In the case of my ex-wife, it was fairly stealthy. My ex-wife was (and probably is) desperate for approval. So anyone she doesn't "have" in her circle of people who accept her, she will bend over backwards to please. Before I was her husband, I was one of those people. She wanted to make me happy so that I would make her my wife. However, once she has that approval, it ends. The closer you are to her, the less effort she will make. That seems backward to me.

I also dated another severely selfish woman. In that relationship it was much like the sibling poster mentions. There were high expectations of me, but even minor expectations of her resulted in her playing the victim or making lame nonsensical excuses. There was no reciprocity, zero respect, and no concern for the relationship as its own entity.

What both these women had in common was a desperation for approval and attention from others. This need was so large that I could not possibly fill it and I was ultimately made to feel that I was only a giver of attention and a tool to aid in the acquisition of more attention from strangers.

This type of thing is very obvious to me now, but when I met my ex-wife I was much younger and pretty clueless about women in general.

Though I'm not who you responded to, I'd like to say that I certainly did see warning signs. Sometimes we fought over it, sometimes it made me seem petty (she'd tell me all about her day, but when she asked it seemed more of a token, and she'd get that 10,000 yard stare and eventually tell me she didn't need that kind of detail - and I'm not a long talker). In one instance she left me abandoned at school (frozen door at school), she wouldn't risk the 2 mile or so drive and told me to walk instead (situations being reversed she would have probably left me and I'd have been ostracized for abandoning her). There were many others, but the signs were all there, I think I just ignored them hoping things would get better, etc.