Advice: I hate how my sister’s husband treats her - can I intervene?

"It’s hard to watch someone you love being treated in a way that you find unacceptable." Illustration / Marta Monteiro, The New York Times

Q: I’m struggling with what I’m seeing in my sister’s marriage. Whenever we spend extended time together, it’s very clear to me that she carries the majority of the emotional and physical load with her two young kids. She’s the one waking up early with them, managing meltdowns, doing the cooking and keeping things afloat. Her husband, meanwhile, sleeps in late, stays on his computer or phone for long stretches (claiming he’s “working”) and rarely helps without being prompted.

What’s more concerning is that when he does interact, he often seems impatient with the kids – and sometimes even escalates their tantrums by teasing or provoking them when they’re already on edge. My sister, on the other hand, sometimes overcompensates by coddling the kids. The dynamic between them feels completely out of balance.

She recently told me that her husband was diagnosed with ADHD [attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder], and she’s been reading about how to better support him. But he often dismisses her efforts with jokes – like saying, “Nothing will help unless you and the kids move out,” or brushing off her concerns with, “That’s your problem, not mine.” He plays this off as humour, but it doesn’t feel harmless.

Whenever others, including our mom, have tried to talk to her about this, she becomes defensive. I want to support her, but I feel stuck between not overstepping and not staying silent while she burns herself out.

How do I support my sister when I see this imbalance so clearly, but she might not be ready to see or name it herself?

From the therapist: It’s hard to watch someone you love being treated in a way that you find unacceptable. You care about your sister’s wellbeing, and you’re struggling to understand why she tolerates what looks to you like an imbalance of responsibility, respect and emotional labour. Your instinct is to help her see what you see, then do something about it.

But there are two things to consider. First, she might not be unhappy, or as unhappy as you are, with how her marriage works. Second, even if she is, you can’t convince her to do anything about it when she’s feeling defensive.

It’s clear that your concern is grounded in care, not judgment, but when she responds with defensiveness, it might be because your concern – however lovingly offered – brushes up against something she isn’t ready to face.

Often defensiveness is a cover for shame, or a result of feeling exposed in a situation we haven’t yet confronted. Your sister might see some or all of what you see, but acknowledging it out loud can feel overwhelming – especially if she’s already tried to bring it up with her husband and has been met with dismissal or resistance.

She and her husband seem to be stuck in a common relational pattern where one partner over-functions (your sister) while the other under-functions (her husband). This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing loop: the more she does, the less he feels required to; the less he does, the more she scrambles to pick up the slack. The question for them is: what’s behind this pattern?

ADHD might play a role here – particularly if her husband, who was until recently undiagnosed and untreated, had experiences growing up that left him feeling insecure, incompetent or misunderstood. His ill-conceived teasing when the kids need support might be a reflection of what he went through as a child when he was distressed. And when he jokes, “Nothing will help unless you and the kids move out,” he could be expressing his own sense of inadequacy or overwhelm – and the shame underlying it. It’s not that he’s incapable of showing up differently; it’s that he might not believe he can. And your sister might be compensating not only for his inaction, but also for his sense of hopelessness that he masks with deflection.

The best way for them to change this pattern is by understanding what’s driving it – with openness and curiosity rather than blame – under the guidance of a couples therapist. But that’s for them to decide to do.

Meanwhile, here’s what you can do:

You can shift from intervention mode to attuned mode. Instead of “He’s not helping,” try, “It seems like you’re carrying a lot lately – how are you holding up?” Rather than “He shouldn’t treat the kids like that,” try: “It looked really stressful when the kids were melting down. That must be hard to navigate.”

In other words, give her the space to feel her own exhaustion or resentment, if she does. Sometimes change begins with being able to say, “I’m overwhelmed and can’t do this anymore,” rather than with someone else saying, “You’re being mistreated.”

I often explain in therapy that for change to occur, we outsiders – therapists, family members, friends – can’t want something more than the person living it does. As a therapist, I can’t help people relieve their pain if they aren’t motivated themselves to do that. Until that time, what we can offer is an active presence.

With your sister, you don’t have to choose between silence and intrusion. There’s a middle path of compassionate witnessing, which means thinking of yourself not as the truth-teller with a mission, but as a mirror your sister can safely look into. Focus on supporting her versus saving her, and remember that while you can’t rescue her (if she indeed wants rescuing), you can walk alongside her until she’s ready to rescue herself.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Lori Gottlieb

Photographs by: Marta Monteiro

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