The family custom called natural may have begun with one forceful person’s preference.

Family customs get described as the way things are done, which hides the fact that somebody once decided them. The timing of the meal, who sits where, which topics are off limits, what happens at Christmas: often one strong-minded person set it forty years ago and everyone since has treated it as weather. Calling something natural is what stops it being discussed. It is a rule wearing the clothes of a fact.

Ask where one family custom came from, gently and out of curiosity. Learning that a person chose it, rather than that it simply is, changes what can be negotiated without anybody being disloyal.