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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]FWIW, as a guy, I'd very much expect my mom to take my wife's side if I cheated on her.[/quote]

Thinking our loud here: Read the following not as a moral truth (it isn't one at all), but as a deep and ancient psychological reality. The psychology of motherhood, either deep down or very close to the surface depending on the woman, is to take on "the sins" or problems of your children as your own failings, to try to figure out what went wrong and try to fix it, if it isn't too late. This includes, behavioral issues, but also physical and mental health issues and learning challenges and educational issues. You are her responsibility in her mind, no matter how old you are; so what you inflict upon the world is her fault and her problem to prevent or fix. Your wife isn't her responsibility in the same way and is more a reflection of your mom's success or failure raising you (in the sense that she didn't create your wife and can't "fix" her). So your mom's focus will be on you and accusations against you will be by default accusations against her. Similarly, here reaction will be a reflection of how she feels about her own responsibility in the situation. She will either feel guilt if the accusations seem true or defensive if they don't, and will act according to her own personality and usual response to feeling guilt or false accusations. Even the most sane and rational women on the surface, who may fight against this psychology and even outwardly act contrary to it, deep, deep down, will have traces of this bond. We all feel it, which is why it is so hard to disappoint our mothers, because deep down we know they will bear the brunt of our behavior as an intrinsic failing of their own, whereas we, having hopefully achieved separation, own our own behavior, which we may not even see in the same light as our mothers.

So if your mother takes your wife's side, her version of this psyche is deeper down and not as close to the surface, and taking your wife's side would be her way of chastising your behavior and trying to fix you or perhaps even to clean up your mistakes for you by caring for your wife's pain. It appears that OP's husband's mother bears this psyche closer to the surface and is deep in the guilt side of this, so her reaction to guilt is to shun and avoid looking at the evidence of her "own" failing, which she may fear (or realize) she cannot now fix.

To be clear, I am not in any way saying mothers are actually to blame for everything or that any of this is the mother's fault. That is BS. Rather, this is in fact how mothers may react to their kids' issues. It is a challenge that parents fight on a daily basis -- to separate their children's behavior from their own moral responsibility, and react in a way that is best for their own child's growth and to the community overall (particularly if the child is inflicting serious harm to others). And really, either way, because you are family, no matter who's "side" she seems to be taking, a mother's reaction exists because she is your mother, because she has that bond to you. In your hypothetical, she is taking your wife's side because she is YOUR mother, and she feels her role in your relationship with your wife is to help your wife deal with her son's behavior.[/quote]

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