My mother-in-law loves to exercise control over my husband. Now that I have married him she wants to shift her attention to me. How do I escape her without hurting her?

I wish I could tell you that there's a way to escape. If she 'loves' and not even 'like' to exercise control then it must be her nature. I think you will have to subtly over the period of time show her your displeasure of this whole idea of being 'exercising control'. When you are with her, talk to her how things were with you when you were studying out or doing a job. If you don't have any incident then cook it up and tell how your colleague had this nature of dominating others and how you completely disliked it or how you dealt with her by limiting your interaction with her. I think you will have to state examples, through which you can make her understand that you do not like this kind of behaviour. Mother in-laws are smart, she will pick up the hints, and if she is good, she will try to change herself whatever little bit she can.