I'm a 29 year old girl married for the last one year. I knew my husband for almost 3 years before marriage as we were colleagues and used to work for the same company. We travelled to Singapore (we both were working for an Investment Bank in Singapore then) after marriage. I had made sure that I always treated my husband's family with love and affection and consider them as my own family. My husband is very close with his family, especially with his mother and spends hours speaking to her over phone every day. I didn’t give much attention to this initially as I felt it is normal for parents to be worried when you start living with a new person. But this continues every day till this day.4 months after marriage, we visited my husband's family home for the first time. It was not a pleasant experience for me as i realized that there's a drastic change in my husband's behaviour when his mother is around. He acts as if he doesn’t care for me. He asks me to make sure that i sit in the backseat of the car so that his mother can sit next to him when he drives. The reason being she wants to make sure that he doesn’t drive rashly. Actually he's an excellent driver. He makes sure that he doesn’t talk to me freely or sit next to me. (He even changes the wallpaper of our laptop from a picture of we both together to a family picture when his parents visit or when we visit his place) I know he does care for me, but he at least ensures that his family doesn’t notice it. I initially thought that it's probably because I visited there for the first time, but this behaviour continued in all our subsequent visits. It is as if he is ensuring that his family understands that he doesnt care for me more than he cares for them.My mother-in-law kept on telling me how much her son (my husband) loves her and takes care of her. I was happy to know that he's a family person. But as days passed by, it started getting annoying as she kept on acting as if i was her rival even though she tried to speak to me nicely in front of others. It was painful for me as I wished her to be my mother rather than a mother-in-law. But still i ensured that i always treated her affectionately and i knew it would hurt my husband if i hurt his parents. I was shocked to see the way my mother-in-law and my husband treats my father-in-law. It seemed like he didn’t have a say in the house. During that visit, i saw my mother-in-law shouting at my father-in-law in front of everyone these were her words : "You just shut up, I decide how things should happen in this house, there should only be one voice in this house and that is mine, you shut up". I was surprised that my husband or his brother and sister said nothing. I saw this happening multiple times during that visit. I felt sorry for my father-in-law, i felt bad and insulted, i felt that my dad was insulted in public. When we were alone, i told my husband that he should treat his father nicely. Even though he did behave well with him for the next couple of days, he was back to his self soon and later accused me for giving my opinion in his family matters. When I asked him about the way his mother treats his father, he said it's none of my business. Since then I decided to ignore what I see and keep quiet to ensure that all these doesn’t create an issue between us. Even though i was surrounded by his relatives, i felt lonely & scared. Even today my eyes fill with tears when i think of those days. I wished i could get out of that house as soon as possible.I felt that my mother-in-law is overpowering and she ensures that everyone gives her attention all the time. She decides where/when/how the rest of the family lives. She decides to whom we should talk and when. I felt suffocated. Recently she started shouting at me too over a birthday gift I had sent to my father-in-law. I had sent gifts to her and my brother-in-law earlier on their birthdays and she didn’t have a problem with that. This is what she asked me "How dare you send gifts to my home without my permission? Who asked you to send the birthday cake? You repeat the same thing when i had warned you not to do so last time, who do you think you are?". I didn’t say a word and kept on listening but i was really hurt inside to have her shout at me for something as silly as a birthday gift.I was brought up in a loving family with my dad, mom and 2 sisters. My dad was always my hero; he was a man of principles & great values. I had never seen my parents fighting. I can’t remember a day when my dad or mom had shouted on us. I know how important parents are in ones life, but I'm not able to see my mother-in-law as my mother anymore. She's so much in to our life now, I have forgotten what privacy is. A typical day for me starts when my mother-in-law calls my husband at 5:00 AM or 5:30 AM in the morning. They talk for few minutes if my husband is sleepy and longer if he is not. She calls again at around 8:00 AM and this continues multiple times (up to even 15-20 times) during the day. in the evening once we are back from work, they talk for 2-3 hours. It never bothered me in the beginning, but these days when i realized that it's a regular thing and this seriously reduces the amount of time we get to spend together, it has started getting in to my nerves. He says that she's worried about him and that's why she calls him to ensure that he's fine. I don’t really understand this logic as I also have a family and a mother who stays alone. He said she'll fall sick if he doesn’t call her everyday. Recently we went on vacation to visit Switzerland and my husband was on phone almost all the time calling her, texting her, sending her pictures of Swiss, telling her how amazing the place was. If he gets involved in something and forgets to call her, she calls him and asks him why he did not call her. I wonder why she doesn’t seem to understand that our marriage needs some privacy and we need some time of our own. She even calls up at 12'O Clock and 1'O clock in the night. My husband mutes the phone and then talks to me in case i ask him something in between. He asks me not to speak to him while they are talking. She used to ask for me on the phone initially, but not anymore. I'm tired of this now. I saw a text from her on his phone after our swiss trip which said "You havent yet booked your tickets to come home in March and you are roaming around now". It was sad for me to see such a message from someone i though would be my mother when she knows that we have only got to spent very less time together and we havent even gone for our honeymoon so far!I also came to know that my husband sleeps with his mother often. I'm not sure whether this is normal as it's definitely not considered normal at my place. The first morning after I visited my husband's house after marriage, his mother was repeatedly telling me how he went to her in the night to ensure that she is fine and no one else is sleeping with her!! I'm not sure whether it's ok for a grown up son to sleep with his mother? I found it really awkward, but i don’t want to overreact and spoil our otherwise good marriage just because of this. I know he loves me and he is a nice & loving person when his mother is not around. I don’t want to speak to him about this now as we have always ended up arguing whenever i tried to talk to him about anything related to his mother. I don’t know why he wants to depend upon his mother for almost everything in this world and keep her updated of almost everything he does. He's grown up and is 30 years old; I can’t believe that he wants his mother’s opinion & guidance even now in whatever he does. I honestly don’t want him to cut all ties with his parents, but i don’t want it to affect our marriage too. I tried talking to my husband about this and all he said was 'you wont understand'. Please help