Quote: She told me, predictably, that I have to be comfortable with her saying "no." I told her that I have demonstrated that I am comfortable with this, but that I would probably do a better job if she said "yes" once in a while. ... She said that even though I thought I was comfortable with her saying 'no', I wasn't REALLY comfortable with it.
Comfortable? What exactly what would comfortable look like? Somehow you have been maneuvered into an impossible position where she assumes she gets to tell you "no" until you respond (for an indefinite amount of time) with a specific attitude (comfortable) and you're stuck trying to pass an undefined test.
Are there any other areas of your relationship where she gets to be the schoolmarm and you're placed in the recalcitrant schoolboy position? If so, I wonder if you shouldn't immediately "graduate" and remove yourself from that position. She's not your teacher, HD. And if she has placed (or you have allowed) her that position in other areas, you need to "fire" her.
I'm a big proponent of write first, discuss later. Writing gives you the opportunity to marshall your thoughts & feelings and present them in an orderly & complete manner. Conversations, especially well-worn ones, invariably end up incomplete as the participants give chase to some semi-unrelated rabbity issue only to look up and discover that they're miles away from the original issue.
