I will try to keep this short. Mother in law is visiting. Tomorrow, we have my sister-in-law, my niece, and her friend visiting for the evening (normally would not allow it, but it is my wife's birthday, so I agreed). Last night the wife and I get into a minor disagreement (no yelling) about the condition of the house. She goes off crying; I start to clean. Mom-in-law lays into me about how I am being uncaring, controlling, a bad husband, blah blah blah--way out of line. Starts telling me to stop cleaning and to go comfort my wife. I just ignore her and keep on getting the house ready.

My question is, do I do anything to address the lack of respect from MIL? I have already told me wife she was out of line. It was extraordinarily difficult to bite my tongue...really wanted to put MIL in her place, but I kept calm and just went about business as usual.

2 questions. First, did I deal with this situation correctly? Should I have engaged with MIL and defended myself and my place in my house? Second, what do I do to address this to stop this from happening again? MIL is notorious for bossing around my FIL, but this is the first time she has interfered with domestic relations between me and my wife.

Thanks for any thoughts.