The article does seem to be one sided- no quotes from her work associates, other playgroup mothers or anything like that. I am in no way accusing the R family of dishonesty, but they were on one side of a very messy marriage breakup.
We dont have many pics of LER, but to look at the pics that we have I would not look at her and think "matronly". She appears to be a well presented, attractive woman.
I found it interesting in the article that former mother in law was saying about her not liking to hand the baby over to anyone, and her former husband saying she didnt look like she had much experience with babies. For me, this reminded me of myself! I hadn't had much experience with babies when I had my first, and I was pretty jumpy. I didnt like going to my mother in laws either, because she too saw herself as a baby person and had no end of "helpful" advice that made me feel worthless. From the little bits of information that we have, I can kind of understand why LER might have been criticising her husbands family. They see so involved. The brother not only went to marriage counselling, but also spoke for his brother in these sessions!!! I know some families are very close and this kind of thing might be ok for people who are use to it, but LER had been out on her own for a long time. I dont want to sound like I am criticising this family, because I dont know them and it sounds as though they have been through enough. Just highlighting that there are two sides to every story, and the article really only shows one side.