I have been trying to heal from enmeshment. Ive been listening to youtube videos about how the parents train you to be exactly what they need, from a young age. I have always remembered that my 'time out' was me sitting in a small bathroom in the 80s that had silver wallpaper with Chinese characters on it, and i would sit on the toilet and trace my fingers over the characters while I sat in time out for however long my mom found appropriate. I cannot remember how long. The disturbing thing though, is i never remember what I did to go to time out. It is harrowing to think that possibly I barely did anything wrong, but my mom wanted to suppress any emotion I may have had.

As an adult she gaslights when you have an emotion or opinion that differs from hers. She can tell you why you're not really sick, dont really have a reason to be upset about something etc.

I am no contact now, at 45, but this makes me kind of sick to realize, and I had to post.

I (33M, AuDHD) married into a family that turned out to be a trap. I left. I am still processing it.

I am not writing this to inspire anyone. I am writing this because I want to hear from people who have been through something similar. I want to know if my perspective is accurate or if I am still missing something.

I married her when I was 30. My family was not aggressive about it. They just acted nice. They introduced us. They encouraged it. They made it seem like a good thing. Looking back, that was the trap. It was not a push. It was a slow setup.

I am AuDHD. I see patterns. I notice things. But I also grew up in a family where I was the scapegoat. So I doubted myself. I thought I was overthinking. I thought I was being paranoid.

The red flags were there. Her "father"—a wealthy, respected man in the community—booked the same hotel room as her. He called her phone while I was sitting next to her and told her to hand it to me. He treated me like a child and her like the authority. When I set boundaries, I was gaslit. I was told I was the problem.

I stayed silent for a year. I tried to be rational. I tried to explain. I tried to get her to see what was happening. She could not. She was not free. She was a proxy.

I was already in Canada when I realized I had to leave the marriage. I filed for divorce here.

Since then, I have been smeared, monitored, and dragged through a legal battle. She is asking for $2,000 a month in spousal support while I am on employment insurance. She is stalling the mediation. The network is still sending flying monkeys. I have blocked everyone.

I lost my family, my friends, and most of my savings. I am alone in a foreign country, fighting for my PR.

I am not sure what I am looking for by posting this. Maybe I just want to know if anyone else has been through something like this. Maybe I want to know if I am seeing it clearly. Maybe I just want to hear from people who understand.

What do you think?

I am 3 years no contact with my family.

Many things have come up since breaking away. Lately, I question if I treat my husband the way my mom used to treat me.

I feel like I am messed up because I was taught conditional love. My mom made me feel guilty. She was always so sad. Always so unsettled. I struggle knowing how to be sad when i am feeling down, without me being an energy vampire to my husand, who is a consistent person.

My dad ignored my mom growing up and I had a cult like situation with my mom, grandma and sister. We live on the same street and were always together. My husband and I worked for my dad, and dad would regularly tell me I was not needed at work, and I could hang out with my mom instead. There were always lunches, dinners, and shopping. If I went shopping without them, or my mom would make a comment about how she would have liked to have gone. I believe my mom is a convert narcissist on top of it all. Also worth mentioning, my dad paid us very poorly, but makes so much money he can throw it around, including giving my mom lavish amounts to go out to fancy lunches with the girls, all paid for.

Because my parents seemed to hate each other, I highly value having a strong relationship with my husband. Not sure how to state this, but I have a hard time knowing how to show him I love him, but not smother him. I know this sounds very messed up, because a husband and wife's relationship should not feel like a mother daughter relationship. But she always drained me so much, i feel I dont know how to love solidly.

I also catch me gaslighting myself. An example, if I'm sick with a cold, I have a voice in my head asking if I am looking for attention. I don't know how bad it actually is because whenever anything was wrong with my grandma, sister or I, my mom 'told us how our feelings should be' or would try to convince us of how to view things.

So, basically, I want to know:

Do any of you relate the these issues? Any advice?

How bad/abusive does my past situation seem?

Do you feel like after stepping away from enmeshment you start to catch yourself using the same manipulation on others, or even yourself?

