Dear Queenie,
My wife dislikes my mother for no good reason I know of. She doesn’t even like me to talk to Mom on the phone for more than a couple of minutes.
My mother is a nice person who welcomed my wife into our family and tried to treat her like a daughter, but my wife wants nothing to do with her.
Queenie, what can I do to make things better?— in the middle
Dear Son,
Maybe your wife has heard too many bad mother-in-law stories and is expecting the worst from your mother. Or perhaps something happened between them that you do not know about.
Talk to each of them and try to find out what, if anything, might have caused your wife’s attitude. Professional family counselling might also help, if you can get the two of them to go, separately or together.
