to do it. He likes the area he's in. He likes his job. But he's like, okay, I'm willing to do this for you.

Zack Carter: 00:35

And that's not good enough. He needs to want to want to move. So what do you do in those situations?

Mark Odland: 00:43

You got to say, well, honey, you know, I'm trying really hard to want to want it, but I guess we have to hire a brain surgeon to give me a brain transplant because no, but yeah, I think Welcome everyone to the Lion Counseling Podcast. I'm Mark Odland, licensed marriage and family therapist and certified EMDR therapist. And I'm joined by Zack Carter, counselor and coach. Some families are so emotionally fused that nobody can breathe. Other families are so emotionally disconnected that everyone feels alone.

Mark Odland: 01:21

Healthy families do something different. The questions come up. Why do some people feel guilty setting boundaries? Why do some people emotionally shut down? And why do some couples lose attraction and connection as time goes on?

Mark Odland: 01:42

Today, we're talking about three family systems, enmeshment, disengagement, and interdependence. And we're even gonna go into some movies any dads out there might be aware of here, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, where we can even find some explanations. Alright, Zack. Before we get too far into this, it'd probably be good to actually define these terms. You wanna kick us off?

Mark Odland: 02:10

Yeah. That'd be great.

Zack Carter: 02:11

Thanks, Mark. Yeah. So first off, Enmeshment. What the heck is that? Yeah.

Zack Carter: 02:17

So Enmeshment is when emotional boundaries in a family or in relationships become blurry and people lose themselves inside of relationships. So what does that look like? Feeling guilty when you say no to the people that you're in relationships with, making sure that you're people pleasing, you have a fear of disappointing others, You feel overly responsible for other people's emotions. You're trying to help make sure they feel good. You tend to be families like this tend to be conflict avoidant.

Zack Carter: 02:51

They don't really want to talk out their problems. They want to avoid that conflict. And then your identity tends to be tied to approval. So when people become emotionally fused, so emotionally overly connected, that's what Enmeshment is. They stop functioning like separate adults.

Zack Carter: 03:11

So why is this a problem? Because resentment can start to form anxiety, passivity, loss of attraction, emotional exhaustion. These things can happen in your marriage. They can happen with extended family members like your parents. They can happen siblings with kids.

Zack Carter: 03:31

So all these things can start to build over time and really damage relationships. So we're going to talk about Pixar. But the first place my mind does go when it comes to media is actually Everybody Loves Raymond, which is a show I grew up watching. And you've got Raymond and his family and then his mom and dad live across the street with his older brother. And there's just zero boundaries.

Zack Carter: 03:58

They just walk in whenever they want to. Yep. And you can really see the chaos it causes in his marriage and with his kids when you have a family that has no boundaries. So that's the first place my brain goes. But the main examples we wanted to give today are around Pixar movies.

Zack Carter: 04:18

And Finding Nemo is a really good example as well of when Marlon's wife is killed at the beginning of the movie and so is the rest of his family. Nemo is the only one that's left alive. And so as one would assume, Marlon becomes overprotective. Like, can't really blame the guy. And so he he can't tolerate any sort of risk for his son.

Zack Carter: 04:43

He's he's hovering around him at all times. He's the helicopter parent. And he begins to confuse control with love. Sure. And so although Marlon loves Nemo deeply, that fear causes him to overly control him.

Zack Carter: 05:00

Okay? So let me ask you, clients or in maybe relationships in your life, what have you seen? Why do Enmesh people feel guilty when they set boundaries? What do you what do you think causes that?

Mark Odland: 05:15

Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a great question, Zach. And I think there might be different motivators for different people. Right?

Mark Odland: 05:23

Mhmm. For one person, it's fear. Like like the Nemo movie. Right? Marlin is afraid that something bad is gonna happen to his son.

Mark Odland: 05:31

Mhmm. And so he controls to try to, out of genuine love, but also to minimize his own anxiety. Right? It it's a way to kind of cope with some of that anxiety. I think for other people, maybe they grew up in a family environment where they didn't have the best boundaries, or maybe you know, this is a classic example that that comes up quite frequently with the guys I work with, actually, as as they're wondering why they're struggling with their wives or with their kids, and a lot of it does go back to these early relationships.

