How to write a eulogy for your father-in-law
You met him as an adult, under some degree of assessment, because you were in love with his child. That is an unusual way to meet somebody — and it is the most honest place to write from.
Last updated 29 August 2026
Write from where you stand, not where you wish you stood
The room knows exactly when you arrived. A eulogy that speaks as though he had always been your father too will feel slightly wrong to everybody, however warmly it is meant.
The honest position is stronger and it belongs to you alone: you turned up as a stranger, and he decided to let you in. Or took a while, and then did. Either version is a real story with a beginning, and it is one his own children cannot tell.
The most reliable material is the moment it changed — the first time he asked your opinion, the job he helped you with, the day he stopped introducing you as “Katie’s partner” and started using your name.
Three things worth knowing
You are probably speaking because your spouse cannot. Acknowledge them once, early, then speak as yourself. You cannot deliver their eulogy as well as your own.
His children are the primary mourners. Your grief is real and it sits second in that room. That means not centring it — not hiding it.
You may have seen a version they did not. Men are frequently different with an in-law than with their own children — less on duty, sometimes more forthcoming. If he told you something he never told them, and it is a good thing, that is a genuine gift to hand over.
Two complete examples
For Brian Tunnicliffe, given by his son-in-law
About 420 words · about three minutes
I want to talk about how my father-in-law was when he was ill, because it was the most impressive thing I have ever watched anybody do.
Brian was ill for two years and four months. He knew from fairly early on how it was likely to go, and he made a decision about it that he never announced and never wavered from, which was that he was not going to make it everybody else’s weather.
He asked about you. Every time. You would come in prepared to be gentle with him and he would ask how the extension was going, and whether the neighbours had settled down, and about a job interview you had mentioned three weeks earlier and assumed he had forgotten.
He remembered everything. He was on a considerable amount of medication and he remembered the name of my new manager.
I do not want to make him into a stoic, because he was not being brave in a silent way. He was quite happy to tell you it was miserable. He described one particular treatment as “a fortnight I would not recommend.” What he would not do was let it become the only subject in the room.
I met Brian in 2009 and I was, initially, absolutely terrified of him. He was a quiet man who asked short questions and then waited, which I now know is a technique and which I did not know then.
The turn was in 2013 when my father died. Brian did not say much. He drove me to the crematorium and back, three hundred miles, and asked me about the extension for a lot of it, and I understood exactly what he was doing and it was the kindest thing anyone did that year.
Sarah — I know today is not mine. He was your dad and I got the easy version of him.
Brian — the extension is finished. It took eleven months longer than I told you it would and you knew it would.
For Ismail Choudhury, given by his daughter-in-law
About 360 words · under three minutes
My father-in-law was saving for something for as long as I knew him, and none of us ever found out what.
There was a tin. Everyone knew about the tin. Money went into it and money did not come out of it, and if you asked him what it was for he would say, “For later,” and change the subject with enormous politeness.
We assumed a car. Then we assumed a trip home. At one point my husband was convinced it was a boat, on no evidence whatsoever.
Here is what we found out on Monday, from his brother, and what I think none of his children knew.
The tin was for whoever needed it. It had paid for my sister-in-law’s first month of rent in 2011. It had covered a funeral in 2016 for a family two streets away who could not manage it. It bought a laptop for a boy at the mosque during lockdown whose name Abbu never told anybody, including, apparently, the boy.
He did not save for something. He saved so that he would be ready when somebody needed something.
He was not an easy man to give things to, and I want that on the record. He was hopeless at being helped. He refused a lift for eighteen years.
When I married Adnan in 2014 I was fairly sure his father did not approve of me. I found out afterwards that some of the tin was in our deposit.
He never mentioned it. Not once, in eleven years.
Abbu — we have got the tin. We are keeping it going.
Before you finish
- Show it to your spouse first. They may want something in or out and they have the greater claim.
- Ask them for one memory of their own and credit it.
- Keep to your part of the running order — see how long should a eulogy be. There is a parallel guide at how to write a eulogy for your mother-in-law.
If you need more than this
Our collection of eulogy examples has six complete eulogies in different voices and lengths. Our page on a eulogy for a son is for a parent, and begins by saying you are not required to do this. Writing a eulogy for your daughter is for a parent, and begins by saying you are not required to do this. How to write a eulogy walks through the whole thing in six steps, from a blank page to something you can say out loud.