BY: Anthony Yeo

I have been married for almost 19 years and have two girls. Throughout my marriage, I have a thorn wedged in my relationship with my husband - my mother-in-law.

My husband obeys his mother in everything. Even our wedding rings were selected by her, something I found out only later. She also selected my older daughter's name without consulting me.

I am very tired of my husband's attitude. How is it possible for a man to act like this?

Sometimes, I feel as if he regards me as his mother and treats his mother more like his girlfriend. It feels very strange and he really expects me to take care of him like I do for my children.

Have I ended up being a widow with two girls and an overgrown boy? It makes me feel very lonely in this relationship.

Siew Pheng

I do appreciate your struggle with this situation involving your husband and his mother. It seems that he has not detached himself from her and feels very connected and even obligated to be there for her as often as possible.

Perhaps there is a very special bond between them, where he has a strong sense of loyalty to her.

This is not unusual in our cultural context as I have met men like him who feel very loyal and responsible to their mothers.

We often identify this as filial piety, but it seems that your situation is a little more complicated than that.

I believe his behaviour goes beyond filial piety to a possible co-dependent relationship where they seem to have a great need for each other.

It is also possible that he has a need to depend on her and is consumed by this relationship to the point of losing his sense of identity. In this sense he could be living a life of and for his mother.

Such a situation does complicate marital relationships as I wonder what marriage might mean to someone like him.

Sometimes such a person may also have an issue with relational boundary. What this means is that his difficulty in having a sense of his own identity contributes to his difficulty in seeing you as a separate person.

Hence his is not a kind of 'I-You' relationship, as there is less of you and more of him.

This could present a difficulty as he does not see both of you as a couple, but as part of his relationship with his mother.

It would be difficult to expect him to focus primarily on you in marriage.

It might be useful for you to consider how you want to remain in the marriage without being unduly frustrated.

Hopefully you can find satisfaction in other areas of your relationship with him and focus on strengthening them.

If he has you and your daughters' interests at heart, then I would suggest that you give attention to the family as a whole.

You may not have much of a relationship as a couple, but at least you still have your daughters and they will have parents who care for them.

I also wonder if there is a way for you to spend time with your husband alone, where both of you can bond, despite the attention he gives to his mother.

Hopefully, you may then make your marriage more tolerable and your days less lonely.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on July 13, 2008.