Mark Odland: 06:07

You know, there's this concept called parentification where, oftentimes with the oldest son in a family, and he looks at his mom and dad and maybe dad works a lot, maybe mom's home, and they're struggling to find a way to connect emotionally. Right? And so what happens is many times the mom will lean on that that that oldest son for support, for emotional support. And there are parts about that that feel good. It feel the the son feels needed, feels close to mom.

Mark Odland: 06:42

It feels like a special relationship. But then they're sitting in my office thirty years later, forty years later. Mhmm. And I'll I'll just throw out a one liner like, man, sounds like you kind of had a big job big job for a kid. Like, you were kind of responsible for mom's happiness.

Mark Odland: 07:03

And then they're just, like, at this look in their eyes, like a deer in the headlights, like, oh, no. Yeah. That's it. Dang. That's it.

Mark Odland: 07:11

Right? It's like, how many times was mom sharing? And this isn't a, you know, rail on moms. It could go the other way too, but this is just a common dynamic. Right?

Mark Odland: 07:20

How many times where the dad should have stepped up and been emotionally available for mom, but he's not there. He's either physically gone or emotionally gone. And so there's this vacuum. There's this void. Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 07:35

And so just naturally, maybe mom shares a little bit more than she normally would. Right? This is a conversation that should be reserved for another adult, but it's kinda put on the kid. And the kid doesn't have the rational brain to to solve it, to talk her out of it, but he can give her that sweet little hug, and and he could say it's gonna be okay, mom. And and it feels good for mom, and it feels good for the son.

Mark Odland: 07:58

And so that kid grows up, and he has this very strong impulse in his nervous system that says, I'm in charge of other people's happiness, and bad things are gonna happen if I don't step up to the plate and do my job. Right? And and so it becomes a challenge, I think, as adults to sort out what is healthy love, what does healthy relationship look like without being fused to the other person or feeling over responsible for the other person. So that that that's off the cuff. That that's my first response to that, Zach.

Zack Carter: 08:35

Yeah. It's really good. So it sounds like there could be numerous reasons why people feel guilty when they're setting when trying to set boundaries. K. Yeah.

Zack Carter: 08:46

That's really good.

Mark Odland: 08:47

Mhmm.

Zack Carter: 08:49

Well, and one of the things as I was preparing the podcast for today and I was thinking about past podcasts that we've talked about. A lot of this reminded me of attachment styles around we've had Enmeshed, which is like essentially too close. There's too much overlap. We're too fused. You have disengagement.

Zack Carter: 09:13

So families that are disengaged that kind of reminded me of the avoidant attachment where you kind of separate yourself off. Everyone's too independent.

Mark Odland: 09:22

Sure.

Zack Carter: 09:22

Right? It's like, enmeshment is too dependent and disengagement is too independent. And then as we're trying to move to interdependence where it's like there's a dependence, but there's still a relationship with our That was one thing I was noticing around just attachment styles and how so much of the stuff that we've talked about has has overlapped. I don't know. Is that something that you've you've seen that has interlapse?

Zack Carter: 09:54

Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 09:54

I I think so. I think so. And, you know, with all the trauma work that I do with guys, people think trauma, they think danger. You know, they think physical threat to your safety in some way, and that that definitely can be trauma. But I'd say probably the majority of the trauma that I work out with guys is painful emotional experiences that are in some way or another connected to relationships.

Mark Odland: 10:18

Right? And so I do think that there's overlap between different ways of conceptualizing these things and different modes of therapy that we talk about on the podcast. Right? I totally agree. And I think, so much of it has to do with our brains, our our nervous systems, our emotions trying to cope in a certain family environment the best that we can.

Mark Odland: 10:43

And maybe not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I think what happens is sometimes when people start I mean sometimes you have the kid who feels special in that enmeshment and doesn't know the difference until they're an adult. They got epiphany in my office. Other times the kid feels it earlier. Something feels off. I feel smothered.

Mark Odland: 11:04

I feel smothered. This feels like too much. There's kind of this like, I love my mom or love my dad, but this feels gross. I don't know what this is about, but this is too much. I'm just a kid and so they have to rebel to create the separation.

