Dear Prudence,
I’ve been married for nearly a year to a great woman. I love her and think we can have a great life together. When I learned she was divorced, I believed her assertion that the fault was entirely with her ex for clashing with her mother. I now think the fault must have lay with her mother, and not her ex-husband. My mother-in-law refuses to let her daughter be independent. She makes her feel guilty if she doesn’t spend three or four days a week at her house. From the minute my wife wakes up until past midnight every night, they text. They text each other while we watch movies, while we shop, talk, spend time with my family, and even when she’s in the same room with her mom. To make it worse, her mother seems to dislike me. She constantly says mean things about me in her texts, which I only found out about after stumbling upon my wife’s phone and reading through conversations. Occasionally, I read through their conversations (my wife is aware of this) and find her mother is petty and cruel, constantly criticizing me. She’s a cancer in our marriage, and my wife cannot become independent. I feel like I’m trapped in a marriage of three people. I’ve asked my wife to please talk to her mom about giving us more space. I’ve desperately asked her to refrain from texting all day long. I don’t know if I can handle this for much longer. What should I do?