Salaryman Desmond Master

The single most important thing: the boundary must come from your husband, not you. If you push back on his mother directly, you become the villain and it damages your marriage. Sit down with him privately, calmly, and frame it as "us as a team building our own family unit" not "your mum is a problem." Give him specific, small scripts he can use: "Ma, we've decided X, we'll let you know if we need help." He needs to redirect, not confront. It took my husband months to learn to gently deflect his mum instead of just relaying her demands to me. We agreed on a rule: big decisions (money, kids, where we live) are just the two of us, then we inform, not consult. Start with one boundary, not ten. And pick battles, some interference is just love expressed badly. But daily calls dictating your life is too much and he has to be the one to gently manage it. Couples counselling helped us reframe it as teamwork, not war.