Navy We are happy for you really, you two will finally have the reasons you need to truly change. Your W is effectively killing the goose the lays the golden eggs, she seriously needs to learn that lesson. If she doesn't well she never would have been a good W then and good riddance.
I think for you it's important to learn that you can give 1000% and still not get even 1% of what you gave.
Here's a little game theory example that worked wonders for me.
Ok so you have 2 prisoners, if neither confesses most likely both will get set free since there won't be enough evidence. If one confesses then he gets a light sentence and the other goes away for life, and vice versa. If both confess they both get medium sentences.
In this scenario it seems that it is in the best interest of both to tell on each other, if you try to play nice and keep your mouth shut you'll most likely lose out, because the other will most likely take the plea deal.
Ok so what does this have to do with marriage?
You can be nice to each other, or you can be jerks.
You can both be nice, and you get marital bliss.
Or you can both be jerks and hate your lives but most likely divorce.
Or (as is your situation) one can be nice, and the other a jerk. In this case the jerk wins because they get love and affection in exchange for nothing.
Ok now imagine this game is played millions of times in a marriage. Its called adding repetition. Navy, you've been losing out big time.
Ok so we know there will be repetition, and in the last game you were nice and your W was mean. She took advantage of you.
It is in your interest for the next time you "play" to NOT be nice. So if she is mean you in turn be mean (within boundaries of course). Let her know that when she plays nice you will be nice.
See in the past whenever she was mean she'd get nice so she had no incentive to change, so if you are "not nice" her mean will not get rewarded but rather punished.
On the other hand if she is nice, then next you return with nice, so she is rewarded and encouraged.
She now has an incentive to be nice because mean got her nothing, and nice got her everything.
In a nutshell nice guys get taken advantage of.
Now I realize it may be to late for your W, but hearing that your ex was also terrible shows that the common denominator is YOU. Consider changing it up in your future dealings with your W and other women.
