Given her detachment and lack of concern for most other people in her life, why does Florence treat Saul with such patience and kindness?

Given her detachment and lack of concern for most other people in her life, why does Florence treat Saul with such patience and kindness? Why do you think she feels that "she was going to have to look out for him, as best she could, probably for the rest of her life"? (p. 116)

We are told it was out of pity, the old "Star is Born" story; wife's fame and talent eclipses that of her husband's. I couldn't understand how Florence could care at all for such an unlikeable person, with few (if any) redeemable qualities....all the while erecting a fortress to keep other family members at bay.

This was a strange relationship. Really couldn't get the gist of it. Maybe she felt guilty for ever marrying him in the first place. She didn't do him any favors by being reticent in telling the truth about his shortcomings. She thought she was being 'kind' but she wasn't really. Maybe this was some sort of strange power trip on her part. Have to chew on this for awhile.

Florence felt guilty for marrying Saul in the first place and so she makes the effort to be kinder to him to compensate for it.

For all her intellect, my take away was that Florence just couldn't stand up to her husband...Her feminism, somehow flew out the window when it came to Saul.
Her kid glove treatment could also be a compensation for her otherwise aloof relationships...

Truthfully, though, I found Florence Gordon a bundle of contradictions. Her sisterhood spirit was deep and she could only love those in that coterie...

I think she loved him in her own way. He needed a mother figure, and she accepted that role, although she didn't really mother her own son. Maybe she didn't think Daniel needed her to be that for him. Although she didn't necessarily understand Daniel's adult life choices, she did see him as an independent adult. She viewed Saul as a dependent child.

She state she wanted to be a mother, but not a wife. She is the feminist, but she marries so she can have a child. She is not following her own convictions.

I think Florence felt some sense of obligation to Saul. And, too, I think the memories of their early life together meant something to her.

It's almost a motherly attitude towards Saul. Florence seemed to feel guilty for being the more successful and stronger partner

I think she spent her early years with him and had a child. She may have felt guilty about leaving him as he seemed to be a pretty dependent guy

They did share a history and a child together. I do think that even though she was a cold person she did have feelings for her family.

We do not see much in the novel of what Florence and Saul were like when they were younger. I think we "grow into ourselves" as we age, and the choices we made when in our 20's are not likely the same choices we would make in later years. So Florence and Saul fell in love for some reason, enough to marry and have a child. I believe part of Florence's self-respect entails owning her past decisions and their consequences, of which Saul is one, so she will not completely dismiss of him in her present.

I agree with Pauj that she owns her past and he was, at least for awhile, a major part of it and the father of her child so she feels a certain responsibility for him. It was one of the things about her that I admired and for the most part her since of responsibility for the rest of her family and even her friends is a bit haphazard and mostly non-existent.

I don't think the author gave us enough of the background between Florence and Saul to judge her "kindness". I felt it was an act which then later made her angry. My question is how this relationship compares to Emily and Justin

They had once been married and had had a child. Saul was more dependent on Florence than she was for him, so she probably still felt a sense of responsibility.

I felt there was a combination of guilt for her star having surpassed his, and her own conflicted feelings about having married a man she knew was a cheater and then having grown enough to leave him for the same reason. As a woman born in a certain era she may also feel a bit of guilt for having left him and not "stood by her man" as his career declined.

Simple. She loved him, in her way. He was her partner during a time in her life that she was still coming into herself. They had a child. They are bound by that as well.

All the answers already given helped me to view the relationship between Florence and Saul with greater understanding. My impulsive answer is the same as jww's, that Florence felt guilty, but perhaps about marrying Saul in the first place. In marrying him, she did something that was not totally true to herself. I think Florence was one of those feminists who are better off not being married because she could not in any way control the results of marrying - her son's choice of career, his marriage to someone she didn't care about or for, the birth of their child, and her ex-husband's stagnant career.