None of us saw the cracks that were present in their marriage. To all of us, our brother in law seemed to be a gift from God—not just for my sister, but also for the whole family. To my mum, he was the older son to my younger brother that would teach him all the things that us sisters couldn’t. For us girls, he was the model of what it looked like to love your wife and her family. On the surface it seemed that he was our model of what the perfect man looked like.
As a young girl, growing up I read in countless magazines how it is important to have a list of all the qualities and attributes (physical or otherwise) that you wish for your future partner to have. The younger version of me saw herself marrying the modern day version of Prince Charming. In some of these daydreams, I too would be like Snow White feeding deer and seven dwarfs until Prince Charming got home after a hard day at work and of course he had with him a dozen (non-poisonous) red apples.
