son is only 10. He gets an attitude at times, but I think it comes from the marriage and the occasional arguing. W is convinced that he is learning from me how to be disrespectful to women. It think she is teaching him that lesson all on her own. I can understand his frustration.

My approach is to try to side with him and his feelings, and talk about what he did, why it is wrong, then give him a face-saving way out so he does not feel humiliated. W does the opposite. She wants him to own up to his mistakes and apologize, not just for his actions but his anger and attitude too. All that does is piss him off more (and it really pisses me off when I see her doing it to him).

I think you and your W are both probably correct in the first paragraph, Cobra.
Boys look closely to their Faaahhhzure for how to behave. My half brother use to pull his hair out on the front of his head around the age of 11, to the point where he looked like his hair was receeding. When his dad finally got him to explain why, the reason was 'to be like you, dad'. Sheesh.
Your W may in fact be being Disrespectful to you, but its how you react and deal with it that he is going to copy. The better you handle someone elses disrespect, the more glaringly obvious it is to everyone, including the disrespector.

I would like to understand better, what is going on in the second paragraph. I understand face saving in certain Heavy situations, Mutally Assured Destruction comes to mind. In fact, I picked a fight with Corri a long time ago to show HD how to de-escalate without retreating, because his W is so hard. (I know Corri remembers it. \:\) )

However humiliation comes from damaged pride/ego. That is the dangerous part of narcissim IMO. I dont understand how failing to own, accept and yes apologize for (I said that) REAL WRONGS can do anything but create false ego. Im curiouis what your thoughts are.

If I remember correctly your Mother used a lot of shaming tactics (for whatever reason) to prevent you from being what she *didnt* want you to become. Thats rough.
If I remember correctly, your W has real reason to fear Men's power, or at least the abuse thereof. yes?
so it makes sense you would get really pissed off at any hint of your W shaming your son. Its both of your touchstones.

Its not going to be easy for you, OR her to get past that. Lets just say, she wont ever be able to.
Can you? you can only try and do your best. Whenever you do well, tell yourself you did well. Hug yourself.

Back to humiliation.

Its not always the best tactic to apologize, as I well know. I apologized to x for my ego dissassembling tirade. I clearly remember, after I was finished, we went to bed, and she held my hand and clung to me all thru the night in her sleep. the next morning, she was pacing back and forth and threatening to leave, but uncertain. and then I apologized... 'I should not have acted that way last night. It was wrong and I should not have done that,.... and she started packing. predictable. often an apology will be received by the wronged with 'Takers' revenge to 'even the emotional score cards', but its never the wrong thing to do. IMO. and AA's. ;\) I dont fault myself for apologizing for that tirade, damn I felt good afterwards, but that tirade was ridiculously abusive and an inexcusable lack of control.

You posted an excellant piece about ego a while back Cobra. It was so right on, I should find it again. Here are two humiliations from my life, that come to my mind immediately.

My ego was humiliated by x's affair. No ifs ands or buts. My reaction was to *snap* *poof*. Pack your sh1t, M/FIL's here is your daughter, x fcck you, its NOYDB, where I am going.
My penance/ show of remorse, acknowledgement that I screwed up with the withdrawal of EC, and R leap frogging, was doing what it took to create the possibility for a Reconcil. Things are so whack in that situation emotionally, it was really really hard to determine if I was doing the reconcil effort out of withdrawals, competition, or care/love(choice- when the feeling is gone). and I did try to determine and make sure of that the first time, before beginning my efforts. Some of my actions demonstrated that it was competition. They were effective, some say 'its all fair in love and war' but Im not one of those people. I dont use them in my day to day dealings, or even when I initiate a R, its my personal rule, and so I dont excuse myself for using them then.
Its hard to not abuse power, when your heels are hanging off of a cliff.
Next time *snap* *poof*. It will be about me. Not her. Make sense now Cobra? If not, thats the best I can explain, and thats as far as I will discuss it.

What I really wanted to do was tell her exactly how pathetically needy and stupid she was. That is unacceptable behavior.
I finally got my opportunity after tricking her into the reconcil. ( her opinion on things. ) The anger leaked out eventually, cause it was excessively painful.

another ex, My ego was humiliated by my rebreather tarfu, because of the witness factor. Ego. If I had been alone, I would have laughed it off, (as much as you can laugh off clinical death) and said thats almost all 9 lives dumbass.

I changed the paramaters of my calculations/ miscalculated (which is irrelevant to the unknowledgeable)/ which really means, I screwed up huge, which isnt so bad, when its just you. It happened, in front of impressionables. People Im supposed to be leading/providing example/making feel safe.

My penance/ show of remorse, was allowing myself to be medivaced and staying in ICU. In this case, I screwed up once allready, I wasnt going to continue to set a bad example.
I used to unplug my sh!t, and wander around with my Erythromycin bottle, (another penance. I dont normally use antibiotics, its against my 'religion' lol) and meet the other drowners. Pissed the nurses off.
If I had been on my own, there is no way in he77 I would have gone to the hospital. I allready knew I was fine, and allready knew what I screwed up on.
In fact when they were discussing calling the chopper, I heard x say, 'He is conscious now, [fellow instructor]. You know He is not going to do that. You think you can get him on there, [fellow instructor] if he doesnt want to?' It cost me -in a lot of ways.
Im a firm believer, You screw up-- there are consequences. you wanna play, you gotta pay.

So all that was to make the point,
I think humiliation is a good time to check your pride motivations, and examine who you are- compared to who your ego wants you to be. Im curious what you think humiliation means, and when and why saving face is neccesary.