Mark Odland: 11:21

And because they haven't they don't have the skills. Right? They don't have the skills or the resources or the modeling to know what a healthy interdependent relationship looks like, it feels like there's only two options. I'm either smothered, which feels like suff I'm suffocating, and I have no freedom, I have way too much responsibility for other people's emotions, or I have to yeah. I don't wanna do it, but I have to cut off.

Mark Odland: 11:45

Mhmm. I have to cut them off completely, and I have to live my own life and be fiercely independent to preserve my sense of self and and to feel some level of freedom. But it comes at a cost, right? The cost is the relationship itself. And it's sad.

Mark Odland: 12:00

It's really it's it's tragic.

Zack Carter: 12:03

Yeah. It's it's so interesting that you say that because that that definitely leads us into the next family style because Enmeshment is that smothering, which I think is a great word for Enmeshment that there's very little separation between you and this family member, you and this loved one. Sure. Disengagement is too separation. It's completely cutting off.

Zack Carter: 12:24

It's setting boundaries, which we would actually argue, hey, in an enmeshed situation, boundary setting is appropriate. But what you're talking about is boundary setting that might go too far into the disengagement. And so what is disengagement? Disengagement is when relationships become emotionally distant and people function more like isolated individuals than emotionally connected family members, which is exactly what you were just walking through. And so what does that look like?

Zack Carter: 12:52

We shut down emotionally. We avoid vulnerability. We get into the mindset of I'll handle it myself. I don't need other people. We have lack of emotional communication.

Zack Carter: 13:04

Emotional distance. And it can even start to feel like you're living parallel lives, like maybe with you and your wife. We're living in the same house, but we're not actually connected. And so when we did that attachment video, I kind of had a visual representation of avoidant, anxious and secure. And the avoidant is two people and they're separated.

Zack Carter: 13:31

Like I've got my stuff, you've got your stuff. I've got my space, you've got your space. So that's what disengagement looks like. Anxious attachment is we're completely overlapping. It's not your interests or my interests.

Zack Carter: 13:41

It's our interests. It's our likes. It's our dislikes. It's the people, our friends. Right?

Zack Carter: 13:45

Sure. There is no space between these two people. And so that's what that enmeshment looks like. And so as we're trying to move into interdependence, there's some overlap and there's some space to be an individual. It's finding that middle ground.

Zack Carter: 14:02

So what happens if people start to disengage, if disengagement starts to happen in these family patterns? Well, loneliness, emotional numbness, shallow intimacy, secret coping behaviors, avoidance. So these are the problems that begin to come out of living these parallel lives, living this disengaged life. Okay? So where have we seen this in media?

Zack Carter: 14:34

So if the enmeshment was what Finding Nemo looked like with Marlon and his son with Nemo, I think The Incredibles is a really great example of a family that's disengaged. You have Bob, the dad, and he's living in the past. He's living in fantasy. He's trying to relive the good old days, nights and weekends, and not being around his family. Whenever he can, he escapes away from the family so that he can go back to living this life of being a superhero.

Zack Carter: 15:03

And so he was emotionally absent, not connected with his family, disconnected from his purpose. You've got Helen, the mom, who's over functioning. She's carrying the emotional burden of the family. She's overly responsible for the kids and for holding the family together. You've got Violet, who's hiding herself both emotionally and physically.

Zack Carter: 15:24

You've got Dash who feels misunderstood and suppressed. Like he's just not allowed to be himself. And they're always telling him, Hey, you need to stop. You need to stop. You need to stop.

Zack Carter: 15:34

As far as the super speed that he's got going on. So while the family is together physically, oftentimes they're actually disconnected emotionally. That's what it looks like to be in that disengaged family. So let me ask you, Mark. So why do you think so many men emotionally disengage from the family?

Mark Odland: 15:56

Wow. Yeah. That's a that's a big one. It's a big one, Zach. I mean, you know, it's it's interesting.

Mark Odland: 16:03

That disengagement leads to so much pain for so many genuinely good guys who just find themselves in this situation. A lot of a lot of them are pretty high functioning, the guys we work with, and they're, they're rocket in their career. But when it comes to the home front, things are things do not feel okay. I mean, it becomes such a crisis point that, they seek us out, you know, for virtual sessions, for coaching, for counseling. I've I've had guys even fly in from across the country because they're so desperate to try to get some healing and try to understand what's happening.

