Mr Nice Guy,

Thanks for sharing above. It is definitely a tough situation for both of us one would appear. How'd you feel about leaving the room? It is difficult for me to do because I honestly feel that she wanted to fight in the first place.

As far as my situation since last time I checked in, things have improved in terms of minimizing the DJ's and SD's for sure. She read the first 20 pages or so of Love Busters, so she gets it. She still fires some daggers at me particularly when she is grumpy. My two real concerns are the following:

Emotional Needs: I told her a couple days ago that I intentionally hold back in meeting more of her emotional needs than I already have been because I feel a since of inequity in this endeavor. I clearly am putting in way more effort in meeting her needs than the other way around. In fact aside from it just being more pleasant around the house, I see almost no attempt to meet my emotional needs at all and it really bothers me. I also told her that she has been the taker long enough and I have no desire to be her "whipping boy" and do whatever she tells me to do anymore. I also said this WILL happen and she can work with me to make it easier on both of us.

Blaming: This isn't going away at all. My wife refuses to take responsibility for anything and its completely ridiculous. Here is an illustration of just how bad it is. I asked her if she would make dinner two nights ago if I went to the store and bought some stuff for tortilla soup and enchiladas. I do 98% of the cooking so this was unusual, but she agreed and was happy to do so. Btw, her cooking is not an emotional need for me at all. So the soup and enchiladas were both lousy on her own admission. I comforted her and said it was delicious, but eventually assessed it with her honestly because it wasn't really a matter of opinion if it was good tasting or not! So later that evening she said, "The reason the dinner was bad was because I was in a bad mood and the person that published the recipe online was an idiot."
This is how far she takes it all day every day. I don't know if it is just an annoying habit or not. It seems to me to be more serious than that. It makes marriage difficult when one spouse never takes responsibility for anything if she doesn't want to. Like I mentioned before when my four and six year old start to do it I hold them accountable at each turn and let them know it is unacceptable. So whenever we have a disagreement she projects whatever it is on to something or someone else, usually me. My wife goes through life knowing that she has an out or excuse for literally everything. She has time for gardening, lots of television, shopping online, etc, but she has no time for reading LoveBusters or her husband. But she says, "Its not my fault, the kids are with me all day."
I guess this is a process and I'm not discouraged to the point of not trying, but I need to demand(somehow unselfishly) that she join me in this goal of bringing love back into our marriage. She is the Taker so she's not in any hurry I suppose.

One more thing, how can stop doing everything she asks me without it being an obvious attempt at some form of equity in our relationship? She asks me to do all these things because lets face it, I do them. Why would she stop?