So I was writing a CMV on the topic of "emotional load" / "mental burden", with the thesis being that women's desire to control and exert power over men, especially on the domestic front, is the cause of the emotional load that they complain about. In other words, the effort that women exert to tell men what to do and otherwise manipulate their behavior causes their "mental stress" (and indeed it causes mental stress for men too because men don't enjoy being nagged and manipulated).

However, women often say things like they wish their husband would put in more initiative and make more decisions on their own. As if women hate making all these decisions, and keeping their husband / boyfriend in line stems from the fact that he didn't take charge and she had to.

Of course the way I see it, most women want men to make the same or similar decisions that they would make. So it's not like men have free reign to make whatever decision that they want. As a result, many men probably stop making decisions because they've grown frustrated with all their decisions being "wrong".

Ie,

"No matter what I say, I'm going to be wrong, so I'm just going to cede everything to my wife and let her make the decisions".

I'm not asking you to debate this specific point, I'm just stating what the background behind my question is. Like always, I imagine there's a little more to it.

So the question is, as a woman, what do you really mean when you say you want men to make more decisions or take more initiative?

Bonus questions: How much leeway does he really have to make decisions if he tries to? Do you go along with it, or do you make your disapproval obvious when you're upset about his choices?