Barbara Toner feature Barbara Toner feature

   Living with in-laws

   In-laws are sometimes loving, sometimes strange, sometimes the enemy.
   Usually they are capable of being all three.

   The catch with in-laws is the exquisite tension created by the belief
   that you each have first claim on the person common to you. You have to
   be grown-up about this. Should you be a parent-in-law, you must step
   back and acknowledge that your child has created a domestic unit of
   their own and that you have no automatic rights once invited inside it.
   If you’re a child-in-law, you need to know that your partner’s parents
   don’t actually wish you ill; they just want the best for their
   offspring and it’s hard for them to accept that you are it.
--
   matter how disguised the request.

   Under no circumstances should you gang up against an in-law.

   The person common to both should allow the parties on either side to
--
       hanging at a pal's Santa Monica home Bradley looked in good
       spirits
     * Zayn Malik's brother-in-law, 18, cradles the singer's newborn niece
       in sweet snap... just hours after the 1D star's sister Safaa, 17,
       gave birth