Sentence:  While she had obeyed him, smiling sweetly all the time, she had nursed a growing resentment of what she called his "Latin American "macho" attitude." To <WSD>confound</WSD> the problem, his mother, who lived with them on and off, was described by the wife as being as domineering as her son. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To make something worse.