My SO is going through a phase (and he is easily old enough to know better) where I try to nail him down to a "yes" or "no" answer, to better resolve an issue.

First, he says, "I don't know."

so I come back with, "I get that you don't know. But are you leaning toward yes, or no?"

Then he will chant, as the children used to do when pressed for an answer when they were little, "Yes, no, maybe so, I dunno."

At that point, I give up trying to resolve the problem, and walk away. There must, surely, be a better way to deal with this lack of communication. Any ideas?

Hmm. I don't know.

:)

In my experience, there are usually only two reasons somebody won't "commit" to an answer:

a) they really don't know how they feel, and don't want to figure it out
b) they know how they feel, but are afraid you won't like how they feel, so they pretend to not know

Which of these applies in your case is up to you to figure out :)

I'm agnostic about this bifurcation.

Could he be honestly unsure?

I have dealt with several family members who (for disparate reasons) had mental impairments which came on gradually, but were often difficult to deal with in their later forms.

Could your S.O. be demonstrating some kind of early-appearing mental deterioration? Either something like Alzheimer's, or something like the consequences of a mini-stroke no one knew was happening when it happened?

You might want to try dating someone a little less immature. Good luck!

Give some examples of your questions