Ok so my wife is requiring me to post this and listen to feedback.
This is long and tedious and will require alot of attention.
My wife and my mother have never liked each other, which is fine since I do not particularly like my mother either. My mother is the product of the 1950/60s and is a typical kinda racist old white lady. She is mostly miserable with her marriage and disappointed in her children. Her other family members are sickly, annoying, dependent, or dead. My daughter is probably the only thing in her life that she enjoys.
My wife is the best person alive but she is not prone to forgiveness, she holds grudges, loses her temper, and does not communictae her emotions well. After the birth of our daughter, my mother has many opinions about what my wife should and should nto be doing. Most of my mother's ideas are crap and old and wrong. So we ignore her 90% of the time.
My mother is not nice so she insults me and my wife regularly but rarely to any ones faces. She usually behaves herself at parties or in front of third parties and is mostly passive aggressive to my wife. My wife does not appreciate this and by now , after two years after my daughter's birth ( 15 years for my wife and I being together), they pretty much hate each other.
These are my wife's biggest problems with my mother:
1) passive aggressive
2) bitchy/bossy/judgmental
3) has crazy old person racisty rants about dumb things ( very superficial racism, the way peopel dress, facial expressions, immigrants not learning english .. not like KKK racism but more like Bill O'Reilly racism)
4) does not respect all of her wishes when it comes to her daughter (nothing life threatening ... the worst one was when she took our daughter to the park without asking us permission first. We knew she was walking out but we did not knwo she was going that far (also it was the first time she went to the park so my wife wanted to be there)
5) Does not fully believe my wie when she claims medical problems ( my wife has hypothyroidism, PMDD, and other chronic illnesses). My wif'es illnesses make it difficult to do things and makes her have low energy levels.
6) Also ... my mother's food sucks and she hates going over to thier house ( it is true ... my mother cannot cook)
Here are my mother's biggest problems with my wife:
1) does not take her daughter out enough
2) does not wake up early enough or make her daughter wake up early enough. my wife and daughter really follow no set schedule. My wife used to wake up in the after noon which pissed off my family alot and now our daughter is co-sleeping so my mother is worried that somehow my daughter is elarning this ( i doubt it but they think so) Recently my daughter has been getting up at 10 to 11 in the morning but we have yet to see if this is going to stick.
3) Deos not like our tiny apartment.
4) Thinks my wife is lazy, selfish, and unsocial. My wife is selfish and unsocial and not so much lazy as vulnerable to lethargy. She is on this forum so if she disagrees with this she will chime in. Also she is mostly unsocial to people she does not liek so she is VERY unsocial to my parents (understandable but still ... my mother complains)
5) Thinks our daughter is not beinf socialized properly.
+So that is where they both stand with each other... now it is time for the final question:
Should they continue interacting with each other or should they just end all contact.
Very intersting question ... now let me state my case.
Both my Wife and my Mother have both said that they are fed up with each other and both want to just retreat back into thier respective caves and never see each other again.
Unfortunately this is not a very mature or productive way of resolving this because, although my mother is not a very good person she has certain benefits that i am not willing to let go of:
1) She genuinely loves my daughter - It is true. Besides my wife and I, the only other people on this planet that actually care about my daughter is my mother and my wife's mother. So that is a grand total of 4 people on this planet who would actually assist my daughter in her life. I do not want to lose one.
2) Material gain - my parents are pretty well off upper middle class. MY father is an architect, they have 2 houses that are worth over a million dollars. They are gernerous to us, over the last 15 years my wife and i have gained thousands and thousands of dollars from them. Also they drive us around ( we don't drive ). THey will be more than glad to help pay for my daughter's college. My wife and I are not destitute but they certainly have more than us. So i do not want to remove this advantage from my daughter.
3) My daughter likes her grandmother - sure my daughter likes a wrench if you gave it to her but she does enjoy spending time with my my mother and my mother likes spending time with her. She reads to her , playes with her, and is happy to do it.
So i have advised my wife and mother to talk to each other (both of them are very bad with confrontation) and try to get to a point where they can tolerate each other enough so that my daughter can benefit from having a meaningful relationship with both.
I have told my wife that it is her job as the more sane person to stop letting my old idiot mother ruin her happiness. I have urged my wife to forgive my mother for being a pain in the ass and just tolerate her until she dies so that our daughter can get the benefit of having a grandmother and the benefit of that grandmother's wealth.
So my wife has made me sign on to this site and post this. She hopes her side is validated and i am just willing to do anything that might get my mother and wife peaceable enough so that my daughter can benefit.
Now anyone who has read this far - you get a special reward!
You are awesome forreading this YAY! Give yourself a hug!
Now ... tell us what to do.
My wife reminded me to mention that she is Asian. She belives this will make my mother's racism even more dastardly.