Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear 
I'd like to make a thoughtful comment, but I'm struggling to get past the phrase 'age-appropriate'. As someone who has never been 'appropriate' to their chronological age in any respect, it always comes across as reductive, patronising and ultimately dehumanising. It seems to me to be the product of a worldview which sees children not as distinctive individuals with unique preferences and aptitudes, but as mere larvae passing through 'developmental stages'. I consider it an affront to the dignity of all children and my teeth are set on edge every time I hear it.<p>OK, <thoughtful comment>.<p>If I expressed my deepest feelings to someone who was close to me, the most painful response I could imagine is "I don't buy it". If they spat at me or hit me, then at least they heard me, took me seriously and emotionally engaged with what I am saying. To hear "I don't buy it" is to be told "I don't recognise your feelings as valid", it is to be told "you don't matter, I'm the one in this relationship that decides what we feel about things". To hear "What can we do to give you the distance you need" is to be told what you need, not asked. When he said "I don't like what you've become", she didn't want to hear what he didn't like, she didn't want to engage, she didn't even acknowledge what he was saying, she just invalidated him and shut the discussion down with "I don't buy it".<p>There's a good chance I'm being grossly unfair, but I can't see anything but an emotionally manipulative woman, breaking the spirit of her husband by refusing to engage with him emotionally. I see a man who has had his every thought and feeling dismissed for years, who has become scarcely able to recognise his own emotional autonomy. When he says “You’re going to make me go into therapy. You’re not going to let me move out. You’re going to use the kids against me.”, I don't see paranoia, I see a man who had a damned good idea of what he was in for; Her only statements of any real meaning were to tell him “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”, “[do] anything but hurting the children and me” and “It’s not age-appropriate to expect children to be concerned with their parents’ happiness. <i>Not unless you want to create co-dependents who’ll spend their lives in bad relationships and therapy.</i>”. They all sound an awful lot to me like some things you might say in order to manipulate someone into not leaving by using their kids against them.<p>Of course we know nothing about their relationship prior to this incident and very little about it since, but I find what we do know to be deeply troubling. It seems to me that every aspect of this situation screams "PATHOLOGICAL NARCISSIST". She seems completely unable to recognise the thoughts and feelings of others, and seems to simply refuse to acknowledge the possibility that there is an objective reality beyond her own imagination that she is unable to control. As I said, I could be being grossly unfair, but everything about this story sits badly with me and I find it deeply worrying to see this woman unquestioningly lauded as wise and enlightened.<p></thoughtful comment>