Are You Feeling Like a Failure Because You Can't "Fix" a Loved One?

This article was updated on September 16, 2026.

Feeling like a failure because you can't "fix" a loved one is a common, emotionally exhausting experience born from a fundamental misunderstanding of interpersonal boundaries. 

Watching an adult child, parent, sibling, or close friend engage in self sabotaging and destructive behavior triggers profound feelings of helplessness. Out of deep affection, you may mistakenly believe you have the power to control or alter their path. However, a loved one is not a broken object to be repaired, and confusing deep love with a duty to "cure" someone else will inevitably leave you emotionally, physically, and mentally depleted.

Internalizing the chaos: Attempting to fix a loved one's destructive behavior often leaves your own mental well-being fractured and depleted.

When you internalize a loved one's self-destructive path, several unconscious psychological mechanisms are often at play:

• The Savior Illusion: The false belief that if your love, effort, or pain is intense enough, it can override another adult's emotional trauma or behavioral choices.
• Internalizing the Chaos: Treating a loved one's personal struggles, setbacks, or structural failures as a direct reflection of your own worth, parenting, or efficacy.
• Control as a Coping Mechanism: Attempting to micromanage or "fix" their external environment as a desperate strategy to soothe your own internal discomfort with their suffering.

Shifting From Fixing to Emotional Support

To preserve your own mental health and establish a healthier relational dynamic, you must pivot from an intrusive "fixing" stance to an attuned "supportive" stance.

Here is how those two approaches differ in real-world communication:

• Offering Unsolicited Advice vs. Active Listening: "Fixing" sounds like criticizing their choices ("You are spending too much money and ignoring your bills"). True emotional support sounds like asking, "Do you want me to just listen right now, or are you looking for help brainstorming a solution?" (see my article: Improving Communication: Ask a Loved One: Do You Want to Be Helped, Heard or Hugged?).
• Shielding From Consequences vs. Enforcing Boundaries: "Fixing" involves sacrificing your own financial or emotional stability to absorb their fallout. Supporting involves focusing on your own well-being while remaining an attuned, separate anchor.
• Managing Their Life vs. Creating Safe Spaces: "Fixing" looks like making excuses to their employer or quietly paying off their debts. Supporting means stepping back from management and instead offering a safe, non-judgmental container where change is possible if they choose it.

Essential Reminders for Your Own Well-Being

• Separate Love From Rescue: You can deeply love and respect an individual without assuming the crushing, impossible burden of saving them from themselves.
• Recognize Your Radical Limits: You are not failing; you are simply hitting the natural, healthy boundary of what one human being is capable of doing for another.
• Grieve the Unrealistic Expectation: True healing requires letting go of the illusion of control. Allow yourself to mourn the idealized version of the relationship you wish you had, so you can accept the reality of the one that exists.

Clinical Vignettes

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates the problem with trying to "fix" a loved one:

Tina and Her Adult Son, Mike:

Tina's only child, a 45 year old son, Mike, had a compulsive gambling problem. Although he earned over $100,000 a year, he had poor credit because he had many overdue bills, the bank was threatening to foreclose on his home and his wife was threatening to leave him.

Whenever Mike felt desperate, he called Tina and begged her to bail him out. In that moment, he would promise to get help for his gambling problem and also to pay her back. But as soon as he got the money from Tina, he gambled more (instead of paying off his gambling debts) and he got deeper into debt. 

He also never paid Tina back and she was depleting her and her husband's retirement savings. Her husband, Joe, told her to stop enabling Mike's behavior, but Tina wanted to help her son and she knew she would feel guilty if she didn't help him.

When Joe told Tina that he was angry that their retirement fund was getting depleted due to Mike's gambling problems, she understood that her efforts to "fix" her son's problems were having a devastating impact on her marriage and she sought help in therapy.

The work in therapy wasn't easy, but her therapist helped Tina to see the enmeshment with her son so she could switch from trying to "fix" him to being emotionally supportive (see my article: How to Stop Being Enmeshed With Your Family).

Tina was able to see that her behavior with her son had its roots in her dysfunctional family dynamic, especially her parents' codependent relationship. Whenever Tina's father was too hungover to go to work, her mother would call his manager and make excuses for his absences. Eventually, he was let go from his job and Tina's mother had to take two jobs to keep the family afloat.  

