Why not?

[AlexEN]

Oh, and it is really hard not to point out how he his duplicating his own father's behavior...behavior that hurt him so deeply.

I'm already a know-it-all. It is hard to watch something so stark and not say something. But it is really none of my bees wax.

A&K, those are great observations... Flip the roles and you have my sitch with W... It's one of those things that when we were younger, we appear to have had more insight into than we do now. When W and I first got married, we joked with each other that if I ever became like my father (an emotionally removed workaholic), she should remind me of the things I said I wouldn't do and if she were ever to become like her mother (verbally abusive, overbearing and completely ego-centric), I was to do the same...

Oversimplifying things, over time we each became what we said we wouldn't, neither one wanting to admit that we were going down these dangerous paths (which we each knew the other didn't want). It took the 2X4 of the ILYBINILWY (well before I even knew of her affair(s)) for me to come to the conclusion she was right; I had taken my own vow to myself (not to be like dear old dad) literally, and while I was available to the kids physically (being around more), I was just as removed "emotionally" as was he because I just brought my work home with me. So, while I wish her tactics had been different, I have come out of this a better father than I was before...

On the other hand, I believe she still believes she isn't becoming her mother because she "knew" to avoid it, too (just as I did, yet I still ended up there). Her mother's behavior that hurt her so deeply (and from which she is still trying to escape) will, unless she gets a 2X4 likely take her down the same path with her children... and that is a terrible tragedy. Everytime she says something to them that sounds like what her mother said to her I WANT to say something, but I've finally come to the same conclusion you have, but with a slightly different twist... I think it IS my business, as the children's well-being is my interest, but I just can't do a d*mn thing about it... And, if I were to speak "my piece" it would only make things worse.

I can work on me (dreading the conversation with the kids), but if, and only if, she ever realizes that she is "flawed", too, can she preserve her R with them. I cannot tell her that -- just as our changes have to come from within, so to do those of the WAS. We can, a la Thinker, be there as "partners" if we choose, but we cannot force our "truths" upon them.

-AlexEN