I hope and pray that my wife and I do not end up with a divorce. I do believe, though, that this website along with my counselor have provided some great insights on how my wife is feeling. As guys, we typically want answers right away and don't understand why things can't just be fixed. I mean, crap, if it's broken, you fix it right?
Well, I am learning that my wife does not operate that way, especially when emotions are involved. From the time we separated until we had our first good conversation was about 2 months. In the meantime, she was friendly and nice, but you could tell she was angry. I walked on eggshells around her and I guarded every word I said.
I guess my point being that my counselor told me to expect my wife to test me and that it may go on for a while. My wife has said being married to me at times felt like dragging dead weight. It feels horrible to hear that, but I let her talk and just listened. If our marriage does survive, I truly want to know how she feels.
My experience with all this is teaching me a couple of things 1)My wife feels like she's done most of the giving for a long time and wants to experience freedom from that, and 2)I've learned it can take weeks to months for some emotions to come into check, especially anger.
From my perspective, you calling your XW by her "new" last name is testing her in a way that will upset her. You don't necessarily need to do acts of service for her like you've been doing. But some things that I would do are call her by her first name and listen any time there is an opportunity.
For instance, one time my wife casually mentioned something small I did that irritated her. I asked her how it made her feel when I did that and she talked for probably 15 minutes about it. It was a very small thing in my book, but she had resentment that she had never expressed to me before! I am trying to make a habit out of those type of conversations where I do about 90% listening.