Several years after Tina's father lost his job, he was drinking more heavily than ever and he died due to an alcohol-related heart attack at the age of 40. After the father died, Tina's mother blamed herself for not being able to get her husband to stop drinking.

Tina wasn't aware of how she was affected by her parents' dynamic until she got into therapy and she realized she was trying, in vain, to rescue her 45 year old son--just like her mother tried, in vain, to rescue her father.

With a heavy heart, Tina refused to give Mike any more money the next time he came to her in desperation. At first, he pleaded with her and told her he would lose his home and his utilities would be turned off. 

This was especially difficult for Tina, but she realized that, in the long run, she couldn't try to "fix" his problem anymore because her efforts kept Mike from dealing with his gambling problem. She also didn't want to ruin her marriage.

When pleading didn't work, Mike became furious, cursed and threatened to cut her off. She responded by reminding him that he already owed her thousands of dollars. She also told him that she would be emotionally supportive of his getting help for his gambling problem.

Mike was too angry to respond to his mother and, after that talk, he disappeared from his parents' life for two years and he was unresponsive to their calls. Even though they knew they did what was best for Mike and for themselves, this estrangement was heartbreaking for Tina and Joe (see my article: Estrangement Between Parents and Adult Children).

In the meantime, Tina worked in therapy to deal with her own childhood trauma in therapy and the estrangement with her son.

A year later, when Mike contacted Tina and Joe again, he was in therapy, he was attending Gamblers Anonymous and he stopped gambling. He said his therapist was helping him to deal with the underlying issues related to his gambling. He told them that Tina's refusal to give him money was the best thing that ever happened to him because it forced him to confront his problems. 

As part of his making amends with his parents, Mike made a payment plan with them to pay back the money he owed them. They also worked together to develop a healthier family dynamic.

By that time, Tina and Joe's relationship had improved and they were looking forward to retirement in a few years.

Conclusion

It's very difficult to watch a loved one floundering without wanting to do something to help. 

The problem with trying to "fix" or rescue your loved one is that it's usually counterproductive and perpetuates your loved one's problem as well as your own.

Acknowledging and accepting that you can't "fix" anyone can help you to set boundaries so you can be emotionally supportive in a healthy way.

Get Help in Therapy

Trying to change a long-standing unhealthy pattern can be very difficult.

If you have tried on your own to change without success, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who has experience helping clients with these types of issues.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an experienced therapist so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

Contact & Consultation Information

I see clients online throughout New York State and in person at my private office in Greenwich Village, New York, NY 10011.

I offer a free 15-minute introductory phone call before scheduling your initial appointment.

• Website: Visit Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist to learn more about my practice.

• Email: Reach out confidentially via email at josephineferraro@iCloud.com.

• Phone: Call me directly at (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours.

Also See My Articles:

Overcoming Codependency: Focus on Yourself First

Role Reversal in Mother-Daughter Relationships

Ambivalence and Codependence in Mother-Daughter Relationships 

Overcoming Shame in an Enmeshed Family 

Intergenerational Dynamics 

Setting Boundaries: How to Stop Being Enmeshed With Your Family

I began a discussion about enmeshment in an earlier article, Overcoming Shame in an Enmeshed Family.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

Topics in the Current Article

In the current article, I'm covering:

• What is Enmeshment?
• What Causes Enmeshment in Families?
• How to Overcome Enmeshment
• Getting Help in Therapy to Overcome Enmeshment

What is Enmeshment?

If you grew up in an enmeshed family you probably had at least some of the following issues:

• There was a lack of physical and emotional boundaries.

• There was a tendency to focus on what's best for other family members and not what's best for you.

• You put other family members' happiness above your own.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

• You feel guilt and shame, as an adult, if you put your needs above other family members. For instance,  you might not want to call your mother every week, but you feel guilty and ashamed if you don't because you know she wants you to call weekly.

• Your family's self worth is dependent upon your success.

• Your family expects you to share everything about your life--even things you might want to keep private. They get offended if you say something in your life is private.

• Your family might have imposed their ideas on you when you were a young adult instead of encouraging you to follow your own hopes and dreams. If you wanted to follow your own aspirations, they felt offended and you felt guilty and ashamed.

• Parents in enmeshed families tend to treat their children like friends instead of children because there is a lack of boundaries.

