agonyaunt | Carolyn and readers are both nicer and more helpful than I am

Carolyn and readers are both nicer and more helpful than I am

Dear Carolyn: I’ve noticed an odd pattern in communication with my mother-in-law, “Ellen,” that I barely know how to describe, much less address. Basically, she won’t ever state her needs or wants, even when it’s very clear what she needs or wants.

One example: On a visit last week, my 3-year-old was listening to an audiobook that mimicked animal sounds. On multiple occasions, Ellen mentioned that she was concerned the book was too stimulating for my daughter. Each time, I told her it wasn’t and said my daughter had my permission to listen until dinner. By the second or third time she brought this up, it became clear to me Ellen was the one overwhelmed by the sounds.

If she'd just stated that — “Hey, I'm getting tired of elephant noises!” — then I would have happily told my daughter to pack it up. But when I said, “Ellen, it sounds like you might be getting annoyed by the toy and prefer it be put away?” she immediately insisted, “Oh no! I just think Granddaughter doesn't like it! She thinks it's too overwhelming!” I responded, “For the last time: She plays with this all the time, and she’s not overstimulated,” but then five minutes later we were back to, “She must find that toy so noisy and confusing!”

Many, many interactions are this way, and I don’t know how to react. I want Ellen to just say what she wants, rather than hiding behind the projected emotions of her grandkids, kids or her husband. It feels ridiculous to go along with an obviously untrue story, but it also feels ridiculous to tell my mother-in-law, “Sorry, Ellen! I'm not going to make Janie put away the toy that obviously bothers you unless you admit it bothers you!” Do you have any advice for navigating these conversations?

Out With It, Please!: Accept that you won’t fix her, nor is it your place to; be proud that you now speak nearly fluent Ellen; and make choices based on what you understand to be the truth even as she refuses to tell it.
In other words, put the toy away as soon as you clock that it’s bothering Ellen.

Reader responses:

1. Re: Out With It: OMG, My mother-in-law is Ellen too! You aren’t alone. Maybe it’s a generational thing? Learning to speak fluent Ellen was a big help.

1a. Also Fluent: It is a gender-ational thing, I’d say. Girls, then women, for so long were discouraged from seeming assertive. It was as stupid, limiting, negating and dehumanizing a thing as its counterpart in boys and men — the taboo against showing emotion, lest they appear weak. I'll never understand the insistence on gender conformity (whether or not that is what explains Ellen).

2. Re: Out With It: We were in a restaurant once and I couldn’t even get my mother-in-law to decide what she wanted to order! She just said, “Oh, whatever is easier.” I realized she was incapable of “owning” her decisions. In the end, it was kinder just to say something like, “I’m ordering a hot dog, do you want one, too?” In this case, it would be kinder just to deflect the little girl into another activity so grandma could get some peace. — Deflecting

2a. Deflecting: And make a mental note to give people ample room to be themselves, so we’re not making any more new Ellens.

3. To: Out With It: Why are you letting Janie continue listening to the book when you know it bothers Ellen?

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The advice is just right. Ellen is passive aggressive and annoying, and since LW apparently can't just refuse her entry to the home forever it's probably easiest and best to just go along with her nonsense.

That being said, my first instinct is to say "Please stop saying that my daughter is stupid and I'm a bad parent. I'm sure she's smart enough to stop playing with toys she doesn't enjoy, and I'm smart enough to give her books for her age group" and then just continue to escalate until Ellen shuts up and stays that way.

Does this work? I mean, yeah, eventually, for a given value of the word "work". If you show you're willing to throw the bigger tantrum then sooner or later the passive aggressive jerkface will cave. They have to when the only other option is to be just aggressive aggressive and, whoops, you've already cornered the market.

The costs are pretty high, though, and you'll probably feel bad about it later, so you should definitely all take Carolyn's advice here and never mine. I probably would take Carolyn's advice if I had to preserve a relationship with this person. I wouldn't want to, though.

