Enmeshment within families often involves a lack of independence among family members. When two or more family members are enmeshed with each other, boundaries are vague or nonexistent. Signs of enmeshment include a lack of privacy between parent and child, a parent’s overinvolvement in a child’s life, the expectation that parents and children should be best friends or other forms of mutual envelopment. Parents often live vicariously through their children. In so doing, many parents envelop and entangle themselves in the lives of their children whose ultimate developmental goal is to individuate. When a parent and child become enmeshed, it also impacts other family members, who often feel excluded and resentful.

            Healthy parenting subsystems and healthy sibling subsystems are a product of healthy boundaries. When those boundaries become diffuse, as when enmeshment exists, the family system often exhibits intense triangulations, alignments, and cut-offs. It is as if the family system seeks balance when an enmeshed dyad tilts it too far in one direction.