Parents want husband to step up

Dear Amy: My daughter married her boyfriend right out of high school at a courthouse wedding.

She and her husband now have a great 11-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son.

We have been very supportive over the years, giving them the down payment for a house, and assisting in purchasing four cars.

Our daughter has been very grateful. Her husband has never said thank you to us.

Every year, we host them for a long weekend at a cabin we rent. We buy the food, cook and do all the clean-up. He has never asked if he could pitch in.

He comes from a very dysfunctional family, and does not speak to his mother. His stepfather died suddenly this spring, and he feels quite guilty. At his stepfather’s memorial service, he did not get up to talk, but our daughter did it for him.

They are coming up to the cabin again, and I am wondering how to handle the visit.

I do not talk to my daughter about this.

I am feeling anger and frustration with his lack of consideration. My husband can barely look at him.

What is your advice? Put Upon

Dear Put Upon: If you never express your own needs or expectations, you cannot expect them to be met.

You have trained this couple to be passive, because of your own unwillingness to demonstrate leadership.

Given his background and your history of tiptoeing and enabling the two of them, he will never offer to help — with anything. And in letting him behave this way, you are actually part of the problem.

You could nudge him toward being a more productive family member by simply asking him, and then providing positive reinforcement when he complies.