DEAR Abby: That couple did the right thing sending her mother home. They stuck up for each other in the face of adversity. That marriage is going to endure.
Unfortunately, mine will not. Ten years ago, on the morning of my first daughter's christening, my mother-in-law looked over her newspaper and proceeded to lecture me about how they do things in "their" family. She made the mistake of giving me this lecture while an overnight guest in our home (which, by the way, my wife and I bought with no help from her mother).
Abby, I sent her packing the next day. My mother-in-law proceeded to bad-mouth me to the rest of the family, trying her best to turn them against me. My wife never once took a stand against her mother. She let her mom criticize me to everyone without ever setting the record straight.
My wife made a decision that day about where her allegiance stood. The events of that day were the single greatest indictor of how the rest of our marriage was to go. -- GETTING DIVORCED 10 YEARS LATER
DEAR GETTING DIVORCED: How sad that a loving daughter was forced to choose between her husband and her mother -- and made the wrong choice.