Mark Odland: 16:40

And I guess what comes to mind for me, why are they so disengaged, is either there's real enmeshment happening in the family that feels, again, smothering, right, claustrophobic, that the feelings that come with being overresponsible for guys who are already struggling with this echo from the past of I might fail, fear of being a failure, fear failure fear of not being good enough. And, you know, so that's one one thing. And I think also our own trauma. There can be such deep painful memories around, our own experiences in relationships that sometimes there's something happening in your own family that's not not cool and and really painful. And sometimes it's just it feels a lot worse than it is because it reminds us of something else that we went through.

Mark Odland: 17:33

And so we're oversensitive, to certain situations, and and, we have an out of proportion emotion to the the situation. Mhmm. So, I mean, I think at the end of the day, there can be it has to do with not knowing how to handle uncomfortable emotions, and it feels like disconnecting is the only option.

Zack Carter: 17:54

Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 17:54

Right? It feels like self preservation. But deep down, it doesn't feel healthy. It doesn't feel whole. It might feel safer.

Mark Odland: 18:02

Right? And what is the, you know, the the antidote? I mean, there there's lots of ways to look at it. Right? But one one one might be skills.

Mark Odland: 18:10

They just don't have the awareness or the skills to do anything different. They never learned it. And then the other one might be their own nervous system. Right? How oversensitive are they to certain issues?

Mark Odland: 18:23

And, maybe they need some deeper healing to knock that out before they can kinda step back into the game and do what it takes to bring these relationships back together in a healthy way.

Zack Carter: 18:35

Yeah. That's so good, Mark. So you and I have kind of laid out what Enmesh looks like. Sure. We've looked like we've laid out what disengagement looks like.

Zack Carter: 18:48

Let's talk about interdependence. Right. So we're not totally independent. We're not totally dependent. We're interdependent.

Zack Carter: 18:58

And this tends to be what a healthier family structure looks like. It looks like the ability interdependence is the ability to stay connected without losing yourself. So you're able to do both those things at the same time. So what does that look like? It looks like setting healthy boundaries, emotional honesty, individuality, support without control.

Zack Carter: 19:19

So remember finding and finding Nemo, you can be supportive without overly controlling Ability to disagree safely, To be able to have discussions about disagreements. So this both allows individual allows individuality. It allows people to stay emotionally connected. And while still connecting with other people. Sure.

Zack Carter: 19:43

Right. And so what does this look like in the movies? Well, if we're talking to The Incredibles, you know, the family, instead of being disengaged from one another, they come together at the end of the movie. Now they're fighting the bad guys together. They're fighting the I think there was like a mole man at the end of the movie.

Zack Carter: 20:02

Dash is now allowed to participate in sports. But hey, you gotta aim for second. Don't aim for first. Don't just blow everyone out. Aim for second.

Zack Carter: 20:10

Finding a way to let people be themselves. While still there's still boundaries. There's still some healthy parenting happening. It's not like, okay, we can all just do what we want. You know, in that movie, those kids are still they're still kids.

Zack Carter: 20:24

There still needs to be some structure. But it's okay, we're not going to be overly structured. We're not going to be constrictive. In Finding Nemo, it goes to the extremes of Finding Nemo, right? First, he's hovering over Nemo at all times.

Zack Carter: 20:40

And then Nemo's gone. He's been captured and he's often in a dentist office by himself. Marlon doesn't have a choice. And so they go to the extreme of first, I'm hovering at all times to he's not around me at all. And so they begin to find that healthy balance of like, I'm going to let you go to school.

Zack Carter: 20:59

I'm going to let you do the things that you want to do. I'm not going to be hovering at all times, but I'm still we're still going to have some healthy boundaries, parent and child. Yeah. So Mark, what do you what do you think is as leaders in the home, as men who are leaders in the home, how can they foster that healthy, balanced, interdependent family life?

Mark Odland: 21:28

Yeah. Yeah. Great question. I mean, I think the first thing is take take ownership, take responsibility for your own part. Right?

Mark Odland: 21:41

And and realize that you're probably contributing to it. Right? I mean, family systems theory is that it's easy to drop your kid off in the office and say fix him to a therapist or a counselor. It's another thing to look in the mirror and say, to what degree are we cocreating this environment in our family? Right?

