In response to your post about her having "utterly no spine"...
I know, truly peaceable people shy away from confrontation (the husband knows this and exploits it, very cowardly), but the unfortunate truth is, by avoiding conflict she is allowing things to get worse, and that is irresponsible. It is a hard lesson to learn, but that's the way it is. I couldn't be so aggressive as to change my family (I always hoped they would "grow out of it", very foolish) because I was just the child. Now, I outlived my whole family and wish I had been somehow more aggressive so that I could have had a better relationship with my mother (thinking back, I would have gladly broken some bones in order to have made things better, the trouble is, that's what would have been required to make things better, BIG TALK).