My wife was abused as a child by a much older brother. Her mother knew about it but never did anything about it. Her advise was to keep it secret and she even made my wife feel like she was at fault.

We know now that was incredibly wrong and cruel and that it was common in that generation for parents to have that reaction but that doesn't lessen my wife's anger towards her mother for dealing with it that way and even now continuing to reject any blame or even apologize. She just says things like "that's what we did back then".

Unfortunately, my wife's privileged sister that was not abused (at least nothing admitted) is mad at my wife for not simply "Dropping" the issues with her 80 something mother. How do you deal with that? Anyone have a similar story or advise?