Josh Murray - Bachelorette 10 - Discussion - #9

Maybe she's his date?? Are they filming now? Maybe he should call NickP.

Is it speculation or does anyone have evidence or an example of his mother making decisions for him.  I follow her on Facebook and she leaves humorous insites sometimes to disagreements among herself & her kids or husband.  She seems like a lot of fun and more of a free spirit, not a controlling woman. I know Josh went clothes shopping with her. I would imagine when he wants a females opinion or help & doesn't have a gf he trusts his mom & sister. I'm just not sure how that translates into him not making decisions for himself. Seeking advice from a parent you trust is different than being controlled by your parent.  IMG_0869.JPG

Loveinterest wrote:I like the premise of the show and can see the positives of Josh wanting to do it vs BIP.  It's a show to acquire personal  insight and skills to find and have a lasting relationship rather than hook up with other cast members.  I always find it interesting the comments about what his mom thinks, but people are upset that he has a close relationship with his mom.  As I understand it, the entire Murray clan is very close, particularly after his mothers brain tumor and his fathers cancer.  I, for one, take no issue with the closeness of the relationship and hope mine is as strong with my son when he becomes a man.  Josh has been on his own since he was 17 so I wonder if it's just speculation that his mother has a stronger influence over him than she really does.  For me, once I was out of the house, my parents gave advice but I did what I wanted.  I'm sure the same is true with Josh.  I just wish I had listened to my parents more!

I honestly don’t think this Famously Single show is any better than BIP. I agree that on BIP, some former contestants just go to hook up with other castmates, but I’d still say that a few of the people who have been on BIP are seemingly normal, nice people like Jade, Tanner, Marcus, Cody, Marquel etc. Famously Single is basically a trashy show with some D list celebs who want to extend their 15 minutes of fame.

Anyway, I have absolutely no problem with kids being close to their parents but there’s a difference between a healthy closeness and an unhealthy closeness. This is just my opinion, but I feel like Josh has an unhealthy closeness with his mother. I know he was 17 when he moved out, but it doesn’t mean that his mother still isn’t in control of his life. I think he’s a little too concerned about his family’s opinion when it comes to the person he’s going to marry. That’s his decision, not theirs. If his mother ever makes him feel like he has to choose between her or a girl, I think he should run as far as possible from his mother. If she really cares about him and his happiness, she’d never make him choose. It's time for him to be a man and make his own decisions and ask that his mother respects those decisions whether she likes them or not.

An unhealthy closeness between parent and child is called enmeshment. 

Enmeshment is a concept introduced by Salvador_Minuchin to describe families where are diffuse, sub-systems undifferentiated, and over-concern for others leads to a loss of autonomous development."


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enmeshment

Loveinterest wrote:Is it speculation or does anyone have evidence or an example of his mother making decisions for him.  I follow her on Facebook and she leaves humorous insites sometimes to disagreements among herself & her kids or husband.  She seems like a lot of fun and more of a free spirit, not a controlling woman. I know Josh went clothes shopping with her. I would imagine when he wants a females opinion or help & doesn't have a gf he trusts his mom & sister. I'm just not sure how that translates into him not making decisions for himself. Seeking advice from a parent you trust is different than being controlled by your parent.  IMG_0869.JPG

It will always be speculation because we will never know what their phone conversations and text messages are like, but I used to be a fan of Josh for a while and I’ve observed his behavior for the past year or so and I strongly believe that his mother is too involved in his life. I also find it very interesting that so many other people see it too. We will never have examples of his mother making decisions for him because she will never allow the public to see that. I don’t find her Facebook posts funny at all and the disagreements she posts about are always about trivial things. She never posts about any serious disagreement on social media, especially if it has to do with her kids’ relationships or jobs etc.

I don’t see his mother as being a free spirit at all. I find her to be a controlling woman. It’s easy to control little children by ordering them around. That won’t work for her adult kids so I think she finds more diplomatic ways to control them. Sometimes, I find that the seemingly most charismatic, funny, charming people are the most controlling and they use those qualities to control people while hiding their controlling personality. Just saying, I would hate to be the girl in the middle of a guy and his mother.

