Muddle, I briefly reviewed your previous thread and it seems like there was a lot of "don't do that" coming from us and you ended up feeling misunderstood.
Anyway, I truly feel for you with the whole "W wants me to be more assertive" part. I think my W wants that from me too but as you said, that goes against the DB "way" for the most part, or at least it seems like it would. I contend that it doesn't have to. My W's primary complaint was not that I was too passive per-se, but passive/AGRESSIVE and that is the issue. I have taken steps to remove this trait from my daily life with SOME success.
The bottom line is that you have to learn to make decisions without mentally or REALLY checking in with her. I notice that at the end of the post, you say that "It seems from her feedback that I should have just accepted that she is going to do what she is going to do and put up with whatever she does." Who gives a damn what her perspective is.
I am being dramatic, but to make my point. I am not saying you stop caring what she feels, but to be assertive AND DB, i.e. accept certain things that would normally signify a passive stance on your part, you need to make decisions in a vacuum. You need to be clear in your decisions and follow through with them, living with their consequences, OR changing your mind, but doing it because YOU want to, not because SHE tells you that you should have.
If you really want her to be free to figure this out on her own, then YOU need to do the same. You don't need to condone nor condemn anything she does, just live YOUR life according to the way YOU want to live it, accepting that which you cannot control. You tried that route, the controlling one, and I don't think it worked too well. Try the other one now.
Like I said, you CAN be strong and STILL DB, it just requires you to be CRYSTAL clear in your words and actions, something judging from your previous thread and this post, you have not really been.
This is not to say it's easy, and that you won't make mistakes, but it IS to say that this is a long process and you need to start working for the long-term.
All I am talking about is a fundamental shift in your thinking from WWMWWTD (what would my wife want me to do) to just thinking about you and what YOU want to do.
