CAROLYN HAX

Dear Carolyn: I’ve known for a while that my parents are not my fiancee’s favorite people, and didn’t totally understand why until my fiancee recently revealed she’s still simmering over a comment my dad made over a year ago that my mom eagerly “me-too”ed.

It was a dumb and petty comment about someone else’s appearance that my fiancee took as a subtle reference to her.

My parents don’t have that subtlety. If they wanted to critique my fiancee, then they would, and they haven’t.

My fiancee is now saying, “Hey, that’s just the way your folks are, it’s obvious what they must think of me, and that’s fine. I’ll just interact with them less.”

My parents are none the wiser about her simmering anger. But it’s manifesting itself as her wanting to have them less involved in our lives, which is not what I want.

Anything I can do to nudge this toward a happier future, or do I butt out and let things run a natural course? — Anonymous

Here’s the “natural course” of someone who takes an innocent if dumb remark about someone else, escalates it into an imagined personal slight, uses the manufactured offense to stoke a long-running secret fury, and then cites that fury in a barely veiled threat to stand between the source of the remark and his grown child: to poison countless other relationships with her petty and poorly managed anger.

She thinks it’s OK to stand between you and your parents because she is upset — without giving them or you any chance to explain yourselves or make amends. Your fiancee is showing signs of profound immaturity, insecurity and poor self-esteem, which are the unholy trinity behind so many abusive and controlling relationships.