Hi, Carolyn: My husband’s 49-year-old brother has advanced cirrhosis. The prognosis sounds pretty grim. My mother-in-law, who is taking care of him, is adamant that my husband not go help. She’s taking all the burden on herself, and doesn’t even want her own husband to know how much she is doing for her son.

This is a normal dynamic for this family – nobody ever speaks the truth about what they need and want. Do we overrule her and tell her my husband is coming up to help, which ultimately I think she would appreciate, or do we respect her repeatedly stated wishes?

For what it’s worth, I think he should just go; my husband is not certain. This martyr-syndrome, “Oh no, we don’t want to be a burden” thing drives me nuts. – Anonymous

How sad. It sounds as if these unspoken truths are claiming their victims.

And I can see why your husband has doubts. When you trust them, or lack sufficient knowledge to trust or not, then it’s important to take people at their word. It’s a combination of showing respect for others’ stated wishes and going with what you know.

But when “what you know” is that you can’t take certain people at their word, because their word is subject to any number of ulterior motives and years of lousy emotional patterns, then you’re in a bind.

If he feels he belongs at his brother’s side, then that’s where he needs to go, and he can place credit for his decision where it belongs. “Mom, I know you told me not to come help, but I’m not doing this for you – I’m doing it for myself.”

Not only would that be the truth, but it has the bonus of being a gift-wrapped delivery to his family’s sense of martyrdom. Manipulative, yes, but in a spoonful-of-sugar kind of way.