Here's the thing PMD, I think many of us, myself included, have wives that have had "terrible" things happen to them in the past. I am by NO means assuming I know what things your W has gone through, but I am just suggesting that there are always bad things that complicate most of our situations and predisposition us to be sympathetic to our wives, even beyond the normal "love" factor. It's what makes detaching SO hard, because we have become SO used to being there for them and managing their emotions for them. Hell, I still do it today and I KNOW BETTER.
There is a fine line between being a supportive, loving husband and something much worse. I know I have been the "much worse" variety for much of my marriage, really not helping my W at all but allowing her to get worse at times because I was unwilling to have my OWN emotions and feelings about things.
I say all this because I feel like you are beating yourself up over not being the right way or doing the right things in support of your W. That may be true but right now, you can't make up for that. She has to do some things on her own, and it would be great if one of those things was to accept the past and not ascribe all of it's negatives to you. The problem is that you can't make her do that so the best you can do is to try to identify that which you want to improve on and do so, letting her take care of herself.
She is falling into the trap of self-loathing or thinking that nothing is ever good enough, don't you do that too.