• You tend to avoid conflicts, even now as an adult, because you have difficulty setting limits.

• You lack a strong sense of who you are.

• You absorb other people's emotions around you because you lack appropriate boundaries (this is different from being an empath).

What Causes Enmeshment in Families?

Enmeshment usually develops in dysfunctional families and repeats the pattern from one generation to the next (see my article: 

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

It can be difficult to pinpoint when an enmeshed family dynamic started since it might go back generations and family members often have little to no awareness about the enmeshment.

Enmeshment often develops due to unresolved trauma, mental health problems, substance abuse, compulsive gambling or other related issues.

What is the Impact of Enmeshment in Adult Relationships?

The following characteristics are common for adults who grew up in enmeshed families?

• Low self esteem
  

• Anxiety
  

• Fear of abandonment
  

• Being out of touch with your feelings

• Feeling burdened by guilt and shame

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

• An overdeveloped sense of responsibility

• Poor personal boundaries

• Difficulty setting boundaries with others

• Codependency
  

• Difficulty with assertiveness

• Difficulty with emotional regulation 

• Difficulty calming or soothing yourself emotionally

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates the negative impact of enmeshed family dynamics and how psychotherapy can help:

Maria

Maria grew up in crowded family home where she shared a bed with her two older sisters. She had no privacy. 

When Maria was 15 years old, her oldest sister found Maria's diary, she read it to their parents, grandparents and siblings and they laughed at what Maria wrote about feeling sad.

Her parents and grandparents invalidated her feelings and told her she had nothing to feel sad about since she had a roof over her head, food and clothing.  They told her that only someone who had something terrible to hide from the family would even want to write in a diary.  Then, her father tore up her diary and threw it in the garbage. He told her she should be ashamed of herself for what she wrote.

When she turned 16 years old, Maria's maternal uncle, who came to live with her family, began touching her inappropriately when no one was around. He told her that he would hurt her sisters if she told anyone about the sexual abuse (see my article: Overcoming the Trauma of Sexual Abuse).

One day her mother happened to come home early and she found her brother touching Maria's breasts. She threw her brother out of the house and she also blamed Maria for the sexual abuse.  

She told Maria it was her fault that the uncle touched her inappropriately. Then, she made Maria promise not to tell Maria's father because she feared what he might do to the uncle if he found out.

When it was time for Maria to choose a major in college, her parents insisted that she become a teacher--even though Maria wanted to become a medical doctor. Her parents told her that women shouldn't become doctors because they would have to see men's naked bodies and this was shameful for a woman.

Maria was upset that her parents were trying to force her to choose a career she didn't want so she sought help from a professor who referred her to the college counseling center.  

In counseling, Maria learned to set boundaries with her family--even though they didn't like it and they threatened to stop paying her tuition.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

Her counselor helped Maria to get a scholarship and a room in a dorm so she could live independently from her family.  She took pre-med courses and, eventually, she went to medical school.

While she was in medical school, she sought help from a trauma therapist so she could deal with the impact of her enmeshed family, including the sexual abuse.

Even though her family didn't like that Maria was making her own decisions and setting boundaries with them, they accepted it reluctantly.  

While she was in medical school, Maria met her husband-to-be and she learned to have a healthy relationship with him with the tools she learned in therapy.

How to Overcome Enmeshment

To become a mature adult, children need to learn to become their own person at stages that are appropriate for their development at the time.  This is part of the individuation process.

Individuation means being your own person and not just an extension of your parents and other family members.

When you are appropriately individuated from your family, you can maintain your relationships with them with appropriate boundaries. You also learn how to be your own person physically, emotionally and psychologically.

To overcome enmeshment, you need to learn to:

• Set appropriate boundaries with family members (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Guilt).

• Discover who you are as an individual apart from your family.

• Learn to stop feeling ashamed and guilty if what's right for you might make your family unhappy.

• Get help in therapy when trying to overcome enmeshment becomes too challenging.

Getting Help in Therapy

Overcoming enmeshment can be challenging.

Getting Help in Therapy

A licensed mental health professional with the right expertise can help you to develop the skills you need to overcome enmeshment and develop healthier relationships.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled psychotherapist so you can lead a more meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapy.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome trauma, including enmeshed relationships.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Comparison and Judgment Are the Thieves of Joy

The phrase "Comparison is the thief of joy" is attributed to Theodore Roosevelt and it means that comparing yourself to others and judging yourself unfavorably often leads to unhappiness (see my article: How to Stop Comparing Yourself Unfavorably With Others).

