For months now, the feud between Derick Dillard and Jim Bob Duggar has been creating profound tension within the Duggar family.
And of course, no one has been affected more deeply than Derick’s wife and Jim Bob’s daughter, Jill Duggar.
There’s no doubt that Jill has sided with her husband in his spat against her father.
But the reports that Jill is mounting a full-blown rebellion against Jim Bob are likely exaggerated.
By all accounts, the Dillards and the Duggars have little to no contact with one another these days.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any bad blood between Jill and Jim Bob.
In fact, it seems she’s merely keeping her distance out of respect for her husband.
And given Jim Bob’s views on the dominant role of husbands within the household, he’s probably okay with that.
There have been a few recent indications that Jill is at least on civil terms with Jim Bob.
The first came on on Father’s Day, when she paid tribute to Jim Bob with an Instagram post.
(Of course, some folks think she also used the occasion to throw subtle shade at Jim Bob with a pointed meme, but that’s a conversation for another time.)
Another came this week, when Jill indulged in a bit of nolsagic reminiscing during a drive around the neighborhood.
Jill posted an Instagram story while sitting in the car with her kids and husband.
“Derick and I are just reminiscing here with the kiddos, and there’s our house — old house,” she said in the clip.
The caption Jill posted provided a bit more backstory:
“Checking out the old house we lived in for a little while when we first got married,” she wrote.
“It was massive … it was one of my dad’s house flips and we lived there until it sold.”
Yes, it seems that in the early days of their marriage, Jill and Derick lived rent-free in a house provided by Jim Bob.
Now, it wasn’t the couple’s very first home together — when they first got married they moved to El Salvador to work as missionaries.
But it sounds as though it was their first home in the States.
It also sounds as though Jim Bob gave them the boot as soon as he sold the place, but hey — a free house is a free house, even if it’s only temporary.
Jim Bob is something of a self-made real estate baron in northwestern Arkansas.
In fact, in the past, the growing Duggar real estate empire has brought him into conflict with his neighbors, who fear that he’s attempting to build a monopoly in Tontitown and neighboring Springdale.
But for his kids, Jim Bob’s real estate ventures have been an unequivocally good thing.
Several have lived in properties he’s owned, and 20-year-old Jed Duggar currently lives in one of Jim Bob’s mansions, even though it’s usually against the rules for Duggars to move out before they’re married.
(Jed is seeking a seat in the Arkansas State House of Representatives, and the house is located in the district where he’s running.)
But Jim Bob’s gifts don’t come without strings attached.
Derick claims that the patriarch gives his kids free stuff so that they don’t complain about the fact that he keeps all the money the family earns from their TLC reality show.
But hey, it sounds like Derick was okay with that system when his new father-in-law gave him a house as a wedding present!