Mark Odland: 22:03

It's not about blame. It's not about shaming people, but it's about seeing things clearly so that we knew know how to move forward. Right? So as a leader, I think the first step is look in the mirror. Right?

Mark Odland: 22:16

And that look maybe that looks like falling on your knees and saying some prayers. It might look like making that call finally, to get some help from a coach or a counselor. Right? It might mean having the courage to face some difficult conversations or emotions. Right?

Mark Odland: 22:35

And to do that, and if you and if you don't know how to do that, to get some help, to learn some skills, to have a third party involved if needed. Right? So I think I think leadership and, you know, it's it's gonna be one of those things where part of that self awareness I once had someone tell me, I'm not sure where they got it, but it made sense to me, is that part of not being enmeshed means I know the difference between my own thoughts and my own feelings. So I can separate, differentiate between thoughts and feelings. And I can tell the difference between my thoughts and feelings and someone else's thoughts and feelings.

Mark Odland: 23:14

If you're ever in a conversation with someone and you can't untangle who's feeling what, it feels like a blob. You're just, like, all smooshed together with your feelings and with your thoughts. Yeah. It's probably some enmeshment going on. And I think it's a tough one because I think really loving people are almost more vulnerable to this.

Mark Odland: 23:36

Because part of enmeshment sometimes has to do with empathy. Right? You feel others' pain. You wanna love them. You wanna make a difference.

Mark Odland: 23:44

You wanna help them get through things. And so you kind of fall so far forward into that emotion that you lose yourself. Right? And you feel overresponsible for the other person. Right?

Mark Odland: 23:58

The class I

Zack Carter: 23:59

mean, go back to the original one. Everyone loves Raymond. Right? Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 24:03

It it's your wife's birthday, and then mom busts in the door and somehow steals the show and makes it about her and takes the emphasis off your wife. Right? In an Enmesh relationship, you can't say no to mom because then that would hurt her feelings and then that would make it your fault. A healthier relationship would be to say, mom, I love you. I really appreciate what you're trying to do here, but actually this isn't the best time.

Mark Odland: 24:35

And then when they throw the guilt trip on you, because I'm I'm sorry you're feeling that, but, you know, well, I'm not gonna come to the next dinner if you do this. Well, that may make me sad, mom. Like, I I really hope that, you you change your mind. But if you if you choose to do that, then that that's your choice. So boundaries and interdependence mean that we can calmly talk to people, we can love people, but we can still stick to our guns, right, when it comes to difficult conversations and letting here's a big one.

Mark Odland: 25:11

Let grown adults, especially, be responsible for their own thoughts and feelings and decisions. Mhmm. If they they wanna make it back, push it back on you, you should feel guilty. You should feel like you're no. Here's what I'm doing.

Mark Odland: 25:25

Here's what I'm doing. If you choose to do this, okay. That's your choice. And if you haven't grown up with that, if you ever haven't had that modeled, it is painful. It is not easy.

Mark Odland: 25:37

Again, we work with guys who are just conquering the world outside the house, and then they come back in into the home, and it feels like, where do I start? Mhmm. But it's doable. You know? You just gotta set your mind to it and be willing to take some hits.

Mark Odland: 25:54

And, no. It's not gonna be perfect. It's gonna be messy. But here's the big one. The big one is if you choose to take the easy path and either stay enmeshed, you're gonna smother your kids or your wife, and they're gonna they're eventually gonna cut you off.

Mark Odland: 26:13

Right? Or if they are already if they're already cut off, right, then it's how do you find a way to mend the relationship in a way that's healthy. Right? So it's I know that's that's a lot of big big things thrown at thrown at our audience today, but those are some of the thoughts I have, Zach.

Zack Carter: 26:32

Oh, man. I love it. I actually have based on all the things that you're saying, I I do have one more question for you. Oh, love love to hear your thoughts on. Because you're talking about like, hey, their feelings, their emotions are theirs.

Zack Carter: 26:45

Yours are your own. If you guys are more interested in boundary setting, we did a video on it. And talked a bit about the analogy of property lines and what's on my property line? Am I in charge of? If I'm in charge of my own painting of my house, my own lawn care, my own HOA fees, my own insurance.

Zack Carter: 27:10

Right. All that stuff. That's my responsibility. So that's my emotions, my actions, my words, my growth. That's my responsibility.