(All this being said, if LW doesn't like Carolyn's answer and won't do it then they probably should try their half-hearted suggestion of “Sorry, Ellen! I'm not going to make Janie put away the toy that obviously bothers you unless you admit it bothers you!” Who cares if it "feels ridiculous"? Ellen is the one being ridiculous, so screw it.)

Edited 2025-09-04 08:53 (UTC)

I think my issue is with the overriding of the child's actual opinions and enjoyment. So no, I wouldn't let the child continue to play with something that was bothering the grandparent, but I would have a firm word along the lines of:

"No, Janie clearly does like the book, please stop saying she doesn't. It's clear you don't like it, so I'm happy to find something else for her to do, but I won't have you tell her lies about her own experience."

It's along the same lines as letting the child refuse hugs etc. Their opinions matter and are not subject to rewriting for the convenience of the grandparent.

This!!

You are very not wrong.

This!!

Otherwise, I see the child growing up to express “No, Grandma, I’m enjoying the book,” and Grandma keeps overriding her preferences.

I would try to be polite about it (“Janey is enjoying the toy, but it seems like it’s bothering you, so I’ll give her something quieter”), but I wouldn’t let the passive-aggressive behavior about speaking for the child stand unchallenged.

exactly this!

Yeah, I like this take. I have sympathy for Ellen and her messed-up "must not assert needs or wants" programming, but her trauma does not justify overwriting her grandchild's actual experience of the world with a contradictory narrative. That's just letting a trauma response create MORE trauma in the next generation. Which ideally we'd like to avoid!

Argh, the number of arguments in my household where Spouse tells Youngest "You don't want to do this thing you're doing" and Youngest says "Yes I do". Argh. Spouse, stop pretending you know what Youngest wants and just say you don't like it and don't want him to do it!

Saying "I want" or even its softer cousin "I would like" is very scary for a lot of people, and yeah, a lot of older women were very aggressively trained out of it.

I've occasionally heard people go "yeah, we all know about toxic masculinity, but what's toxic femininity?" I'd call this an example.

This is definitely an example of toxic femininity (it surprises me that people have to ask if there's such a thing, but I must remind myself that different things are obvious to different people).

It's interesting to see the comments that are so hard on Ellen.

One of my grandmothers, and my mother in law, were exactly like this. Exactly.

They were not passive aggressive jerkfaces in the least. Direct communication and acknowledgement of their own needs had been literally beaten out of both of them before they were five years old. Quite literally beaten.

The columnist is right that among some women (mostly older women now, thank goodness the pattern is fading, but it is NOT GONE), it was absolutely not allowed to ever, ever, express your own needs or to have a desire of your own. Your only function was to serve others.

This created a lot of maddening and difficult behavior for people like our LW, who are used to and prefer direct communication and who are in the habit of, you know, letting people be individuals and have needs and preferences. But they weren't being manipulative out of a sense of needing to control or scheme. It was just how they were trained to behave.

One example out of many: My mother in law loved opera. I loved opera. No one else in the extended family gave a damn about opera. She used a wheelchair the last 15 years of her life. About once a year I would take her to the opera. But I had to talk her into it. I had to learn to treat the planning like a favor SHE was doing ME. She didn't want to inconvenience me. I didn't have time. She didn't want to be a bother. It was too expensive. She couldn't stay up late. Etc. Etc.

We did manage to go several times but I had to figure out how to make it acceptable for me to do this nice thing for her. It was really really sad. She loved it each time and talked about it for weeks afterward. Sometimes we had to leave at the intermission but that was okay too.

My grandmother was even more deeply into this behavior. I remember one time in my twenties when she came over to see me and was so distressed when I didn't want to pitch in and clean my house; I wanted to sit and have coffee and talk with her. She got really worried and asked me if I was mad at her. She didn't know how to be with people unless she was serving them somehow.

Both of them were charming, intelligent, great with kids, fun at parties, had hobbies and friends. They were both married to tyrants which isn't surprising given their early training. My grandmother worked outside the home her whole adult life. My MIL was a stay at home mom.

IMHO confronting Ellen about this is totally counterproductive and won't change anything except to make Ellen feel bad. Now that the letter writer "speaks Ellen" she can make sure her daughter gets to do the things she likes while also helping Ellen not be miserable.