Comparisons and Judgment on Social Media

These issues have become increasingly problematic now that people compare their looks, their partners, their success and everything else about their life on social media.

Comparison and Judgment Are the Thieves of Joy

Many people compare and judge themselves in ways that lead to shame, anxiety and depression, and other similar problems, especially among teens and young adults.

More and more people are realizing they need to take breaks from social media if they want to maintain their mental health. 

What Are the Negative Effects of Comparisons and Judgment?

Whether comparisons and judgment occur on social media or in real life, the negative consequences include (but not limited to):

• Feeling envious of others 

• Feeling dissatisfied with yourself

• Feeling inadequate 

• Having a poor body image (see my article: How Mindfulness and Self Acceptance Can Help With Body Acceptance)

• Depression

• Feeling worthless

• Feeling unlovable

• Anxiety

• Hopelessness

• Low self esteem
  

• Shame
  

Comparison and Judgment Often Starts Early in Childhood

In her book, Come Together, Dr. Emily Nagoski writes that, even more than comparison, the real thief of joy is judgment.

I see many clients in my New York City psychotherapy practice who are unhappy because they compare and judge themselves unfavorably to others.

Comparison and Judgment Are the Thieves of Joy

In many cases this began when their parents compared and judged them, as young children, unfavorably to other children:

    "Why can't you get better grades like your older brother?" 

    "Look how outgoing your friend Mary is. Why can't you be more like her?"

Although most parents don't mean to harm their children, when parents give labels to their children, children feel inadequate (see my article: Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

A common example of this is when parents engage in labeling and splitting by saying to their daughters, "Gina, you're the pretty one and Ann, you're the smart one."

Not only can this pit siblings against each other, but these comparisons often cause each child to want the attributes they feel they're lacking and believe their sibling has.

What often happens is that the one who is told she's the pretty one longs to be the smart one and the one who is told she's smart one longs to be the pretty one.

I've had clients look back on their childhood photos and report cards many years later and they realized that these destructive comparisons were false.

Regardless of how their parents labeled them, they discovered years later that both they and their sibling were equally attractive and smart, but their parents created this "split" between the siblings.  

How to Overcome the Tendency to Compare and Judge Yourself Unfavorably to Others

Usually by the time people come to see me for therapy, they have been traumatized by lifelong comparisons and judgments that began early in life by their parents, which they internalized and continued to do to themselves as adults.

If this type of problem hasn't reached the level of trauma where you need a mental health professional, there are some self help tips that might be helpful:

• Develop Self Awareness: Begin to notice when you're comparing and judging yourself.

• Identity Your Triggers: Become aware of what types of situations trigger these negative thoughts and feelings in you.

• Self Reflect and Focus on Your Strengths: You have unique strengths. Instead of focusing on what you think you don't have, as compared to others, focus on your strengths that you do have (see my article: What is a Strengths-Based Perspective in Psychotherapy?).

Reflect on Your Positive Traits and Strengths

• Keep a Gratitude Journal: When you keep a gratitude journal, you learn to shift your focus from feelings of inadequacy, shame and envy to feelings of gratitude for what you do have (see my article: How to Keep a Gratitude Journal).

• Have a Talk With Your Inner Critic: Your inner critic was probably formed when you were young when you internalized the negative messages you received. It's only one part of you and it's often a sad and neglected part that wants attention. Although you can't get rid of any part of yourself, you can transform that part with love and attention which can help to soften it. But even if that part doesn't soften, you can ask it to step aside so it doesn't have a direct impact on you while you're working to strengthen your sense of self. Once your sense of self has been strengthened, even if that part continues to be critical, when you come from a stronger sense of self, you won't automatically believe that critical part.

                See my articles: 

• Making Friends With Your Inner Critic
• 
  
• How Parts Work Can Empower You

• Your Thoughts and Feelings Aren't Facts

• Only Compare Yourself to Yourself: Focus on your own progress instead of comparing yourself to others and judging yourself. For instance, if you go to the gym, instead of comparing yourself to a gym member who is more advanced than you and who can lift heavier weights track your own progress or give yourself credit for going to the gym.