I have no problem with the clothes shopping. It’s perfectly fine for him to want a girl’s opinion on the clothes he buys.

I am neutral on Josh but I have yet to see where he has an unhealthy closeness with his mom or that she makes his decisions from him. If she did, he probably would have dumped Andi's a** as soon as him mom heard about her sleeping with Nick during the viewing party she had to view the finale. He also wouldn't have basically cut off contact during his stint with Andi. The only hint of this unhealthy closeness was when Andi suggested it during the meeting with the family and for me that was more about trying to make herself look better. Aaron had just been drafted into the NFL or was about to be so she thought Josh was getting to be the second fiddle. Frankly they seem like a nice, close, caring family who enjoy their own things but are supportive of one another. The fact that they experienced two very scary health issues with their parents probably made them appreciate each other and the time they have together, that much more.

rhondam wrote:An unhealthy closeness between parent and child is called enmeshment. 

Enmeshment is a concept introduced by Salvador_Minuchin to describe families where are diffuse, sub-systems undifferentiated, and over-concern for others leads to a loss of autonomous development."


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enmeshment

Haha thanks. I didn't know there was a word for it.

Maybe they couldn't find any girls for Josh to date on the street, so they called through Bachelor rejects in the area?

mindless wrote:Maybe they couldn't find any girls for Josh to date on the street, so they called through Bachelor rejects in the area?

Which would be the same as going on BIP.

GuardianAngel wrote:

mindless wrote:Maybe they couldn't find any girls for Josh to date on the street, so they called through Bachelor rejects in the area?

Which would be the same as going on BIP.

Exactly! If Josh wanted to hook up with Samantha, all he had to do was go on BIP. I guess he foolishly believed that people wanted him to be the bachelor at that point so he probably turned BIP down.

Josh enjoyed posting that he loves his mom more than anyone and she's his favorite girl or some such other Freudian drivel, meanwhile engaged to an actual woman. That's kewl with me because it's his life but I fail see how it's in anyway "normal."

AnandaMarie wrote:

Loveinterest wrote:Is it speculation or does anyone have evidence or an example of his mother making decisions for him.  I follow her on Facebook and she leaves humorous insites sometimes to disagreements among herself & her kids or husband.  She seems like a lot of fun and more of a free spirit, not a controlling woman. I know Josh went clothes shopping with her. I would imagine when he wants a females opinion or help & doesn't have a gf he trusts his mom & sister. I'm just not sure how that translates into him not making decisions for himself. Seeking advice from a parent you trust is different than being controlled by your parent.  IMG_0869.JPG

It will always be speculation because we will never know what their phone conversations and text messages are like, but I used to be a fan of Josh for a while and I’ve observed his behavior for the past year or so and I strongly believe that his mother is too involved in his life. I also find it very interesting that so many other people see it too. We will never have examples of his mother making decisions for him because she will never allow the public to see that. I don’t find her Facebook posts funny at all and the disagreements she posts about are always about trivial things. She never posts about any serious disagreement on social media, especially if it has to do with her kids’ relationships or jobs etc.


I don’t see his mother as being a free spirit at all. I find her to be a controlling woman. It’s easy to control little children by ordering them around. That won’t work for her adult kids so I think she finds more diplomatic ways to control them. Sometimes, I find that the seemingly most charismatic, funny, charming people are the most controlling and they use those qualities to control people while hiding their controlling personality. Just saying, I would hate to be the girl in the middle of a guy and his mother.

I have no problem with the clothes shopping. It’s perfectly fine for him to want a girl’s opinion on the clothes he buys.

Very well said. It is of course only speculation because we don't know them personally and aren't privy to their private conversations. However, I think we see a hint of Josh's mom's controlling ways when she defends him on social media and responds for him when something negative is said.  If he wants to respond he's perfectly capable of doing so on his own. She might have thought it was amusing when she joined in on his periscopes saying she was accepting applications from women to date her son, with a list of her specifications, but if I were a thirty one year old man and my mom did that, I think I would be mortified. Sadly for Josh, I don't think a woman is ever going to feel comfortable in that family.