Me: 47 WW: 36 (serial cheater)T: 17 M: 14 3DDs: 15, 5, 4 Reconciled

Driver's Permit

So my daughter is fifteen and is set to start a driver's education course and receive her driving permit. I personally think she is not emotionally mature enough to have such responsibilities but my wife disagrees. My daughter is very impulsive and while she has made great strides over the past few years with impulse control and making smart decisions, I do worry about her using haver her license in the next year as a way to act cool. She has self-esteem issues and is easily influenced by others. While I agree that we can still maintain control by not getting her a car, and only allowing her to use ours at our discretion, and a lot can happen in a year when she can get her full license, I can't help but feel like postponing would be the best option. Any advice?

5 comments posted: Friday, February 10th, 2023

Update: We are making progress after a rough year

After over a year of our marriage being in a funk, we are finally finding new grounds. I have really done some soul searching in my severe codependency. I have finally come to a realization that I have always put myself in a position where I needed to have some kind of control over the outcome. I wanted to be able to fix everything. I wanted to protect my wife's feelings even over my own. I knew I had these issues but it took my wife telling me that I needed to stop. That I needed to be selfish otherwise I was just going to let myself drown. It was hard to distinguish between being a supportive husband and treating my wife Paternally. If I can make her life easier without affecting my emotional well-being, I will do it. But if it is something only my wife can fix, I've slowly learned to just let her deal with it.

She has become more forthcoming. She finally told me that she didn't want me to give up a relationship with my family, my friends, or our children because of her. My mother has been very critical and downright mean to my wife. My wife says she accepted that, but at the end of the day, that is our children's family. She says that I might have believed that this was what I want, but that deep down the estrangement stems from me wanting to protect her. While there is a lot of hurt and distance because of the lack of boundaries with my mother, I do understand now what she means.

We have also started to make an effort to do weekly date nights again, even if we aren't in the mood. We are planning a night every week to sit and discuss our week, again even if we don't feel like it. It's been a few weeks and I've noticed a difference in our communication. We had lost our way, but now making it a habit, like it had been before to connect emotionally to one another. There is still something lacking, but we are taking steps to address it. The thoughts of divorce are no longer on the table at this time.

4 comments posted: Wednesday, July 13th, 2022

Love is a Choice by Lynn G. Robbins

My wife picked up this book and wants me to read it with her. Has anyone heard of it? Is it recommended?

She has been reading a lot on her own, and doing a lot of digging. The last book she brought to me to read was the 5 love languages which I found useful.

[This message edited by FamilyMan75 at 2:33 PM, March 4th (Monday)]

0 comment posted: Monday, March 4th, 2019