• Limit Your Exposure to Social Media: Become aware of how you are affected by social media and reduce your time so you're not getting triggered as much. Some people have taken themselves off social media for periods of time to stop getting triggered and strengthen their sense of self.

• Practice Mindfulness and Breathing Exercises: Meditation and breathing exercises can help you to reduce the stress and anxiety that often comes with comparisons and self judgment.

Conclusion

Comparison and judgment are the thieves of joy.

If your problem isn't related to unresolved trauma, you can try to identify and overcome the triggers related to unfavorably comparisons and judgment. 

Getting Help in Therapy

If self help strategies aren't working for you and you think your problems are related to unresolved trauma, consider getting help in trauma therapy.

Getting Help in Therapy

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to work through any underlying trauma contributes to your problems so you can lead a more fulfilling life (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I am a trauma therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

What is Parentification and Why Is It Traumatic?

As a trauma therapist in New York City, I see many clients who come to see me for unresolved trauma grew up as parentified children (see my article: What is the Impact of Parentification on Adult Relationships?).

Why is Parentification Traumatic

What Are Parentified Children?

Parentification is a role reversal between parents and children.

Parentified children are children who grew up taking on adult responsibilities in their family. 

These responsibilities might include:

• Providing emotional support to their parents 

• Taking care of younger siblings as a regular part of their chores

• Taking on major household chores that are normally done by adults

• Taking on the stress of financial problems and other major stressors in the family

• Mediating arguments between their parents and/or other adult family members

• Paying bills

• Making doctor's appointments, and so on

This often occurs when children's parents either can't or won't assume parental responsibilities and they might also unable to take care of themselves.

What Are the Signs of Parentification?

Some of the signs of parentification include:

• Children being praised by their parents and other adults for being "so good" or "so responsible" when they take on tasks beyond their developmental stage

• Children feeling they have to be the peacemakers in the family

• Getting in trouble with their parents when they wanted to engage in children's activities because parents wanted them to stay home to take care of adult responsibilities

• As an adult not being able to remember being allowed to be a child

• As an adult feeling they were given responsibilities beyond their capacity as a child

• As an adult feeling they had to "grow up fast" (beyond their developmental capacities)

• As an adult only feeling comfortable in the role of a caretaker to a partner or spouse 

• As an adult feeling they have to be so "self reliant" to the point of not trusting others, including significant others, to come through for them

Why Causes Parentification?

Parentification can occur for many reasons.

In many instances the parents of parentified children grew up as parentified children themselves so it seems normal and familiar to them.  

Since they were parentified children, these parents might never have learned to manage their emotions because they were preoccupied with taking care of their parents' emotions.  

As a result, it's not unusual to find a long history of parentified children from one generation to the next.

In other instances parents might have mental health or substance abuse problems and they are unable to take on parental responsibilities so one or more of their children take on these responsibilities.

Why is Parentification Traumatic?

Parentified children often feel they are special when they are children because they feel they are helping their parents and often get complimented for it. But, as adults, they might begin to sense that something didn't go right when they were children (see my article: Why is Past Trauma Affecting You Now?).

For instance, when they hear other adults talk about their childhood, many adults who grew up as parentified children sense they missed out on being a child.  For many people this is the beginning of their questioning why they took on their parents' responsibilities and what affect it might have had on them (see my article: How Developmental Trauma Affects How You Feel About Yourself).

Parentification also causes the disruption of the child's natural maturational process which often leads to negative consequences for their long term health and mental health including anxiety and depression and chronic health problems.

In addition, as previously mentioned, parentification often develops into intergenerational trauma as the trauma is perpetuated from one generation to the next.

How Can You Heal From the Trauma of Parentification?

There are specific types of therapy, known as trauma therapy, for parentification and other types of developmental trauma:

• EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Ego States Therapy (similar to Internal Family Systems Therapy or Parts Work Therapy)

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Parentification is more common than you might think.

Even though parentification might have been normalized in your family, you might realize it had a negative emotional impact on you.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a qualified trauma therapist so you can overcome trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist with over 25 years of experience, I help individual adults and couples to help them overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

I provide a free 15 minute phone call before setting up an appointment.

I see clients in my office in Greenwich Village, New York City and online.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.