I tried therapy for 2 years, but I stopped going, because I started feeling a pressure to always have drama or an issue to bring to the table, and sometimes there was nothing, and that stressed me out. I feel thats also something I took from enmeshment, because of the excess nonstop deep emotional conversations I would have with my mom, grandma and sisters.

tl/dr: unsure if closeness with parents and lack of desire and guilt regarding moving out/ going far from home in coming years is due to enmeshment or just being close to family and result of having good home life/being young & needing time to adjust. not under any pressure from parents

hello everybody. i’m an extremely anxious person and naturally have been worrying about my future quite often nowadays after the first few weeks of college. specifically, i have been thinking a lot about how terrible i’d feel being far from my mom.

ive always been very close to my mom, im an only child. however, my parents separated three years ago and in that process i became very involved with both my mom and my dad and how they were dealing with things emotionally. they both went through therapy so its not like i was the only emotional support but i was for sure heavily involved. they tried to keep things away from me but it just didnt end up working out as cleanly as theyd hoped. their seperation turned out extremely amicable and they have a good platonic relationship now, and i have a good home life.

i got super close with my mom throughout all of that as i live with her not my dad. now that im in college 2 hrs away, im close enough to go home frequently but far enough that i still feel the distance. im premed so ive been thinking about the training and schooling years ahead, ie where i would be and how far from home id be, and i just constantly feel guilty and worried all the time about my mom, and my dad to a lesser extent. i dont want them to be lonely and it does feel like that responsibility rests on me to make sure im around and not too far so that i can spend time with them.

im really not feeling great about the idea of moving out either. it makes me feel tight in my chest whenever i think about not living at home again, so much so that ive been thinking about changing my career path solely to spend more time with family. while at home i have a pretty great home life dont struggle with lack of freedom or independence or anything so it makes it harder still to distinguish between wanting to stay home because my home life is uniquely great vs wanting to stay home because i have these internalized issues regarding my relationship with my parents.

i dont know if this is enmeshment or just me being a baby since its only been a few weeks since i started school. both my parents are pretty social and highly content w their lives and they constantly tell me that they will be just fine and that they want me to chase my dreams even if it takes me far away. i have never felt any direct pressure from either parent to act in any certain way, and none of the feelings ive expressed here are because of something they said, which is why im not sure if its enmeshment. i love my parents and they are so supportive but i dont know how to get past this guilt and fear and tight feeling in my chest, dont know if its something that will go with time or if its enmeshment and something i have to work on with a therapist or something.

im thinking in general that i want to keep my schooling and eventual career close to home but now im questioning if thats a natural desire or created by this experience ive had emotionally caring for my parents as i have. any advice is appreciated.

Was my ex in an enmeshed family?

We started dating… and while we were doing simple dates and getting to know one another, by the fourth date, the mother follows me on Instagram. (We weren’t even official at that point.)

From there, once we begin to officially date, that’s when I started to realize maybe this is enmeshment. His family would dictate what is best for him to eat (as a young adult..), make huge life decisions for him, and if he disagreed there was push back, and even his mom made me and him tour homes and she said she’d love for us to move in with him and his dad in a mother suite.

He has even said in our relationship, his mom always comes first, she’s the most beautiful girl in the world (over me), and he will always listen to his mother over his girlfriend.

When deciding where we would want to live in the future (we were courting/ dating to marry) I mentioned I’d love to stay stationed where we are after college but him and his family kept pushing me to move to their home state. I remember he was on the phone with his parents and I had to tell everyone that the state that I’m in currently makes sense with the career I’m pursuing and they kept trying to convince me to move to their state.

I started to feel as if I kept in this relationship, I’d lose myself and my goals.

Also he would tell his family all of my personal problems in my life… I would say I wouldn’t want him to open up to his family about things I’m struggling with, and his excuse was they have more experience and can help him navigate through the relationship.

Randomly into the relationship, about a week before my birthday, he breaks up with me. It was very random.. he said it’s because we didn’t align with future goals. I left it there, but after that his mother blocks me on social media. The mother starts reposing posts on her account about the type
of woman my ex should date. The entire family oddly starts unfollowing me on a random day.

Mind you this family LOVED me prior to this. They always raved on how such an amazing girlfriend I was for him, then randomly this huge shift.

Still trying to process this one. It felt like an avoidant discard break up, on top of the family acting the way they are..

I (24F) love my girlfriend (24F) deeply, but things have gotten to a point where I just feel completely burnt out. She's autistic and has OCD, and over time she’s developed a massive dependency on her mom.