She can also explain to her daughter pretty soon that Ellen doesn't know how to speak up for herself and that we do things differently now.

Of course this is based on my own experience. I know there are a lot of passive aggressive people out there who are crazymakers on purpose. But in my experience Ellen's behavior is not that. It's a sad vestige.

Heh, I was about to be hard on Ellen because I fight almost daily to not *be* Ellen (as you know Princess-Bob). But/and it's very true that confronting Ellen won't change anything -- it would be literally asking her to speak a language that she was painfully conditioned into forgetting. Fortunately I saw young that people don't like passive-aggressiveness (indeed I sometimes think Americans could embrace harmless lies and gentle indirectness a bit more than we do) and I set out to try to act differently and even decades later this is an ongoing attempt not a finished product. But only Ellen could see that and only she could implement it. LW can't make her.

That said, the projection does have to be dealt with because it's not fair to Janie to be told what she feels and thinks (in fact it's probably part of the conditioning Ellen experienced, that she's now bringing forward). I really like

teaotter's suggestion #4 below.

Ellen's behavior would drive me up the wall a bit, but I think you're absolutely right as to the origins of it. I think there's a way to balance what the kid wants, likes, and what mom knows she can handle, with being kind to Ellen as well.

LW, you can show a little sensitivity.

Your MIL is very likely not doing this to be an annoying assbag. She’s been raised with different training about what it means to be polite and a good person, and it’s extremely likely that she’s doing her best to be a good person within that context.

1) Many cultures and religions have had a misogynistic emphasis on carving wants out of girls and women, and were often not kind about how they did it. The messaging we receive early on can be extraordinarily hard or impossible to break later in life, especially if it continues to be reinforced later by relatives, spouses, etc.

2) Some cultures have a strong emphasis on being polite, diplomatic, not impinging on others, etc. A half-Japanese friend of mine will talk with exasperation (though also understanding) about how if her (full Japamese) mom is thirsty, her mom will ask my friend if she (the friend) wants a drink. If my friend declines, the mom can’t drink either, because it would be rude to drink in front of someone else who wasn’t drinking. So she always has to answer yes even if she’s not thirsty. But it isn’t just her mom; the Japanese men in her family will do similar things because there’s just expected codes of polite conduct, and individual wants don’t have much of a place (if any). Another example would be high-context versus low-context cultures, where it would be seen as rude to be very direct in a high-context culture; spilling everything out in a high-context culture would itself be an aggressive act.

Folks who were raised in high-context cultures and/or women who faced training against being direct are inherently passive-aggressive or shitty. They’ve just been raised with differently. We’ll all have our own personal viewpoints about whether how we or they were raised is good, bad, less advanced, more polite, etc., but in the end, unless we want to be the kind of people who force our opinion on the “right” way to communicate on everyone else regardless of how uncomfortable it makes them, we need to accommodate for different communication styles.

Do I prefer a direct communication style? Yes. But you can damn well bet that if I’m visiting my friend’s mom and she asks if I want water, I’m saying yes even though I’m not at all thirsty. My communication preference isn’t enough to justify making others uncomfortable - and that’s me acting in accordance with my values for politeness, which say that others should be accommodated when possible.

Ugh, that should be “are NOT inherently passive-aggressive”, and “we all have our own personal”, but I can’t edit in this community.

You can't edit your comments here? That's a weird quirk of code.

Sometimes you can't edit a comment if someone replied? Going to see if I can edit this comment. Edited to add: I can, but nobody replied. Let's see if I can edit after I reply to myself.

Edited 2025-09-05 12:43 (UTC)

I'm just replying myself... for science! Edited to add: And now that I did, I can't edit my original comment. That's probably what's going on, and is, in my humble opinion, a good thing: it prevents people from gaslighting others, while allowing an edit if it's done before anyone else responds.

Edited 2025-09-05 12:45 (UTC)

Yeah, I can’t explain why but I never get the option to edit here, even if someone hasn’t replied. But I can edit in other communities I’m in. I assumed it was set that way for everyone to avoid dirty edits, but now I think it’s just a glitch for me.

