Lots of good advice in this thread, so I have only one thing to add…
“True, but I will let my wife choose your retirement home when the time comes …”
Si
Not having read the whole thread…
I agree with **CrazyCatLadys **description, yet I come to the opposite conclusion. 
You would be giving your mom what she wants, true. But I think that by now, your mom isn’t going to change, so no amount of coercing her will help permanently. So rewarding her is not really an issue; she is one of those annoying people that aren’t flexible in this area, while you and your wife are a lot saner and can be more flexible on this point. Maybe you have other areas where you are the irrational one.
Anyway, it is a good bet that your mom will keep acting the same way she has acted the past 13 years. All you have to decide is what you and your wife can easily tolerate.
If I were you, I would see go your mom with your daughter. She shouldn’t badmouth your wife, true. But even if you forbid that, what to do when she does it more subtly, like giving the baby gifts she knows will grate your wife?
I do think grandma has lost the right to respectful press from you to you kid. When she gets a little older, you should explain what Grandma is doing, that Grandma is in the wrong here, that she is a little crazy in this regard and that your kid should practice the fine art of changing the subject or nodding while not believing anything. That’s hypocrisy, but manners are largely hypocrisy.
The Art of Manners is also mainly for the benefit of those who understand and reciprocate them.
It’s a gender thing…you hardly ever hear about husbands and father-in-law’s not getting along. (Notice I didn’t say never…just hardly ever) But the meme of wives and mother-in-law’s not getting along is common and is substantiated through numerous incidences posted on this forum and that we all know about in real life.
From all of us husbands out there…why can’t you bitches just get along?
Another thing to consider: If left alone with the child, could your mother just take her and up and disappear? Yes, it’s a long shot, but it has happened.
I don’t think we need to go there. :rolleyes:
Because you boars will not release the teat long enough to stand up for us. 
For the sake of mixing things up a bit, I’ll throw in some Harriet Lerner. You’re describing a relationship triangle (you-wife-mom). Often these triangles are in place in order to diffuse anxiety in a relationship. If you and your mom spend all your energies arguing about your wife, there’s no time to deal with any issues between the two of you. Maybe your mom is negatively focused on your wife so that she can distract herself (and you) from real issues.
Maybe not, but I wanted to present a different perspective.
I’m the male version of your wife.
My wifes parents have never really liked me and always been critical of me to my face. Whenever I complained about the way they treat me, my wife has always defended their behaviour and made excuses for it. ‘it’s the way they are’, ‘that’s the way people are in that part of the world’ etc. I have never once heard her defend me to them.
For 5 years or so I took it on the chin and tried to be as pleasant as I could towards them even when they treated me like dirt. But it was a constant cause of arguments between myself and my wife.
8 years ago I made my last visit to their house and got the usual bad treatment as soon as I walked through the door. I decided to stick up for myself, seeing as no-one else would, and sat down with my FIL to have things out once and for all.
He promptly threatened to break my legs!
I reported this conversation to my wife who replied ‘no he didn’t! He would never say such a thing’. So I left the house and I have never spoken to my in-laws since.
My wife continued to deny that he would have said such a thing until nearly 3 years later when he admitted to her that he might have overstepped the mark. Now she believes it happened. But only because she heard it from him, obviously I’m a liar who can’t be believed.
We have 3 children who like their grandparents very much and I did not want to ruin their relationship. So I agreed to my wife visiting her parents as often as she likes with the kids. I knew that if I tried to stop it from happening she and the kids would all resent me so I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice.
The one rule I have been firm on is that they are never to set foot into my house. And even that minor rule makes me feel like I’m being unreasonable and evil.
So my wife and kids have a relationship with her parents and I’m not involved with them at all. Win-win right?
Well no. Every time she goes to see them or speaks on the phone to them I feel a stab of pain. She took their side over mine which is a betrayal of our marriage. Every time she speaks to them is a reminder of that betrayal. I’ve compared it to having an affair and then having lunch with the guy after the affair has ended. Which was clearly me over reacting again!
My own family has a few examples of in-law trouble. My paternal grandparents didn’t like my mother much. So my father refused to speak to them until they were at least civil.
My sister’s in-laws didn’t like her, so her husband refused to speak to his parents until they behaved.
So that’s two examples of a spouse standing up for their partner against parents and things sort of working out in the end. And then we have my wife who doesn’t stand up for me, and even takes her parents side and effectively calls me a liar.
After a dozen or more years of this she doesn’t understand why it’s still a big deal to me. She knows the situation doesn’t make me happy and she has asked me if there is anything she can do to try and improve things. There is one thing she could do of course, and that is to stop seeing her parents until they accept me.
But I can’t ask her to do that. Firstly, she would resent me for destroying her relationship and secondly, it would be a meaningless act if I’ve forced her to do it. For it to mean anything it has to come from her, not me. That is the only thing that would restore the trust that she betrayed and prevent this marriage probably ending in divorce quite soon.
By all means try and have a separate relationship with your mother and your wife. But each visit will open the wound in your wifes heart a little more. Her feelings of betrayal are real and will get deeper as time goes on, not diminish.
You have at least stood up to your mother in the past, so things may not be as drastic for you and your wife, but you both have my sympathy.
I am going to give you my situation and advice since I am currently in your wife’s position. My mother in law doesn’t like me to the point that she has verbally attacked me in my own home. This occurred when my daughter was a baby and she is 12 now.