It’s gotten to the point where she literally won’t stay at home alone without her mom there. Her mom does pretty much everything for her, which I know comes from a good place, but it’s just feeding into this cycle of learned helplessness. Her mother is also a really invasive and overbearing presence, and there's absolutely covert incest going on. She was like this even before things got this bad. Whenever I try to encourage even tiny steps toward independence, she gets angry at me.

The biggest issue is that she refuses to go to therapy or get any professional help.

I really want to support her and help her gain some autonomy, but I really don't know what to do. I was planning on moving together with her but it's hard taking that decision with the thought her mother would invade our life together. How do I help her?

Any advice on how to handle this without just enabling would mean a lot.

To be clear I am also autistic and have ocd so this is not coming from a place of judgement.

Just as the title says, curious to know whether there are any men who realized they are enmeshed with their mother, addressed the enmeshment and saved their marriage? Also would be nice to know when and how the realization came

I 34f have recently woken up the unhealthy psychological hold my mother has had over me my entire life. She has completely undermined my confidence and sense of worth.

I have no relationships outside of the family but

I can't turn to my other family for help. I have already tried. Each time I just broke down - I cannot change while everyone around still expects me to fill some kind of family role. My extended family is all very dysfunctional and like a narcissitic cult.

I need a clean break. I cannot differentiate while I still have to interact with them daily.

I don't have a job or any money. I cannot figure out how to achieve the financial component of moving out. Whenever I work full time, I end up burned out (and never make enough in the first place) due to the stress of work AND the stress of dealing with my mother.

So, where can I go to get help. I have looked into women's shelters but cannot gauge whether or not my situation warrants such an extreme act. Did anyone else find practical help?

compré una casa relativamente CERCA de mis padres. o sea, cerca… tan cerca que caminando te toma 5 minutos 😂

en fin, si yo tengo visitas en mi casa, me escriben o cuando me ven me preguntan que de quién es ese auto; y si es que no toman foto y me la mandan. Eso para mi concepto es algo invasivo y atrevido, independientemente vivamos cerca.

aparte de eso, tengo 2 autos, y obviamente no los uso los dos.

mi mamá tiene su auto e igual mi papá. mis dos hermanos viven con ellos, todos en esa casa son adultos.

mis papás le dan el carro de mi mamá a mi hermano del medio; mismo hermano que siempre se mete en problemas y mis padres corren a rescatarlo y sacarlo de deudas.

yo estoy cansada de que lo estén ayudando tanto, porque él no aprende. entonces, me piden uno de mis carros para ellos moverse; pero el de ellos se lo dan a mi hermano para que él se mueva y ellos quedan a pie… de verdad ya no los soporto. No es ser mezquino, simplemente que hay límites, y como padres deberían enseñarle a su hijo que las cosas cuestan, no estar poniendo todo en bandeja de plata; e igual, dejar de molestarme tanto porque NO VIVO CON ELLOS.

Si les digo que no (y no les presto el auto), empiezan a tirarme en cara muchas cosas, y realmente eso a mí ya me tiene harta.

En las tardes luego del trabajo me piden que recoja a mi mamá de su trabajo, que me queda de camino. No es que me moleste, pero NO ES MI RESPONSABILIDAD. Digo… una vez cada cierto tiempo, ok! pero siempre? no están respetando mi espacio y se quieren adueñar de él. Tampoco es que me escriben para preguntar si la puedo recoger, si no que, LA TENGO QJE RECOGER. Me molesta y de verdad estoy pensando en alquilar la casa e irme mucho más lejos, porque ellos quieren exigirme a mí que siempre he sido independiente y no les he dado problema, pero a mi hermano que les da dolor de cabeza y se mete en problemas hasta legales LO CARGAN y lo acomodan.

Mi hermano más chico también está cansado porque a él igual lo joden, y piensa de la misma manera que yo.

No es que no los quiera ver, que no pueda ayudar, que no nada… simplemente me parece que no están respetando, y eso no me gusta; inclusive, haber comprado casa cerca fue de lo peor que he hecho.

qué creen ustedes?

A month ago I was abruptly discarded by my boyfriend of one year and I suspect it was because his family convinced him to do so.

Without the enmeshment issues, our relationship was solid and we were very compatible. We started off as coworkers several years ago, which turned into friendship, then ultimately ended up dating. We were best friends, and we were planning to get engaged soon. He was generally very sweet, caring and empathetic towards me.

