Control or be a spectator?

I realized today that sometimes I try too hard, and sometimes I don't know when to quit! It started me thinking back about my past life and all of the mistakes I have made. You know what? I had to make those mistakes so I could learn about life and love. You know what else? I don't have the right to keep someone else from making mistakes too because they also have to learn. Why is that? Why can't we learn and pass it on down to our children and they to their children so we don't all go through the same stupid pain over and over? I don't know the answer to that but if I had listened to my father my life might have been much easier. If I have a son someday, his life might be easier if he listens to me, but I know he won't. He will mess up and be knocked down over and over just like I have been. He will learn and grow, or he will stay down and give up. My wife is new here in this country and of course things are much different here. I try too hard sometimes to protect her from our culture, and teach her. I think sometimes I offend her because I don't know when to step back and let her do it her way. Sometimes I think too much and I see too many ways to make mistakes, then I try to step between her and all of those mistakes so she doesn't make any of them. To me its common sense, but I think to her its controlling. I have to learn not to do that, no matter how much I love her and desire to protect her. I have to let her live and make mistakes and learn. It'll be hard to watch her fall when I know its going to happen and I don't know if I am strong enough to do that. What an awkward place I find myself in sometimes. If I don't speak up she may fall, and if I do speak up she may hate me someday for being in the way of her learning and experiencing life. She is young and I am not. I have had time to make more mistakes........ What to do. Anyone got a comment about this?