I was feeling sorry for Rita until...

... I realized she has skinny eyes!

Jokes aside, I was feeling sorry for her because Eddie's dislike for her was kind of irrational. As Eddie's father says at some point, Rita has done nothing to deserve it. But the boy's intuition was sport on, as I saw when she suggested sending Eddie away. At that moment we can see that it wouldn't work, because she was OK with a family that included Eddie's dad but not Eddie. You just do not separate an 8-year-old from his only living parent, and you don't separate a father from his son, just to make your life easier. If she was marrying Eddie's dad, then Eddie was included in the deal, and she would have needed to be patient and do all the work required to win him over. Eddie and his dad had something special between them. Destroying that would not have been a good foundation for a marriage.