Agony Hound: AITA for kicking my mom out of my house because of how she reacted to her partner not liking my wife's chili?

Another Am I the Asshole and in fact I've had my eye on this one to do here for ages because it's a beauty and includes family conflict and food, my favourite things. Without further ado:

AITA for kicking my mom out of my house because of how she reacted to her partner not liking my wife's chili?

My mom and I have just come off of a 3 year estrangement. Her and my wife hated each other from day one, just really clashed and my mom was going through some stuff in her personal life and acting out. We mutually agreed it wasn't fixable and we should go our separate ways.

I recently reconnected with her at a party and told her that I wanted to try and fix things. My wife supported this. My mom is with someone I'll call "Rob" I'm pretty sure they are engaged but to be honest not 100% sure. We've seen my mom a couple of times since reconnecting and I can tell she is really trying. She seems extremely anxious and too nervous to talk, so we are taking it really slow, but I do believe that is her trying.

Recently we invited my mom and Rob over. My wife was making chili in the crock pot and it was done but we weren't ready to eat. She had some tortilla chips and said that she likes dipping it in the chili and invited them to have some while we waited. rob took some and gagged. I don't think he did it on purpose and he seemed embarrassed, but my wife's chili is very sweet. She uses maple syrup, chocolate powder, cinnamon, and brown sugar. My mom laughed which upset my wife because has always been smug about not thinking my wife is a good cook.

I could see my wife getting annoyed and snapped at my mom. Rob looked kind of ill and excused himself. My mom stood there for a minute in silence and then bolted after him and started banging on the bathroom door and demanding to be let in. He was ignoring her and she started freaking out and said she wanted to be hugged (she has some anxiety and PTSD related stuff and he is her comfort person) Just as I got to the door to tell her to stop banging Rob let her in and I heard their conversation. Rob was saying they had to get out of here because he can't eat that chili. My mom was kind of teasing him about aww you didn't like it and telling him she served it with rice with raisins and sugar and a chocolate sauce (a lie), and he said it tasted like dog food with sugar and he was going to have nightmares.

I saw red and my mom was laughing. It just brought me back to how smug she used to be and how she looked down on us. When they came out I told her to leave. My mom got really quiet again and said it was creepy that I was standing outside of the bathroom door. She said she's been trying and she feels I'm looking for reasons to hate her. I told her to just go because I was too emotional to talk to her. She left willingly but Rob told me I can't just nitpick and kick her out and then think she is going to want to continue to put work into this relationship. Source

The Hound says:

Unusually for me, I'm having a hard time seeing anyone as the asshole here. Not to beat about the bush, it's clear from your question that everyone involved in this is fucked in one way or another and that every relationship is also fucked. It is just as clear that you are all trying to make this work but it's all a bit too volatile.

If you and your mother mutually agreed that it wasn't fixable and then mutually agreed to try again I have to say that I feel like your relationship is better than you think it is, because you're distracted by the conflict. It's the mutual agreement here that would suggest that. If you think it would be helpful you could try emphasising the love you feel and the importance of the others to you in every conversation to make it about something other than arguing..

It seems to me the real conflict here is between the mother and the wife (that classic one). It sounds like they may be people who will just never get on.

Since I like advising people from my place surrounded by the wreckage of my family, I just have a few suggestions. Try to see your mother just you and her. Go somewhere nice with her that she likes and will be soothing. I'd keep your wife and her apart if you can until she's feeling more calm around you. If you have to have a family gathering make it in a neutral place like a restaurant.

If your significant others can't do it like this (for example if your wife feels like you don't trust her around your mother) you're going to have to start negotiation. Your situation is so complicated that I would honestly recommend a professional mediator (in the UK you can get this through Relate).

This may not seem witchy advice but working to turn a taut situation into something else is exactly the kind of transformation which is the ordinary donkey work of the witch.

Oh alright, I know you're all wondering why I didn't post any other advice before giving my own and it's because it's brilliant. Basically the whole of Reddit was agreed that the chilli was the asshole! Here are some examples:

Sorry, but your wife is a bad cook. Just accept it. It was so bad, a man who was trying to be polite couldn't help but gag. That doesn't make her an AH, but her being a jerk about it when people don't like her cooking is. (I mean, either she is a genuinely bad cook, or she intentionally sabotaged the chili just so she could act outraged when people don't like it. Take your pick.)

Right? I know that’s not what this post is about but can I say whoever invented that chili recipe is TA? Maybe when you’re trying to smooth things out with mil (who thinks your cooking sucks), it isn’t the right time to wheel out the avant-garde dessert chili.

OP, next time you reach out to Mom, do so at a restaurant where everyone can order what they want.

And who on earth invites people over to eat the most jacked up chili ever without warning them when they are invited about the ingredients? If I tasted that, I would have gagged too.