When the dinner table becomes a battlefield, you don’t have to enlist.

Arguments recruit. When people around you are fighting, there is a strong pull to pick a side, to defend someone or to answer the thing that was aimed at you, and stepping into it rarely improves the situation. Not participating is not the same as not caring. It is a decision about where your energy goes in a conflict that was not yours to start.

Decide before the meal what you will and will not respond to, and keep your answers short. Leave the room if it escalates, which is allowed. Talk to someone outside the house about it.