Agony Aunt

Dear Carolyn: I heard my new sister-in-law, “Ann,” call my husband a jacka--, and I don’t know whether to talk to her about it. I heard Ann and her best friend whispering about something at a recent party, and I admit it: I eavesdropped. I heard her friend say, “Is the short one the jacka-- brother-in-law?” And Ann said, “No, it’s the tall one,” meaning my husband.

My husband likes Ann, but he also likes to tease and joke around about some of Ann’s quirks. She is nice and a good hostess, but she’s also kind of pretentious. Like she’ll use cloth napkins and china plates for a cookout, put flowers in a salad and call pouring custard “crème Anglaise.” So my husband teases her, saying she spilled flowers in the food or calling her Martha Stewart — mild stuff like that, all very good-natured. I know he’d be surprised and hurt if he knew what she thought of him.

I think this could blow over if I explained to her that it’s all in good fun and that he really does like her, but I’m not sure how to bring it up.

— Anonymous

Anonymous: The fastest blow-over opportunity is for your husband to stop being a jacka--.

You think it’s “mild stuff” and “all very good-natured,” but what you describe is an established member of a family constantly hammering on about how different a new member is from everyone else.

Have you ever been in that environment yourself? It’s never as pleasant or harmless as the person creating it thinks, especially over time.

You assume she’ll be okay with it — and therefore you and your husband can avoid making any effort yourselves — as soon as she knows it’s “all in good fun.” Maybe you’re even right about that. But you haven’t accounted for other reasons his remarks might annoy her. She could fully understand he likes her and means well, for example, and still find his shtick unfunny, annoying or stale. Even a crackin’-good Martha Stewart joke is a bad one the second or 17th time.

So the decent move is to flip your intervention impulse 180 degrees: Support Ann, and coach up your spouse. First, pick a quiet moment and suggest to him that the Ann jokes are wearing thin. Remind him you both like her, yes? And she knocks herself out to make things nice for her new extended family? So maybe just an even-more-good-natured “thank you” will do.

Then: When your husband still says, “Oops, there are flowers in the salad,” har-dee-har, say to Ann: “Ignore him. That looks amazing. Where’d you get the recipe?”

When she breaks out the china and cloth napkins, compliment her table. What’s china for at this point, anyway: adding a formal touch to the attic it sits in? And cloth napkins are: (a) Environmentally sound. (b) Much nicer and more practical than paper. (c) Homespun as all get-out. Choose whichever you’re least likely to pick on.

When she refers to crème anglaise, consider that she, like me, never heard the term “pouring custard” until you used it. Because this big country has a lot of regional pockets that we’re all born into by no choice of our own. To her, I’m guessing, you’re all a bunch of “quirks.”