ZBube- thanks for that informative reply. It's interesting that in your desire to be "peers" with your W, you have in effect, made yourself her subordinate. By not asserting yourself, you've made her the boss.
My H used to do this with me. I used to tell him, I don't want to be the CEO of this relationship. He would always defer to me. He had been married to a "my way or the highway" kind of woman for almost 30 years, and couldn't get used to being any other way. He assumed that I knew what was best and that I had thought things through and never challenged me. When he would always leave things up to me (he was an enneagram 9), I would feel so abandoned and alone.
There were times when I made some really bad decisions and he saw me doing it and knew it was wrong, but assumed I had my reasons and knew what I was doing, so he didn't say anything until afterward! He didn't do it to be mean-- I don't believe he had a mean bone in his body. He REALLY felt it was wrong for him to challenge me or assert any authority.
What I wanted was to be able to discuss how to handle certain situations. For me to propose an idea and for him to counter with another idea and for us to work it out. But once I proposed an idea, he'd just back off and wouldn't make any more suggestions. I guess like you he didn't feel his opinion should be worth any more than mine. But in effect he was saying his opinion was worth less than mine.
It's part of that thing where I used to accuse him of hiding safely in the bushes while I was standing in the clearing making myself vulnerable. This was something we never worked out.
The karmic payback is that my bf challenges everything I say! I really have to have my backup data, reasoning process, or citations from the newspaper or internet to back up even casual comments. What a switcheroo-- but you know what? I prefer it. I like that engagement where we can really hash things out.
When you're with Mr. Nice Guy, it can get kind of lonely.
