His over-valuing others opinions, especially his mother's, is a common theme on this BB. My W did the very same, and only lately is starting to break from that by 'rebeling' a bit from folks' opinions (My MIL is very scary as well). Unfortunately, I was the safest, and therefore, first target for this exercise. Did you go through this as well?
Keep up the Get A Life (GAL) work, focusing on improving yourself. I like to use an image of my renewal of vows with my W (or 2nd M if D gets filed and is finalized) as motivation for this self-improvement work, though I hope to work hard enough for it to become a lifelong habit.