It sounds like it might just be me, for some weird reason, as at least one other person has told me they can edit here. But yeah, when I post a comment the only option available is Reply for me, unlike every other comm where I also have the Edit option.

*goes to get some water*

Did I say something wrong?

Augh! No not at all! I was just reminded by your comment to hydrate. I apologize for being so elliptical as to cause worry.

LOL, that’s good! I was like, “Shit, did I say something so wrong that MM needed to go get a drink of water to calm down rather than responding?” 😂

Glad you mentioned this. I came from an indirect communication culture and learned direct as a second language. Indirect is not the same as passive-aggressive. (There are ways of being passive-aggressive in both communication styles.)

(There are ways of being passive-aggressive in both communication styles.)

Exactly! Whether someone is acting in a PA way is an issue apart from their communication style, and neither communication style is inherently PA or prevents the risk of PA (or, conversely, inherently aggressive or prevents the risk of aggression). But I’ve seen a lot of folks (from both communication styles) who seem to feel the other style is worse - either automatically aggressive or PA - and it seems like a failure in understanding to me. It’s not the communication style that’s an issue, it’s what that particular person chooses to do that’s the issue.

My main concern is letting MIL project onto the child. I hated when people did that to me, and I still hate it as an adult. On the other hand, LW is also refusing to acknowledge her own needs: MIL is annoying her, and she just lets it go on and says it has to be about MIL's needs.

It seems to me there are four possible options:

1. Really annoy MIL, by continuing to point out that Janie likes it but MIL doesn't seem to, ad nauseum. Has the benefit of being true, but isn't very kind to MIL and annoys LW as well.

2. Tell MIL that Janie clearly loves the toy, and this discussion is over. Unkind and confrontational, but at least LW is getting her needs met and protecting Janie.

3. When MIL tries to put it on Janie, say "No, I think Janie loves it. But now that you mention it, it's a bit too loud for me. Let's see if Janie would be willing to (do something else Janie likes)." It rescinds the permission you gave to Janie to play with that toy until dinner, but it doesn't put the desire on Janie and models the behavior for MIL that you'd like to see -- by showing her that someone can speak up for their own needs. Maybe she'll do it if she sees it.

4. Say, "It's clear that this bothers you," followed by "oh, no trouble, I'm happy to do this for you" no matter what MIL says in return, and then ask Janie to do something else. This one requires a thick skin and a willingness to keep "misunderstanding" every time MIL says it's not about her and showering MIL with love and accommodation instead of a direct argument -- how much you want her to be comfortable in your house, that it's important that your home feels welcoming to her, etc. It's going to feel confrontational because you're pushing the onus back onto her and she's going to be distressed by that. But it's honest about what's going on.

My own MIL is like this, and it drives me crazy. I usually take 3, because I can usually translate the interaction in my head to be more like "this is bothering me, but I can't say so" followed by "oh, I'm so sorry, let's fix that." But some days she's pushy enough to make me confrontational, so I move to 4. "Of course I'll give you what you want, because I love you and want you to be happy" seems to lock up her brain, so she backs off.

I like your idea of No.3 - so long as LW doesn't mind the risk of being labelled "pushy and selfish" by MIL.

I think you’ve got a good sense of it! The redirection of responsibility onto the child will likely frustrate them, given enough incidents or time. Some people need to be manhandled into accepting care, some need to be danced around… If I like someone, I’d prefer to do 4, and I’d do 1 or 2 if I didn’t quite like them enough, but I also don’t encounter many deflectors, as opposed to people who simply say “I don’t want/feel anything” and leave it at that.

A couple of layers here:

I'm with those who are wary of MIL overriding the child's preferences - although I'm not entirely sure that's happening in this context.

I'm definitely with those who think MIL has been conditioned to avoid stating her own wants outright, and only knows how to do it by laying it on other people. Which means dealing with both what is annoying MIL and also with MIL's hangups around wanting something but not being able to ask for it directly. Others have said very good things, so I'll let their ideas stand.

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