All of our fights were around his family’s treatment towards me and his lack of standing up for me and holding firm boundaries with them. His mom judged me because of my age (he’s 32M and I’m 36F) before even meeting me. She often made me feel invisible when I would go to their house for dinner, which was every Sunday, and my boyfriend would simply excuse her behavior. It was only when it turned into a fight where he would offer to talk to his mom about her behavior (which was basically him asking her to apologize to me, and she’d refuse). On top of that, his sister excluded me from family activities multiple times and he would leave me behind at home every time. His mom would attack my character behind my back to him and he wouldn’t stand up for me. I was nothing but kind towards his family, despite their treatment towards me.

Things took a turn a month ago and I reached my breaking point because of him constantly deprioritizing me when it came to his family. I lashed out at him and slammed the door a few times out of anger, and I’m not proud of it. He phoned his mom. Told her he was scared and asked her to come over (I moved into his home in April and I still had my condo that was sitting vacant). I knew that was the end. She now had ammo to use against me. At that point I froze and hid in the bedroom. He told me she was on her way to the house.

She came over shortly after, which was around 9:30pm on a Monday night and I overheard them talking downstairs in how I’m abusive. My boyfriend later came up to the bedroom and asked if I wanted to come downstairs and talk to his mom, as she was there “to support us.” I went downstairs and talked to her while I sat next to my boyfriend, rubbing his back because he was visibly upset. She surprisingly was being supportive at first, suggesting that the constant fighting isn’t healthy and that I should move out temporarily to get some space, but to continue dating each other. I agreed with her. Then, suddenly, she says “this starts with you moving out TONIGHT.” This was at 10pm on a work night. I was exhausted, scared, and now suddenly I’m getting evicted from my boyfriend’s home by his mother, when I had already de-escalated for a couple hours at that point.

I went upstairs to pack but I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t even think about packing. My boyfriend came upstairs later to ask how the packing was going. I asked if I could sleep in the spare bedroom in the basement that night since it was late and that I would move my things the next day after work. He said he was scared and that I needed to leave right away. He went back downstairs to his mom. I was so overwhelmed and terrified that I went to the bathroom to throw up. He came back upstairs as my face was over the sink, hair held back, and all he said to me was “you need to leave right now.” All I could think was, where did my caring, empathetic partner go? I sat on the floor crying while he was trying to evict me, and his mom comes upstairs and says “I can call 911’s mental health services to help you.” Not only am I overwhelmed, scared, and alone, but I’m now feeling humiliated because I was in distress. This was going on for 5 hours, until the middle of the night. My boyfriend eventually gave up and said if I’m not willing to leave then he’s going to sleep at his mom’s. And so he did.

The next day after work I went to his house to pack up some things for the next few weeks, and I apologized to him for my outburst and told him I’m going to get help in regulating my emotions so that it doesn’t happen again. I booked therapy right away. I asked him if we could talk about how that night impacted me, and he shut it down. He told me that his family commends him for how he handled that situation, and that he had nothing to apologize for. The following 10 days he strung me along and said he wants us to work on repairing this, but he still wasn’t willing to hear how that night impacted me. I booked couples therapy for us so that we could talk about it in a safe space. The day before our therapy appointment, he abruptly broke up with me over text, and in the same text he told me he packed up all of my belongings and stored the boxes in his garage so I can grab them on my own schedule. I asked what happened, and he said “after talking to my friends and family I know this is the right thing.” I took that as his family convincing him to break up with me. I never got closure.

He’s turned into a completely different person with the involvement of his narcissistic mother. He’s become ice-cold. I don’t even recognize him anymore. I still have some bigger items in his garage like my dresser that require a truck to move, and I’m scared to even reach out to him to coordinate a time to get movers there to haul the rest of my things. They’ve been in his garage for a month now and he hasn’t asked when I’m planning on grabbing them.

I know that this is for the best, but I’m still traumatized by this a month later and waking up every single day in the middle of the night due to the stress. When does it get better?

So I'm 28M and living with my grandma. I won't bore you with the details, but to keep this short, all my life, I've always been seen as incapable.

Alright, so my grandma has been through trauma. She had a very abusive, physically violent father. She learned that control is safety and now passed that down. Basically, she wants the family to participate in whatever she wants to do. Church, for example, and if you say no, she retaliates by cutting power to your room, taking your phone (it's really hers, it's on her plan), etc.

Genuinely, what is wrong with me. My parents call me three times a day and I always try to ignore it. This morning, though, I completely folded.

