enmeshment can be mistaken for 'closeness' - everyone crosses over everyone else's boundaries and it starts to look like a demolition derby.
detachment is the key, but it is a difficult concept to fully grasp and to enact.
excerpt from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation:
Detachment with love means caring enough about others to allow them to learn from their mistakes. It also means being responsible for our own welfare and making decisions without ulterior motives-the desire to control others.
Ultimately we are powerless to control others anyway. Most family members of an addicted person have been trying to change that person for a long time, and it hasn't worked. We are involved with other people but we don't control them. We simply can't stop people from doing things if they choose to continue.
Understood this way, detachment with love plants the seeds of helping an addict with recovery. When we refuse to take responsibility for other people's alcohol or drug use, we allow them to face the natural consequences of their behavior. If a child asks why mommy missed the school play, we do not have to lie. Instead, we can say, "I don't know why she wasn't here. You'll have to ask her."
Perhaps the essence of detachment with love is responding with choice rather than reacting with anxiety. When we threaten to leave someone, we're usually tuned in to someone else's feelings. We operate on raw emotion. We say things for shock value. Our words arise from blind reaction, not thoughtful choice.
Detaching with love offers another option—responding to others based on thought rather than anxiety. For instance, as parents we set limits for our children even when this angers them. We choose what we think is best over the long term, looking past the children's immediate emotional reaction.
In this sense, detachment with love can apply whenever we have an emotional attachment to someone-family or friend, addicted or sober. The key is to stop being responsible for others and be responsible to them—and to ourselves.