Family dynamics are easy to control when it’s your family that you’re dealing with. When it comes to your in-laws, it’s a whole different ball game. You never truly feel comfortable calling them out on their wrongdoings and hope they’ll realize the error of their ways before they require your very hesitant, probably way too kind intervention. Sometimes, though, you have to do what you have to do—especially if your children are getting the short end of the stick from your spouse’s relatives. Nobody messes with your children (but you), and in-laws need to know their place in your immediate family. You owe them nothing once they cross a delicate boundary.

The mother in this next story threatens to disinvite her brother-in-law when he continuously makes fun of her daughter for liking Taylor Swift. He purposely frustrates her, and does so to the point that the mother’s 16-year-old son steps in and defends her. At least one male in the family knows how to act right. Of course, her brother-in-law refuses to apologize and goes nuclear. If only the mother’s husband was there… BIL would be acting his age.