Carolyn Hax: The bullying in-laws and the spouse who didn’t stand in their way

What made sense when you struck this deal with your husband made sense to someone who was fighting for life. You needed your husband’s support for creating a mother-in-law-free zone, and he rightly gave it to you. We can all appraise this situation now and say, “Wow, I can’t believe he still hung out with his family and you were okay with it” — but that’s because none of us is living the reality you were living in then. You did triage and secured the equivalent of emergency measures; he joined you in this effort not just as your husband, but also as the child raised by a bully in an environment created by a bully.