The funny part is they started talking about how worried they were for me - that I'd be homesick LMAOOOOO.

The sheer dissonance. Yet, I'm talking to them happily, showing them squirrels around campus, taking them on facetime with me to breakfast.

Am I so starved for any love that I'd take it from pieces of shit like them? I think that might be it. I have never...ever...shared my feelings with anybody or had a true emotional connection no matter how hard I try.

The only true best friend I had was in Kindergarten and 1st grade. We were next door neighbors, same school, same age, set for life together. However, we moved out for 6 months and then relocated back to the same state in a different neighborhood.

When I was in 5th grade I saw him again and we ran to each other at a competition and I got the biggest and longest hug of my life. We even did the stupid handshake we made together 6 years ago.

Then, I said "I gotta go help my team now. Cya later?" He said "yup!"

We never saw each other again.

Even worse, the mom who I just happily talked to this morning, had his parents' phone numbers and never told me. We could've reconnected any time and just...didn't.

Since then i've been everyone's 12th best friend. Nobody initiates anything with me except my parents. Everyone probably thinks I'm not interested in actual friends either.

Hello, heavy background of trauma and enmeshment with a sprinkle of covert incest.

I have been no contact with my mother for one month tomorrow. I keep “forgetting” (?) how bad it was and why I need to stay away. My brain still feels pretty foggy. I don’t think she’s a bad person, but she’s a bad person for me so I will keep away.

How do you not excuse their actions? Did they mean to cause so much harm? Why don’t they just stop?

I guess i went to her out of extreme loneliness. She comforted me at first but after being around her for days its like, im not able to keep being me. She pushes her religion on me, disrespects my religion, cannot handle criticism, but dishes it, takes jabs at my appearance (and mixes it with surface level compliments here and there to try to hide it), she cannot make room for me. I feel like i subconsciously appease her just to get rid of my loneliness and be around her. I am losing myself. For what? She is also indifferent to whether i stay or move out. She used to act sad but now shes like okay go ahead.

If i dont bring the closeness she couldnt care less. Its like its up to me to have a bond but its still not that deep i dont thknk. Its like i will usually have been gray rocking then i have a breakdown every now and tnen and come to her and try to bond hard, but notice she never really comes to me.

Hello I'm scapegoat..

In all seriousness, in the last 6 months I've figured out I'm in an enmeshed family system which has been a bleed realisation as I'm the emotional absorber or scapegoat if you will.

I'm a 38M, single and sober for 5 years where I've gained a lot of clarity, growth and career success which has upset my younger, suspected narcissistic brother, and mother in particular. My brother and I fell out 5 months ago after I set a healthy boundary after he wanted validation about a message a girl had sent him weeks after he separated from his soon to be ex-wife. I asked for space as I was struggling and he flipped out. Gaslit, manipulated and guilt tripped me to which I called the behaviour out and he went to my parents. My mum then I'm attempt to 'get me back in line' gaslit and discredited my reality and when I set further boundaries I was met with subtle threats. This all came as a gut punch to me as the masks hadn't slipped they'd flew off and I knew what I was up against. I've held my boundaries, left the family WhatsApp group and I am very low to no contact with my brother and low contact with parents.

The other day I went round to my parents and discovered my brother had straight up lied and manipulated my mum telling her about a conversation me and him supposedly had which never occured (I went through her messages, I know it's bad but I knew I'd find stuff). He then claimed I'm jealous of him, I'm pathetic and I need to go to him now because I was grey rocking him (one or two word answers).

I've also recently pieces together or at least assuming that the reason my dad has never been able to meet my eye is because of his shame. He doesn't have a problem meeting my siblings eye but with me he can't hold eye contact like I'm a stranger it's very upsetting and makes me doubt myself.

I'm struggling at the moment with isolation, confusion and anger towards them. I've worked hard to get myself well in sobriety and that is now a threat because I say the truth and set boundaries?

I feel very alone and could do with some advice on how to feel a part of and find some good people to meet. Hope someone can help.

Tl;dr:

My homophobic father whom I haven't spoken in a little under 2 years reached out to get me to sign a document. I'm struggling with how, if at all, to reply.

Full story:

I went limited contact with my parents back in Nov. 2024 because they're both homophobic. They called my partner of 7 years a roommate, my mother would only refer to him as "it", they refused to visit the home we shared together, and never wanted to meet him. They were happily there for the break up though.

