Hi AN - Just read through your thread...and, well...you strike me as a fixer...and sometimes the role of a fixer (which so many of us play here) just doesn't happen to work in a lasting way with someone that needs more validation.
You mentioned that you didn't need to GAL - and that made me wince a bit - not because I doubted you - but because I thought the same thing about me and my situation. I play soccer (fussball) on Sundays and would practice on Tuesday nights - I also run at least four days a week...and the problem here was that I didn't realize just what it meant for me to GAL - or to find myself...
Reading your thread, I just kept thinking that you're putting a lot of the "blame" for the situation on your W - and perhaps aren't fully considering what brought you (not both of you, just the singular you (du, dich, dir)) to this situation.
My W played the same games you're talking about - and also asked the same kind of yes or no questions. Dudess - in another thread - talked about no longer giving in to her H's questions that were framed with "authorized answers" - and it made a lot of sense to me...that said, I still think there's a lot of work to be done in all marriages in terms of validation - and listening without trying to fix things. Sometimes validation isn't about saying yes or no - but mores about just repeating what is said as a way of letting her know that you've heard what she's had to say...
Have you read the Divorce Remedy book? I found it just slightly more useful than Divorce Busting. Especially when rereading the book after being in my situation for over a month...oh...and in case you haven't come across it yet - read Coach's sticky post in newcomers:
