Can't offer any insight on how to resolve our validating and even facilitating their need to D and our conflicting desire to stay M. You know in my case I validated her feelings on D and did nothing to stand in the way of it. It didn't do any good in stopping the D train. So I can't offer any useful suggestions. Preserve what you can of the R. That might be all you have left despite your best effort.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
