My wife hates surprise visitors, but I am always the one who has to tell her friends they cannot come over

My wife does not like people arriving at our house without notice. I am mostly neutral about it. If a friend is nearby and wants to stop in, I can move laundry off a chair and make coffee.

The rule exists because she needs warning. Somehow, enforcing it has become my job.

Her friends often text her with messages like, ‘We’re ten minutes away—home?’ She shows me the phone and says, ‘Can you handle this?’ Handling it means replying from my phone or asking her to tell them we already have plans. If they are at the door, I answer while she goes upstairs.

Last weekend, her friend Maya called from a farmers market nearby and asked to drop off something she had bought for us. My wife whispered, ‘Please say no.’

I told Maya we were having a quiet morning and asked whether we could meet later. She sounded hurt but agreed. That evening, she messaged my wife directly: ‘I hope I didn’t upset him. He never seems happy when I visit.’

My wife showed me the message and laughed awkwardly. I did not.

I said her friends think I am the one who does not want them here because she keeps placing me between the boundary and the person. She said they are less likely to take it personally from me because I am naturally more direct. I said they are taking it personally; they are simply taking it personally about me.

She apologized and promised to handle the next invitation. Two days later, another friend texted that she had left work early and could stop by. My wife typed three different replies, deleted them and finally asked, ‘Can we just let her come for twenty minutes?’

She spent the entire visit tense. After the friend left, my wife said this proved why surprise visits are exhausting. I said it proved she would rather endure the visit than risk disappointing someone herself.

That sounded harsher than I intended, but I think it is true.

I have benefited from her softness in other parts of our life. She remembers birthdays, notices when people feel excluded and repairs social awkwardness I would miss. I do not want to demand that she become blunt because bluntness is easier for me.

I do want the people she loves to know that this is a shared household rule, not a husband guarding the door.

She suggested sending a group message about visits. That could work, but she wants it to come from both of us so nobody feels singled out. I worry that ‘we’ will again allow the boundary to sound mostly like mine.

How do couples enforce a boundary that one person needs more than the other without turning the more direct partner into the permanent bad cop? Should she own the message completely, or is a shared announcement fair if she also handles the next real-time no?