Play happy families phrase
If someone play happy families, they pretend to other people that their family is happy by spending time with their family or partner, doing normal things.
Only when they werer divorced did I know that they had played happy families.
From my experience, I can tell that Mary and John are just playing happy families.
The verb "play" must be conjugated according to its tense.
The origin of this phrase is not clear.
If you swallow the bait, you take something that someone offers you, or agree to do something that someone asks you to do without knowing that it is a trick or way of getting something from you.
You can't just do whatever he wants you to do. Don't swallow the bait.