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[quote=Anonymous]This is an entrenched dynamic that is not going to change without a lot of therapy for your wife.  If your wife has been verbally abused all her life, she has the personality and self-esteem of an abused child which is basically Stockholm Syndrome for her abuser -- she admires and loves her abuser.  She is desperate to please her abuser and believes that one day she will be finally be able to behave in the "correct" manner that conforms with her abuser's ridiculous and unattainable expectations.

I disagree with others about directly confronting MIL in front of your wife or ordering her to stop in the manner 21:30 advocates.  That's going to be too much for your wife and could even force her into tremendous anxiety attacks.  I would take a much more low key approach, quietly disagreeing when she puts down your wife or demeans her.  If MIL comments that X lives in a fancy house, point out that you love the way wife has decorated your house and it has always greatly appealed to you to live in a Cape Cod.  If MIL puts down her recipe for chicken soup, you interject that wife's soup has always been your favorite and you have been craving it all day.  Build wife up, don't tear MIL down.  At the same time, keep encouraging wife to go to therapy.  Also, if you can, in private between you and wife, subtly point out any contradictions in the criticisms MIL makes of wife.  One day MIL says wife shouldn't wear sandals, the next day she says wife should always wear sandals.  Which is it?  Isn't MIL kind of ridiculous?[/quote]

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