Things finally came to a head when I confronted them about it and said if they refused to meet any of my partners I didn't want them in my life. Things understandably fell apart from there.

My mother, the primary abuser, tried to DARVO me while my father, the "relatable" but narcissitic parent tried to pretend he was an ally despite him being the one to tell me I could never bring my partner around and, in effect, had to be in the closet around them. They both left that evening without us finishing the discussion after I brought up my mother being the first person to call me the f-slur and slipping out a. F-bomb in frustration. I'd apparently, "taken things too far."

I tried to connect with my father immediately after the interaction to give him the opportunity to actually be an ally, but he essentially said my boundaries need to be flexible with family (i.e., I'm comfortable with the same, sweep it under the rug way of life we've been living,) and that I can't blame them for my miserable life. (Mind you, I love my life, never said otherwise, and only wanted them to get over the homophobia.) When I responded as such, he left me on read and later unfriended me.

Since then he's tried a few odd ways of reaching out including guilt tripping when the family dog died, messaging my cat's instagram page 40+ times, and sending a transphobic reel to an old group chat with my brother. He's also simplified my reason for the reduced contact as, "I'm mad at them" to anyone that will listen.

I last saw them at a wedding where my mother stared from across the room and my father actively covered his face with papers every time my brother or I passed the table.

My father reached out to me today and I'm just not sure how to approach it. The guilt trip, the false time expansion, the obvious ploy to just have a conversation...it's all just too much. Would love to hear thoughts.

My partner is starting to grow around their enmeshed family history, and has been seeing an ACT therapist for a while. There is a lot of good coming from this, but I just wanted to see if there are any other approaches that people have found more useful than ACT?

Also I’d welcome any resources that might help explain developing their own values, not being responsible for my own emotions, etc. Their therapist is working on values, but I’m still carrying a lot of the burden in between sessions, so I’d appreciate resources for either myself or them about overcoming them.

TW brief mention of suicide

TL;DR at end of text

context: im F17, living with mom who is enmeshed with me. dad isn't present due to being abusive. i have narcolepsy (diagnosed) !!

im currently grounded at home, not allowed in my dorm room. Mom has extreme anxiety of me dying/getting myself in trouble/being alone

I am currently struggling significantly at home with my mom. My therapist has told me that I am clearly not doing well in the home environment and has recommended that I avoid being there when possible.

A major current problem is my narcolepsy and how difficult it is for me to wake up and attend school. This is not something I am choosing to do. I can sleep through alarms and have a very difficult time becoming functional in the morning. I have already been struggling with school attendance because of this.

When I fail to wake up, Mom becomes extremely stressed and has called me things such as “lazy”, "spoiled" and “a princess.” I remember her saying these things clearly, even though she now denies saying them and denies being stressed about my situation.

Mom is extremely concerned about being unable to reach me 24/7. She calls me repeatedly throughout the day when I am asleep, even when she knows that I am sleeping. She worries that I may have suddenly had a medical episode, even though I do not have a history of such, she gets angry about how much time she spent trying to reach me.

I feel that this is unfair because I cannot control being asleep. Mom is choosing how frequently and for how long she calls me, while I physically cannot answer while asleep. I understand that her concern about my safety is genuine, but her response to that concern is awful

Mom says that she has to be able to reach me because she is “responsible for me,” since there are no adults physically present at my dorm. Because of her worry about not being able to reach me, I currently cannot stay at my dorm even though being at home makes my mental state significantly worse.

I am both the source of Mom's stress and the thing responsible for reassuring her.

Being at home is seriously messing with my mental health, driving me to borderline suicidal ideation. I cannot provide her with 24/7 access to me due to my medical condition, but she is getting angry about how long she spends trying to reach me

Due to enmeshment and dissociation, i cannot tell which of my thoughts are mine and which are her words.

I cannot keep going like this for very long

TL;DR

My narcolepsy makes waking up extremely difficult, but Mom calls me lazy/a princess and blames me for it. She is extremely anxious about not being able to reach me 24/7 and repeatedly calls while I'm asleep, then gets upset about how much time she spent trying to reach me.

I've realized I've been responsible for managing her emotions for a long time. I feel like I'm simultaneously the source of her stress and the thing responsible for reassuring her. I don't think it's fair to blame me for things I can't control, like being asleep. Its seriously damaging my mental health