Zack Carter: 27:19

Your neighbor, which is your wife or your mom or your dad or whatever. They're responsible for painting their own house and for mowing their own lawn and for taking care of their own HOA fees. And so when you feel like you're responsible for their emotions, their words, their actions, that's not healthy. That's not healthy boundary setting. That's on their property line.

Zack Carter: 27:44

That's their responsibility.

Mark Odland: 27:45

Yeah. So

Zack Carter: 27:46

you guys can go check out that video on on boundary setting, but this leads me to the the question that I was asking. Yeah. So what do you do with when your spouse says, I want you to want to do this thing? So I've seen this in clients where, for instance, I'll have a client whose wife wants to move closer to her parents. Yeah.

Zack Carter: 28:20

And the husband is willing to do it. He doesn't want to do it. He likes the area he's in. He likes his job. But he's like, okay, I'm willing to do this for you.

Zack Carter: 28:30

And that's not good enough. He needs to want to want to move. So what do you do in those situations?

Mark Odland: 28:39

You gotta say, well, honey, you know, I'm trying really hard to want to want it, but I guess we have to hire a brain surgeon to give me a brain transplant because no. But, yeah, I think I think we get stuck on love being a feeling when it is a feeling, but it's also an action. And I think that we have such a high cultural emphasis these days on authenticity

Zack Carter: 29:09

Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 29:09

That sometimes we we miss. We miss the boat. And and the boat is even if someone doesn't have their heart perfectly put together, if they do some gracious act of love or self sacrifice, maybe that's enough. And maybe they're actually stretching themselves already to go that far. But here's the here's the trick for the guy.

Mark Odland: 29:29

Is he being enmeshed by saying yes? Is he not standing up for himself? Like, is he really willing to do it? So what he's gotta do is look himself in the in the mirror and say, I'm making a promise to myself that if I, not she made me, not she forced me, if I choose to say yes to this move, I'm forever relinquishing the right to be resentful, to blame her blame her for it later. Right?

Mark Odland: 29:59

To hold it against her, to bring it up later in an argument, to tell her she pressured me after the fact? No. So back to the leadership question. Right? We have to be men, and we have to take radical responsibility, Jocko Willink style, radical ownership of our own choices, and, and not blame anyone for them afterwards.

Mark Odland: 30:22

Right? And and maybe part of that is coming to a decision saying, honey, I've thought long and hard about it, and I truly am okay with the move mostly because I love you. I'm not gonna hold it against you later, but mostly because I love you, not because, like, I feel led to do this move the same way you do. Mhmm. And if that's the honest answer, that's the honest answer.

Mark Odland: 30:48

And he can be okay with her not being okay with that answer.

Zack Carter: 30:53

Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 30:54

And they can still love

Zack Carter: 30:55

each other. So that's what at the end

Mark Odland: 30:57

of the day, when you actually live out these boundaries to try not be enmeshed and actually be inter interdependent, it's I love this person. I'm not abandoning them through, you know, detachment, complete detachment. I'm not smothering them or they're smothering me. We're in the middle, and what that looks like is we love each other. We step in.

Mark Odland: 31:17

We step back. Here's you. Here's me. Sometimes we argue, then we make up. We forgive each other.

Mark Odland: 31:23

And we're not gonna use guilt as the weapon to try to control each other. Because I think guilt is really the biggest barrier for a lot of people to holding their boundaries because they just that person knows just that button to push. Right? Mhmm.

Zack Carter: 31:40

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, as we're talking about this, where my mind goes is kind of the Jordan Peterson rule of always tell the truth or at the very least don't lie. And so much of this, I think, is a fear of telling the truth. Like, the enmeshment is I'm afraid to say the truth.

Zack Carter: 32:08

The disengagement, I'm afraid to say the truth. And so I'm just gonna completely disengage. And that's not always the case because sometimes you do tell the truth. There's a negative reaction, then you say, okay, I'm completely out. But I think for a lot of my clients, I think it does come like, I don't want to fight.

Zack Carter: 32:29

I don't want an argument with my wife. And so there's a fear around, I don't want to tell the truth. And so I just wonder how much of the enmeshment and disengagement would be fixed by lovingly just telling the truth and getting away from white lies and major lies and all that stuff.

