Fighting with your in-laws is often an all-too-common part of any long-term relationship. But even if you make up afterward, everyone still remembers what you said over Thanksgiving dinner.

How would you handle an overbearing mother-in-law who didn’t know how to leave well enough alone? One guy recently shared his cringeworthy situation with Reddit. Here’s what happened.

AITA for escalating a spat between my wife and her mom?

My MIL was having some kind of technical problem with a password login.

My wife has already gone over once this week to try and fix it (unsuccessfully) and now my MIL is pressuring her to come over again to give it another shot.

Surely it’s time to call the Geek Squad now.

After suggesting she’d do it tomorrow, MIL replied that she’s away tomorrow and to “just leave it then”.

She followed it up with: “I’ll remember this next time you need help, like pet sitting” and said that my wife is being complicated and difficult.

This MIL sounds like a handful.

This is when my wife showed me the chat log and asked me what to do.

We discussed for a bit how MIL didn’t ask me, or any of her sons about this.

Our conclusion was that this was more about getting my wife to “dance” for her than actually solving the problem, and so the problem was how to deal with that more than the technical issue.

That sounds like the likely scenario here.

I asked if I should take over, and my wife agreed.

I send my MIL a message that I didn’t appreciate her putting so much pressure on my wife when there were other – more technically inclined people she could be asking and asked what the problem was.

To this she replied “No problem. Forget it”.

Oof. Passive-aggressive much?

I tried to prompt her again saying that it sounded important to her and I could do more than offer help.

Since then I haven’t heard anything else from MIL but my wife fears I have escalated the situation and fears emotional reprisal wondering if she should reply to her mom with *something*.

IMO this is about “boat steadying” as my wife volunteered on her own that her mother never does this sort of thing with any of her other kids (at least those who haven’t cut contact with her).

It’s understandable that he would be protective of his wife here.

But of course I recognize that, no matter who’s at fault, the person I love who now has to sit through the tension.

And obviously I may very well be wrong in my assessment.

So, AITA?

One way or another, this guy seems like the epitome of a Wife Guy. Let’s see how the Reddit comments weighed in on this.

The readers seemed to understand this type of parent all too well.

And commended the OP for his good intent.

Others threw some minor shade toward the wife.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an uncle who is surprised to find his niece’s birthday party all about him after one unkind comment.

One person tried to offer a different perspective.

All in all, healthy nuance was found.

These family matters aren’t getting resolved over text.