I disagree with your perspective on this. I believe there is a major boundary violation going on here, but not by Chrome, rather by his wife. To explain my view, let’s put the shoe on the other foot. Say that Chrome’s mother is coming over often and commenting to his W on her cooking, that she needs to feed the kids better, cook more variety, whatever. Now say W just ignores her, so MIL goes to Chrome to press her case. Then suppose that Chrome sympathizes with his mother (because he really wants his wife to cook better but is afraid to say so).
It is not hard to imagine the resentment that will build up in his wife in a fairly short period of time. What W will feel is that Chrome and his mother are “ganging up” on her and neither appreciates or respects her abilities as a cook. W can easily extrapolate this to mean she is not appreciated in other areas too. A counselor would jump all over Chrome, telling him to support his W and to tell his mother to back off and stop meddling. There is a sense of loyalty and betrayal involved here and Chrome would be violating that with his W. His allegiance would be to his mother and his W would sense that.
The exact same thing is happening here. Chrome’s W is choosing her mother over Chrome, undermining his authority, his wishes as a husband and father, and allowing her mother to drive a wedge between them. It is a passive aggressive act on her part, letting her mother do the “dirty” work instead of confronting Chrome herself about an issue she may have. This is a good example of where Dr. Laura’s advice can be spot on.
BTW, what happened to this board? It’s like it is dying a slow death….
