Asking Eric: My wife won't forgive my mother's mental state during the wedding planning

"My mother is a nurse and has asthma and was deeply hit with mental and emotional stress from the pandemic. She would not attend most wedding planning events and would always be concerned with germs, wearing an N95 mask and keeping her distance. My wife had a completely opposite reaction to the pandemic. It was more of a nuisance to her. In her eyes, there was no threat."

"My wife began to develop a feeling of abandonment from someone who was supposed to be her mother-in-law. She opened up to me about how much she was hurt, and I told her it wasn't my mother's fault and that she was just petrified by the pandemic and it was the only thing she could do. My wife told me I was taking my mother's side."

"I'm rarely this blunt, but your wife is being unreasonable, and she needs to get over it. Setting aside any debate about public health policies during the first year of the pandemic, it's unfair that your wife is holding a grudge against your mother for socially distancing during a time of mandated social distancing. Why is she taking the pandemic personally?"

A son reports escalating conflict between his wife and his mother stemming from pandemic precautions. The mother, a nurse with asthma, socially distanced, wore an N95, and avoided many wedding events out of fear. The wife viewed the pandemic as a nuisance and felt abandoned by the mother-in-law. Hurtful messages led the mother to block the wife, yet the mother later attended the wedding without a mask, which angered the wife. Ongoing spats have intensified, and the son seeks guidance about whether his initial defense of his mother was wrong and how to prevent this from destroying the marriage.

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