Mark Odland: 32:49

Right. And and then and then if you tell the truth and it's a little messy, then play pay pay close attention to what story you're telling yourself about the meaning you're attaching to what just happened. Because usually, if the meaning is, oh, no. Now I'm out of control, or, no. The marriage is gonna end, or I'm a failure.

Mark Odland: 33:09

These are all just cognitive distortions. These are thinking errors that increase our suffering for no good reason. Right? That's I know that's your bread and butter, Zach. One one of just one of your specialties.

Mark Odland: 33:23

But I I think you're onto something there about fear of telling the truth being a a linchpin in some of this. Fear of telling the truth because of the fallout and what negative emotions it might lead to.

Zack Carter: 33:35

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 33:36

So back to let's toughen up, guys. We we can do hard things. We can do hard things. We can face hard emotions. We can heal from hard things.

Mark Odland: 33:44

We can have hard conversations. It's gonna be okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Zack Carter: 33:50

Yeah. So love it. Just to land this plane. Yeah. When we're talking about this topic of enmeshment versus disengagement versus interdependence, what is the main goal?

Zack Carter: 34:02

The main goal is not to emotionally distance yourself. The goal is not to is also not to emotionally fuse, to be overly connected. The goal is both connection and individuality. Sure. Being able to combine the two things, being able to overlap those two things.

Zack Carter: 34:22

So healthy relationships, final thought, healthy relationships, they require both connection and separation. You need to be able to balance both those things together.

Mark Odland: 34:33

Yeah. I had a religion professor once who did a lot of weddings, right? He officiated weddings for couples. And in the traditional kind of liturgical church he was a part of, they had this part of the service where there'd be a unity candle Mhmm. And then they had individual candles.

Mark Odland: 34:50

And there's this part where the husband would pick take one candle, his candle, and the wife would take her candle, and then together, they would light the unity candle symbolizing that the two would now become one flesh and be married. Mhmm. Mhmm. Seems pretty cool. Right?

Mark Odland: 35:05

But then they blow out their individual candles and put them back in the stands. Mhmm. Well, this religion professor said he stopped doing that. Mhmm. And what he would do is he'd have them light the unity candle and then keep their candles lit.

Mark Odland: 35:18

Mhmm. Because he said your goal is not to drift into what he calls the marriage blob where where it's all just a big tangled mess of all our feelings and thoughts and who's who? Who know who knows? It's to say it's a paradox. The two are one, and we're still individuals.

Zack Carter: 35:39

Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 35:40

And that's good. So that that doesn't that's not very concrete, Zach, but that that's a closing metaphor that I think, you know, might be helpful for the guys listening.

Zack Carter: 35:49

Yeah. Well, and that's that's the trinity, right, in the bible is three individuals in one. Representation of this might get us in trouble.

Mark Odland: 35:59

No, not at all.

Zack Carter: 36:01

Husband, wife, children, right? So you've got God the Father, you've got the Holy Spirit, which is the female representation god, and then you have the son as the kid, and that's the family unit. And so that's the Christian and I know people are there's gonna be people people not liking me saying there's a female representation, but another another argument for another day.

Mark Odland: 36:22

Bring on the comments. Go after

Zack Carter: 36:24

Zach, everyone. Comment comment on how that was sacrilegious, please. Put it in the bottom. We'll have a conversation.

Mark Odland: 36:32

Well, do

Zack Carter: 36:33

you wanna close this out?

Mark Odland: 36:34

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, if you've listened this far, appreciate it. We we love the comments. We love the conversations.

Mark Odland: 36:41

We're always looking for great new topics to discuss, different kinds of guests to have on, so so let us know. We read the comments. We we respond when we can. And subscribe. It's crazy on YouTube how many people listen to us and aren't actually subscribers yet.

Mark Odland: 36:56

So stay in the loop, subscribe. We appreciate that. And as always, if you're looking for some extra support, not not sure if you want counseling or therapy, maybe just want to test the waters and see, check us out at escapethecagenow.com and we'd be happy to, walk you through that process. There might be one of our RESET programs that helps you, kinda work through anger or addiction or marriage issues or trauma issues, or there might just be one on ones one help that Zack or I can provide, to help guide you through, some stuff that needs to be looked at. Right?

Mark Odland: 37:32

So that's why we're here. Thanks as always for listening, and talk to you later. Bye.