Carolyn Hax: Husband’s inability to stand up to parents isn’t OK

Q: We’ve been married 12 years, and I just admitted to myself that I don’t like my husband’s parents. I have always tried to be open, loving and forgiving of their frailties, but a steady accumulation of poor communication and lack of reciprocation for my efforts has led to how I feel now.

My in-laws are not good at expressing themselves, so they either drop hints or strong-arm us into doing what they want. For example, we didn’t want to stay overnight for a family reunion, so they went ahead and booked us a room.

I think my revelation has to do with recognizing how deeply they’ve conditioned their son to accommodate them, and how much that conditioning can hurt his communication with me. He can tolerate my displeasure more than his parents’, so he constantly bows to them.

We have two young kids, so I recognize my in-laws’ importance to our family unit. I’m not trying to cut them off. My husband has come a long way in recognizing how manipulative they can be, but he has not been able to translate that into more assertiveness. He still struggles to wrap up a simple phone call with them. That lack of action can be much more harmful, like not telling them to please leave after visiting us for four-plus hours when our second baby was days old.

I don’t like the anger I feel in those moments! Suggestions? I think we would both be open to therapy but wonder if there’s any way to handle this in-house.

— Angry

A: Well, your husband isn’t good at expressing himself, either, is he.

And you’ve perfected not quite telling your in-laws (or your husband) what they can do with their unasked-for hotel room.

So there’s a lot of communication not going around.

No judgment, just that if you plan to DIY this emotional remodeling, then you need to see the scope of the work. It involves not only the in-laws’ pressure and your husband’s capitulation, but also your overreliance on your patient face. Given the ingrained habits, a licensed contractor (therapist) would make sense.

But that takes some setup, so, meantime:

With the usual disclaimer that you can’t fix the in-laws, you can start work on your communication with them. You can learn to speak clearly and lose the veneer of “loving and forgiving” that lulls them into the belief that their meddling and overstaying are OK with you.

It’s a team effort with your husband and hinges entirely on one thing: his belief that he can be direct with his parents and handle the consequences. That’s it.

What are those consequences? Dunno. I’m not sure he knows. If he’s been meticulous in appeasing his parents, in never just saying, “Gotta go, Ma” [click], then the present-day costs of upsetting them remain imagined. Will they yell, go silent, pout, disown him, browbeat him, be very, very disappointed!?

The work of breaking his conditioning is twofold:

1. Prepare him to withstand the consequences. The most effective prep is scripting and role play. You’ll feel like complete dorks, but who cares. Write a polite script to end a call, then role-play it cold. Write a polite script to end a visit, then role-play it cold. Etc.

2. Withstand the consequences. Use the words, get off the phone, ride out the fallout or pushback. If there even is any.

Offer him this incentive: Whatever emotional torrent they unleash, it beats being an adult who feels powerless to end a phone call.

Also beats a divorce. (When I say it, it’s an observation, not a threat.)

• E-mail Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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