There's no denying that it's hard to be the middleman when two people you care about are in a fight. It can feel darn near impossible to remain neutral and not take sides. But perhaps that's exactly what one man should've done and just kept quiet instead of telling his wife that he doesn’t see anything wrong with the way his mother treats her. “I don't see the issue and now my wife is mad because she said I am gaslighting her and devaluing her concerns,” he explained.
He can’t explain why, but in the five years that they’ve been married, one husband has seen “a little tension” build between his wife and his mother.
That is until his wife put her foot down and told him enough was enough.
“My wife and I recently had a fight, because she wants me to stand up to my mom, but she could not give any specifics of what my mom is doing wrong,” the original poster wrote in a post on the Am I the A–hole subreddit.
First, there was the fact that his mom refuses to eat at their house.
Which is true, he admitted.
“But I'm not going to dictate what she does with her body,” he added. “If she doesn't want to eat, she doesn't have to eat.”
Then there was the fact that his mom refused to stay with them when she was having work done at her house.
“My mom said ‘I really can't’ and they got a hotel,” he wrote. “Again she is a grown woman, if she is uncomfortable she is uncomfortable.”
And if that wasn’t bad enough, his mom never invites his wife to ladies-only family functions.
The OP reasoned that his wife wasn’t close to any of the women in his family “so I'm not sure if that is just my mom's decision,” he explained.
And she's passive-aggressive too. She told the OP’s wife that they “don’t seem happy.”
“I have heard her a couple of times mention that we never touch each other, and I told her to let it go, and she did. I think that came from a place of genuine concern,” he wrote.
But he did see his wife's point about one thing.
His mom was way too overbearing when it comes to their kid. But it “hasn't been an issue in a couple of years,” he claimed.
“I did stand up for my wife and my mom's response was to take a step back and say she couldn't help us out with childcare anymore, so maybe petty, but like all of these instances she has the right to say no,” he recalled.
His wife was over it.
She told the OP to “yell” at his mother for all of the little slights and digs she made her at expense, but he thought these complaints were in the past “or are really her right.”
“Yes, I get the impression that my mom finds our food/house gross, but I'm not going to tell her what to do with her own body,” he wrote. But when he told his wife that he didn’t see the big deal, she was unsurprisingly upset.
The comment section thought the OP needed to rethink his position on this whole thing.
“You seem to have a reason for shutting down each and every one of her concerns,” one person commented. “Maybe, just for the sake of the exercise, try to think about how you'd react if you thought each of her concerns were valid. The problem is not who is right or wrong — it's that you're showing very little empathy and it will eventually shatter the trust between the two of you.”
“OP listed like eight valid concerns from his wife that he had seen and says he doesn’t see the problem,” someone else added.
“You're a momma's boy you need to grow up and take off your tinted glasses,” a third commenter chimed in. “Your mom is probably treating your wife badly and you push everything aside.”
Other people thought his wife was being sort of ridiculous.
“You can't just be expected to call your mother out of the blue and yell at her,” a commenter told him. “Your wife should be telling her what bothers her as the things happen, not years later. Your wife has the right to be bothered by your mother not liking her. But there's not much she or you can do about it. You can maybe try asking your mother if she likes her and if not then why that is. Not yell at her, just an adult conversation.”
“[Not the A–hole] at all,” someone else agreed. “If she is cold to your wife, your wife wants you to yell at her? What? That seems like a terrible idea. It totally seems like if you complain your mom would rather just not be involved. Yelling at her won’t solve anything. That’s a terrible way to communicate.”
“I honestly can't tell what ur mother's doing wrong either,” a third commenter wrote. “[Not the A–hole], and from what it sounds like, your wife did try to ruin your relationship with your mother.”
OP, you need to tell your wife that you believe her when she tells you she’s upset and that you want to find some way to support her. Otherwise, this problem will only go from bad to worse.
