For as long as I’ve known my in-laws, my father-in-law’s sharp remarks were masked as humor. Family dinners often followed the same pattern: he would make a cutting comment about my mother-in-law, everyone would laugh awkwardly, and she would smile tightly and say, “Oh, that’s just how he is.”
It never felt harmless. Words shape a home, and even when she brushed them off, the sting lingered for her, for the children, and for all of us silently enduring it.
