Dear ericmarceau,
i did some reading already and what I tried first was a solution posted in another thread, wherein I corrected a typo, see here: Hold your NVIDIA drivers if they are stable - #19 by Oldie
Unfortunately, this does not cut it and neither does my extensive locking in Synaptic. These days, I do an Acronis backup before I update Ubuntu MATE 24.03 and today that proved wise. In spite of all locked packages, apt still offers the following upgrade:
> gs@Blacky-u16:~$ sudo apt upgrade
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree... Done
> Reading state information... Done
> Calculating upgrade... Done
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
> linux-headers-6.8.0-100 linux-headers-6.8.0-100-generic
> linux-image-6.8.0-100-generic linux-modules-6.8.0-100-generic
> linux-modules-extra-6.8.0-100-generic
> linux-modules-**nvidia-535**-6.8.0-100-generic
> linux-objects-**nvidia-535**-6.8.0-100-generic
> linux-signatures-nvidia-6.8.0-100-generic linux-tools-6.8.0-100
> linux-tools-6.8.0-100-generic
> The following upgrades have been deferred due to phasing:
> language-pack-de language-pack-de-base language-pack-en-base
> language-pack-gnome-de-base language-pack-gnome-en
> The following packages have been kept back:
> language-pack-en language-pack-gnome-de language-pack-gnome-en-base
> The following packages will be upgraded:
> alsa-ucm-conf gir1.2-glib-2.0 libboost-iostreams1.83.0 libboost-locale1.83.0
> libboost-thread1.83.0 libglib2.0-0t64 libglib2.0-bin libglib2.0-data
> libldap-common libldap2 libpython3.12-minimal libpython3.12-stdlib
> libpython3.12t64 linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic
> linux-libc-dev linux-modules-**nvidia-535**-generic linux-tools-common nordvpn
> nordvpn-gui python3.12 python3.12-minimal
> 23 upgraded, 10 newly installed, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded.
> 9 standard LTS security updates
> Need to get 320 MB of archives.
> After this operation, 443 MB of additional disk space will be used.
> N: Some packages may have been kept back due to phasing.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n
And when I do that upgrade, the "Suspend-Bug" is back, plus delays during shutdown and reboot, which previously went very fast. Restore of backup. 
Next, I tried something radical:
sudo apt-mark hold *535*
(Found here: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=421442 )
Same result - restore.
I guess all the holding of packages does not protect against NEW packages.
For the time being, I just do not upgrade anything and wait for a while.
I am getting tired of this. I am with Ubuntu MATE since v14.04 and since November, this v24.03 has given me more issues than all the previous versions together. Previous versions just worked with this Nvidia card for years. They generally just worked instead of costing my time working on things like this. Its reliability and stability was why I chose Ubuntu MATE and that's why I stayed with it for so long...