Nah. If you're talking about Jacob I think he gets it just fine.

This approach is good in many ways but it misses the fact that sometimes people do overreact and that the issue isn't always solved by the partner bending over backwards and doing everything for their partner.

I'll give an example. My dad used to do the vast majority of cleaning, cooking and educating us kids, while also being a full time doctor, because my mum was chronically ill. He would bend over backwards for her, never challenge her, to the point that even when she was clearly irrational or even abusive to us kids, or abusive to him, he wouldn't stand up to her.

She wouldn't just get angry with him over minor things, but with us kids. She told me I had a personality disorder because I didn't clean my room quickly enough for her. She would make huge performative guilt trips for anyone who did anything she considered remotely hurtful, including accusing me of deliberately putting her life at risk because I didn't check the back door was locked when I left for uni through the front door one day (we live in Australia in a safe neighbourhood with no guns). The list of things she would blow out of proportion was so long I can't go through it all here. But I tried so hard to be the perfect daughter. I walked on eggshells. I tried to show initiative and clean things without being asked, to show her my love and care. And nothing would work. Because the issue wasn't really about me or about Dad or any of us kids. It was her deep seated emotional issues that hadn't been resolved and which she refused to resolve by going to therapy.

And yes, she initiated the divorce.

In this example would my dad be right in thinking it was his fault? That he didn't try hard enough? No.

There needs to be reciprocity. There needs to be an understanding of human fallibility. There needs to be a willingness to communicate and to also treat your loved ones with good faith and not assume the worst of them every time.

Without that, the most attentive person in the world will never be enough.