I had no intention of getting in between my husband’s and his mother’s relationship nor was I going to ban my MIL from seeing her granddaughter. My only stipulation was that I am not bad mouthed in front of my daughter and I agreed to do the same. The very first (and only time) my MIL said a negative thing about me, my husband took my daughter home immediately. That was the last time.
My husband and our daughter get together with his mother three or four times a year for over night visits. (She resides a couple of hours from us).
I agree with your therapist that you should be able to have a separate relationship with your mother and she should be able to have a relationship with her granddaughter PROVIDING she can keep her mouth shut. That will be up to you to monitor. Personally, I find it cruel for your wife to keep your daughter away from her grandma as long as she isn’t abusive or destructive.
I really don’t think it has to be an either your wife or your mother situation. I see nothing wrong with you and your daughter having both. I believe your wife is wrong not to encourage this. (With rules in place about negativity)
I don’t feel like he has to hurt his wife at all as long as he doesn’t allow his mother to bad mouth her in his presence. Your problem is that your wife didn’t stick up for you but if he does, there should be no wounding of his wife in anyway. Your issue seems to be more about your wife respecting you than your inlaws not liking you.
My father-in-law hated my father. My dad was quiet, and my FIL can’t stand anyone who isn’t chatty (but god forbid you ever interrupt him). Sadly, my dad died before my now-husband and I even got out of college, else I know I’d have to deal with jerk FIL being a dick about my dad. Dad really liked my husband, though, and vice versa.
Oh yeah, my FIL hated that my husband was marrying me, too. I’m the polar opposite of what he wanted in a wife for his son, down to not having kids. About the only qualification I had was being white. To my credit, my FIL hates people at random because he’s unmedicated and bipolar, so he’s a raging jerk pretty often. My husband stands up for me, but if we don’t see his dad, we don’t see the rest of his family either. I frustrate the crap out of his dad by being cold back to any nastiness, which isn’t the fight he wants, and it shuts him down.
I’m so sorry you’re going through all this. I have a similar issue, but it’s that my own mother is against ME and what I’m doing with my life. Basically, she didn’t agree with me that my husband and I separated, and she thinks that I’m a monster for making the decision to split up. I’m constantly being told how much I’m hurting my daughter, and what a rotten parent I am. I decided recently that I’m too old to allow my mother to try and run my life, so I cut her out of my life except when absolutely necessary.
It was like losing 120 pounds of angry, nagging, verbally abusive weight.
I do allow her to spend time with my daughter, but it’s limited and only on my terms. I don’t trust my mother not to badmouth me or interrogate my daughter about her feelings or how I’m living my life. Limits are good.
Well, other than the fact that she’s being effectively banished from family gatherings merely because the OP’s mother is a jerk. That seems like it would grate. If Grandma can’t be nice to her granddaughter’s mother for a short visit, she obviously lacks the impulse control to be around a child at all.
/edit: Also, if my husband were as unsympathetic about it as the OP’s, I honestly wouldn’t trust that he’d even prevent his mother from badmouthing me when I wasn’t there. His unwillingness to stand up for his wife is kind of bad for his credibility as an effective mediator.
Maybe but I still think the offended spouse is essentially saying, if you don’t like ME you can’t play with anything that is mine.
There’s a difference between not liking someone and being rude to them for 13 years. Besides, I don’t see why parents shouldn’t limit their kid’s contact with anyone who treats other members of the family badly. If your kid were friends with another kid who was horribly disrespectful to your spouse, would you promote that relationship? Treating family members with a modicum of respect should be a minimum standard for a relationship.
I suppose you could take your small child to visit her grandmother, leaving your wife at home. The child would be too busy opening up kitchen cabinets and exploring the garden (or whatever) to pay any attention to any badmouthing of your wife. Really, can’t grandma sit there for half an hour, or out for lunch, without starting in on why she hates your wife? But in any event, this is all very sad. I think a visit to grandma, you and the kid alone, would be a very sad experience. Kind of ‘doing the right thing’, but with all that bad feeling in your family, kind of pointless. And sad. Even more so when the child says, “why can’t grandma come home with us for supper, daddy?” Or “why doesn’t mommy come with us to grandma’s, daddy?” Ouch.
A friend is quite different from a grandparent. I honestly believe there can’t be too many people that love a child. I still contend that IF and only IF grandma can agree to not talk about the child’s mother, they should be able to have a relationship without mom present.
You honestly find it LESS sad that grandma doesn’t have a relationship with the grandchild “Daddy, why don’t I know my grandma? Because your mommy hates her and won’t allow us to have a relationship where she isn’t a part”. That seems far more “Ouch” to me.
In my personal experience, my daughter has never asked why I don’t go to Grandma Annie’s. It is quite clear that it is her and Daddy’s trip and Mommy does other things.
If she doesn’t love the kid enough to treat her mother with even basic decency, it doesn’t seem like it counts for much. What about when the kid gets older and does something she doesn’t like?
I don’t see how you could trust someone like that to behave at all, long-term. I mean, the OP sounds like he’s tried to make it clear that his mother’s previous behavior is unacceptable by cutting off contact, yet it continues. Someone with no respect for his or his wife’s decisions or boundaries seems very likely to cross them later regarding their kid.
I disagree that having a relationship with an asshole grandparent is better than not. Been there, done that, and it didn’t do us any favors.