Perhaps I was harsh. You say they are Golden people who do what they want and can do no wrong is, perhaps, a nice way of saying, "Self-centered, reckless, unaccountable, with no moral compass."
It's not that I was expecting Yoyo to bring these points up at the bleachers, it's just that I was trying to highlight the insanity/imbalance of the situation. He points out his daughter's failings vis a vis his mother, yet ingnores that she's best friends with his mistress. Will that not wound a young teenager's soul to think her grandmother publicly embraces a home-wrecker, adulterer and a rival to her mother? It's like trying to maintain normalcy while living in a family of mafia-bosses.
No..it's more like a Greek Tragedy.
Yoyo,
I'm not qualified to offer advice. I'm not successful at doing this. Sara made it though, I haven't.
I just want, perhaps, you not to hide behind the convenient category of "mid-life crisis" or "fog". I don't think he's going to snap out of anything, because he's acting according to character -- he never stoppped being who he is. The sooner that's clearer, the more effective your DB efforts will be.
All men will be kind and sweet in courtship. Three hard questions to ask, like the old folks used to say, "What about his family, his character, and his faith?" What does he believe about right and wrong? Why does he think he's a "golden" person, completely unaccountable and reckless?
I think it's more fruitful to say, "I want him to change and become an intentional husband and father, a more attentive, accountable person, who can admit his own faults, correct them, and who can see that adultery is dead wrong and can commit to fidelity in a marriage with me".
Because you see, that description is not who he is now, or, perhaps, ever was. But...people can change. Miracles happen.
But you are looking for change, not a return of his old self.
Does that make sense?
In my situation, my wife's complaints about me are legitmate, for the most part. What she's turned off by are character flaws, weaknesses, an inattention to my appearance and weight, and selfish personality traits. I'm not in a Mid life crisis. There's no old Theoden that needs to re-emerge. The old Theoden, which the only one there is, needs to change.
He has no problem giving you lists of demands for your change: cook more, clean more, give him more sex, treat him like a king, be nice to his mother, don't nag at him, be a Suzy home-maker.
What if you handed him a list of the changes you need for him to make this marriage work? What would he say?
Why do YOU need to be the one to make the all changes? It's seems imbalanced.
Sara, isn't Retrouvaille, at least, all about mutual communication and change?
