My wife and I have been married for 16 years. She had a horrible upbringing bouncing around foster homes since the age of 10. She suffered all kinds of abuse and neglect prior to foster home placement. Foster homes were not great except for one. Her sister died of drug overdose a few years ago after living with a lunatic of a man for two decades who picked her up as a john when she was 15 working the streets. Suffice to say lots of trauma in her family. My mother is a very loving and accepting woman and her and my wife had an amazing relationship for over a decade. My mom thought of her as a daughter and vice versa. Fast forward to last few months and this is no longer the case.
Basically what occurred is that my wife got involved in assisting the police in helping prosecute a family member involved in C.P (don't want to spell it out). This was her sister's main abuser and in fact he was in jail for that crime in the 1990's. These other abuse victims are new and the case is ongoing so we only know so much from the police. My wife's father also died recently (a horrible man by even her admission). All this brought up alot of grief and trauma for my wife.
Whenever some of this came up as a topic my mom told my wife to "be strong" , "move on with your life" and "try to be happy". My wife has no contact with her family as they are all addicts, molesters or those who enable molesters. The police said he had never seen a family like this. My wife has taken offense to my mom's comments about being strong as she feels as though those comments dismiss her pain. I asked my wife what she was expecting and essentially she wants validation and recognition that her past was horrible without judgement or advice.
My wife is actively working on a website to document her family's history and possibly bring light to the numerous predators who abused her and her sister. I told my mother why my wife was feeling how she is and to some extent she understands, but she is from a different generation where "you just moved on from difficult things". My wife is actively in counselling and has now blocked my mom on Whatsapp (where they mainly communicated). This was after my wife sent a long message to mom explaining why she feels like this and wanting to have some space. My mom replied with something to the affect of I understand how you feel and respect your wish for space and that she loved her. It was rather short because my mom felt as though the main thing my wife wanted was space. This is after several weeks where my mom messaged my wife with zero responses, or very short responses. Not their typical interactions. Since then, no contact on either side.
I understand my wife's perspective and support her but at the same time think she may be overreacting. My mom asked if there was a specific conversation that upset my wife and of course I am not privy to all their conversations and it was more so a number of them over a few months not one specific instance. I am not certain how much more involved I should get?