I guess the basic rule of thumb is, don’t presume to know how he feels, or what is the best solution for him. You can tell him the solution that you’d prefer (without dwelling on it), but let him know that he isn’t obliged to do it your way.
Thanks for the reminder. I agree that its best to not tell our S we "know" how they feel. I'm also even more gunshy about mentioning how I would handle the situation because it might trigger old feelings of resentment. I stopped doing this as best I can a long time ago because I used to force my way of doing things onto him (not maliciously, mind you) He came to resent this a lot (of course) and thought I was only concerned with how his decisions affected US or me. I had no idea he felt this way and yes, it led to a lot of misunderstanding- we got to be quite wrong about each other's motivations. It's like you said, it's better to just be on the same team .
