I don’t really know where to begin with this. I’ve been married for 10 years, we have two young children. The other day my mom (Grandma) took turns exploding on me and my wife, saying that my wife’s behavior is atrocious (without actually articulating what is wrong). She told me to my face that my wife is “crazy” and started asking me if she ever sought therapy. She is seeking therapy, mostly for work stress, but I wasn’t willing to share that information as my wife shares that information with nobody except me. Then later, while I’m tending the toddlers, my mom corners my wife and starts yelling at her and interrogating HER about whether she is in therapy, which she reluctantly admits to. Then she starts asking what she talks to the therapist about. I still don’t entirely understand what the fuck any of this was about and she can’t actually explain what the problem is. This was out of the blue.
A lot of this I think stems from how we try to manage the behaviors of our children, who (at age 2 and 4) can be unruly, which is to be expected. My wife is a teacher of young children and tries to use some classroom tactics to curb bad behavior. But to be fair they don’t really have the cognitive skill for it yet, so this kind of discipline rarely to conveys anything to them. My mom wants “Grandma’s House” to be a rules free zone. My wife doesn’t believe in that because she doesn’t want bad behavior in one place to translate to bad behavior in another place. I can understand both points of view.
But I can’t get over this whole questioning of my wife’s mental health and her behavior. “She is crazy and I know YOU think that too!” I feel so deeply disrespected. My mom has done this a lot where she tries to get me to agree with her, or she will try to insinuate something is wrong in my marriage and then try to get me to divulge what this fictitious scandal might be. My wife is highly educated and intelligent, gets up at 5AM every morning to work a thankless job to provide for her kids. She doesn’t abuse drugs or drink. If this is “crazy” then I wish I had it.
My father, the grandpa, has been essentially mute, as he always is when my mom gets agitated with me. All he said to me after the fact is “Everything is going to be fine.” Sure, OK.
My kids love their grandma, obviously. And I love my mom. We’ve had a good thing going here for 10 years and I am trying to keep the peace. What do I do? I don’t know how to confront my mother on this behavior without it escalating to something catastrophic, which is probably why my dad never intervenes.
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Does your wife think this is “out of the blue”?
What do you do?
What you do is to unconditionally, unequivocally support your wife, that is what you do.
The peace has been ruptured by JNMOM, and it is on her to make the peace come back. Not by you giving JNMOM any apeasement.
jnmom: (abusively explodes to wife) Blah blah !!
You: Mother, you will not speak to my wife in that tone of voice.
jnmom: Blah blah blah !!
You: No, that is not the way you speak to my wife. Now you must lower your voice and apologize, or else we are packing up the kids and leaving.
jnmom: You cant leave, Blah blah blah !!!
You: Nope, I am not going to have my kds and my wife receiving any of this, not for you, not from anyone. We are leaving now. goodbye.
When your mother was screaming at your wife and interrogating her, what did you do? You can either keep the peace or protect your family—you cannot do both.
I strongly recommend couples counseling, not family counseling. If your mother joins any joint therapy with your wife, she may use it as a platform to continue her abusive behavior. From what you’ve described, it seems she’s already quite skilled at that.
You have your wife’s back 100%. That’s the only way to handle this. Let your wife decide what needs to be done here if you aren’t capable of seeing it for yourself.