Being married should not deny one the right to certain privacies or aspects of their individuality. Anyone who gives in to the ‘we are one’ narrative will not be happy in their marriage. Anyone demanding a ‘oneness enmeshment’ relationship is insecure, controlling, and will ultimately be rejected or abandoned. Modern marriage is healthier than relationships of past generations. In the past, gender roles were rigid, and the preservation of individuality was often discouraged. Men were often emasculated by controlling wives, and women were made to feel powerless in decision-making and money matters. The modern, healthy version of marriage stresses the importance of retaining individuality and sees gender role expectations as fluid, flexible, and fair to both partners. Additionally, unions have the best chance to happily survive if honest; comprehensive communication occurs during dating and pre-engagement. Each person should know their preference regarding the balance between togetherness and separateness.
In successful marriages, spouses express their expectations, establish boundaries, and negotiate how to manage feelings related to money, children, sex, and other aspects of a shared life. Just as vital to a relationship is establishing two separate selves who stand on their own as firmly as they stand together. Particularly damaging behavior in a marriage is the insistence on full access to a partner’s phone and email records. Whether one spies secretly or insists on having full access to all of a spouse’s communications, this behavior implies mistrust, creates resentment, decreases attraction, is inappropriate, and encourages secretive strategies to maintain one’s right to privacy, despite being married. Even if a partner has betrayed trust, the path to recovery cannot indefinitely include loss of all individual freedoms, with one partner calling all of the shots.
When both partners have strong self-esteem and have established separate jobs, friends, purpose, and interests, acceptance of each other’s right to privacy, need for personal space, and individuality can occur with ease. Secure people are invested in both their own happiness and the happiness of their partner and thus do not need to control how things go. A confident person also enjoys knowing that their partner is proactive in achieving self-fulfillment. Individual differences and varied experiences that people bring to their relationship can positively energize connection and intimacy.
In a healthy relationship, spouses can have separate email addresses, establish a separate social media presence, enjoy private social outings with friends and family, and engage in specific interests not shared with their spouse. These freedoms are not about keeping secrets or posing a threat to the specialness of the marriage. They represent boundaries that should be able to exist after one decides to marry. Most information is usually shared with one’s partner, the point is married people are entitled to privacy and a commitment to themselves within their marriage. If you stop contact with family, friends, or anyone you care about because your spouse tells you to, you are losing control of your personhood and self-respect.
When spouses happily share fulfilling experiences and intimacies, there should be no need to restrict or resent the boundaries a partner needs to retain their identity and a reasonable level of independence. For example, if a married person wants to have private conversations with their siblings about their parents, they should have access to that privacy. If a married person wants to spend time with friends and not invite their spouse, that should not be off-limits. If a married person wants to go shopping alone and not rush home, they should not be scolded, harassed by phone calls, or accused of wrongdoing. Tracking every attempt at individuality or spontaneity your spouse makes regarding their time management, reasonable spending of money, and communications with others is needy, selfish, disrespectful, immature and a turn-off.
Complying with such restrictive expectations enables the mistreatment to continue. Standing up for yourself by claiming your privacy and saying “no” to dysfunctional demands or rules is an essential part of breaking the pattern of stifling intrusiveness. Discovering why your boundaries are so weak and why you’re afraid of defending yourself to your partner is an essential aspect of maintaining individuality and self-esteem. Without self-respecting boundaries in place, relationships outside the marriage will get neglected, disrespected and lost.
Red flags that your marriage is in the unhealthy enmeshed zone are when your personal preferences and privacy about family/social relationships, hobbies, interests, or views are intruded upon by a spouse who views a good marriage as having no boundaries between partners. It’s a form of entitled ownership of another person to feel you can micro-manage their lives. Asserting control over your spouse will make them resent you and push you away. The need to restrict your partner’s individuality is a sign of insecurity, anger, or emotional damage from childhood. This pattern of enmeshment undermines living a whole, self-actualized life for both spouses. That is not what married life is supposed to be. When spouses are encouraged to be who they are and are respected, trusted, and supported, love can last.
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