She is taking on way too much guilt, blame, responsibility...

My mother is like this. She had a very domineering father who sexually abused her when she was 13 while her mother was in the hospital recovering from surgery. Even apart from that, he was controlling in an abusive way. He was the principal and (maybe even current if not former) math teacher at the high school. He would not allow her to take the higher math class she wanted to take even though she was great at math. WTF? 1959 or so.

He had a terrible power over her. She was just crying to me last week on FaceTime about this. She is 77.

Your wife sounds like an abused person. Emotionally abused. I think it's beyond being a good person, though she clearly is one.

It's like he's forcing her to martyr herself. She can never be good enough. She probably needs therapy.

I'll be thinking of you and your wife.