Find the middle with your parents

Dear Carolyn: I’m in my mid-20s and I have moved back to my parents’ house for a few months before graduate school. My parents have been married 30 years. They have numerous stressors, but the way the two of them communicate has been going on since well before I was old enough to notice.

My mother doesn’t know how to be proactive about her “me time,” and she resents my father when he takes his. My father doesn’t listen, and Mom learned long ago that the only way to get anything she wants is to nag, which she does with the gusto of 30 years of experience.

Both of them complain to me about each other but don’t listen to my response, which always includes “seek marital counseling.”

Their problems are their own, but how do I address their putting me in the middle of all this? – Not my parents’ therapist

Setting limits is hard enough without a dad who sets them to the point of imposing himself on others, and a mom who fears setting them to the point where she’s backed into a corner with no recourse but shouts, nags and resentment.

But there is a calm, centered place between these extremes, and your parents are actually showing you where it is – by their complete failure to occupy it. It’s where you accept situations as they are and adapt to them, instead of insisting that someone else change.

You regard being in the middle as your parents’ fault, so here’s where you can shatter family tradition: Be right and be willing to change, instead of just waiting for them.

Specifically, stop treating them as people who want more and are open to reason. Instead, treat them as people who are choosing dysfunction by refusing to choose something else, and reflect that truth back to them. When they complain, repeat as needed, gently: “If you don’t like it, then do something about it. Complaining doesn’t count.” Then, excuse yourself from those conversations.