Clearly you believe that the husband/mother relationship is something that a rational person/conversation etc, could fix. It is not, as only one person, the author, is unhappy with the status quo. For the rest of them, all this is a feature, not a bug. It’s like those moles that the matriarch keeps the younger females so stressed out that they don’t ovulate and can’t produce offspring that compete with hers and then are forced to serve her offspring and her all day. This may not even be her FAVORITE son for all we know! But this lady knows what she’s doing and likes her DIL off balance. It makes her easier for her and her son to control. She and her stupid son ARE A CODEPENDENT TEAM.