When your partner chooses their mother over you
Marital bliss can be shattered when we are forced to choose between spouse and parent
When two people decide to marry, each makes a pledge that the other will be the most important person in his or her life. We assume that, when the going gets tough, our partner will be on our side.
The last thing we expect, as we complain about the events of our day, is to have a spouse side with the person we’re complaining about. If that happened regularly, we’d conclude that there was something rotten in the state of our marriage. But this is precisely what happens when conflict arises between us and our in-laws.
In my research, conducted over two decades and involving interviews with more than 200 people, I was surprised how often men protect their mothers against their wives, seeing the…