Dear Mrs. Bluth,
I am caught between a rock and a hard place and, no matter what I do, I am always hurting someone I love. The situation has become so difficult to deal with that I leave for work earlier then I need to and come home late in the evening to avoid confrontations. I am pitted between my wife and my mother, often forced to choose sides between the two women I love most and it has affected my entire family life. I was hoping you could find a solution whereby some modicum of peace and tranquility can be returned to my household.
There was never any love lost between my wife and my parents, my mother in particular, since we got married eighteen years ago. It was a cool relationship at best, and at times, so bad that we would cut short our visits and I would calm them both down.
For the better part of ten years this was the way it worked, until my father, a”h, got sick and my mother needed my help and emotional support. Sadly, her needs and those of my father, took me away from my wife and family for greater periods of time, and I often needed to spend Shabbos in the hospital with my father towards the end of his life.
After my father was nifter, my mother couldn’t stay in the apartment by herself, as she too was ailing. Once the shiva was over, my three brothers who came in from Israel to sit with us, asked about having mom move in with us. Here I was, hoping against hope that one of them would offer to do this, knowing full well the opposition and arguments I would get from my wife at even the mention of this possibility. Each one claimed that there was no room in his cramped home for his own children, let alone for our mother and her belongings. Even though this would be an issue in my case as well, as we lived in a small house with six children, I knew that logically it made sense to keep her here, in the neighborhood she was familiar with and near friends and us.
After the Shloshim, as I was helping my mother go through the masses of paperwork and clothing to give away, she broached the subject of moving in with us. I tried to discourage her by saying how small our house was and that it would mean putting two of my children in a room in the basement. She then offered to give us a sizable sum of money towards the purchase of a larger house if I would agree to have her come live with us. I loved the idea of her being close to us and our children, who love her. What I didn’t envision was depth of dislike between she and my wife and the persistent arguments that would often force me to take sides.
When I first discussed the idea with my wife, she wasn’t thrilled but seemed intrigued by thought of a larger house and the offer of my mother’s monetary assistance toward that end swayed her to agree to having her stay with us. So, we soon found a larger house that needed some TLC, but offered enough bedrooms so that my mother could have her privacy. We moved in six months later and all was good for about three weeks. Then the wars began – my wife was upset that mom took excessive liberties in the kitchen, or crossed her on how to handle the children. Although I tried to smooth over some of the complaints, they escalated and my wife accused me of siding with my mother and undermining her importance. I tried talking to my mother, who broke down in tears saying she felt unwanted and that my wife was being cruel and ungrateful and it she had made a big mistake in coming to live with us.
My children are affected by witnessing the discord between their mother and grandmother and the beauty of Kibud Av Va’Aim by example has turned into anything but. I’m so saddened by all this infighting and always being the villain for siding with one or the other, I can no longer stand it. Just last week my wife gave me an ultimatum, either I find somewhere else to put my mother or she would leave with the kids. What am I to do?
Dear Friend,
What an unbelievably harsh state of affairs. After losing her partner in life, your elderly mother looked to you and your family to be close to, even though she did not have a close relationship with her daughter-in-law. Your wife, on the other hand, foresaw the upheaval that would result from this arrangement of having her overbearing and critical mother in law constantly in her face and under foot. However, the down-payment on a larger house seemed to overshadow all these realities and brought hope that this would resolve all the unrest and dislike that was ever-present in your lives. My sympathies are with you in your role as son and husband as you are caught in the tug of war between your wife and your mother.
There is little hope for a bright side here, unless some heavy duty intervention takes place in the form of involvement by a trusted friend, the rav/rebbetzin of your shul or a therapist in the way of individual or family counseling to try to repair the relationship between your wife and your mother. How good are the chances of this happening? If this doesn’t work out, what are the chances of renting an apartment for your mother right near you, so that you can tend to her without too much disruption to your own family and your children can still enjoy the pleasure of being near their grandmother? Another avenue to explore, although not ideal, would be to enlist the help of your brothers in Israel and have them do their share of “kibbud aym” by inviting your mother to stay with them for a few months out of the year. These are all ideas you might consider but none of them are guarantees that will solve your problem.
What stands a better chance of bringing peace to your household is the forging of a new and different understanding between your mother and wife, one that is based on respect and understanding rather than love and appreciation.
Since the only relationship between them, from the outset of your marriage, has been one of dislike, discord and distance, perhaps, a professional mediator can direct them in forging a new alliance to replace the one that should have been. I am a strong believer that most everything is possible if people genuinely want to better their lives. Like anything worth having, it will take work, practice and determination to make it happen. Your wife must learn to have extraordinary tolerance, endless compassion and an understanding that no one is young forever. The living lesson she will give your children will be priceless and may well serve her in her own golden years. As for your mother, she, too, must learn to respect her daughter-in-law and to understand that she is infringing on her son’s shalom bayis when she challenges his wife.
I would be most happy to hear from you in regard to the outcome of this situation.