It does seem very simple, yet when it comes to a person's sense of their own value there are many emotions experienced when that is challenged by another person. And when one's sense of personal value is challenged when they are just a child, the best they can do is to try and tune it out because a child has no idea what to do with the emotions they experience when a parent or parents challenge their personal sense of value. This can also be experienced from their piers and teachers as well. And a child is much too young to understand what projection is as most of the hurts they experience are projections from unhealthy indivduals, and that can include their own parents.

It's probable that your wife has abandonment challenges as well and part of the reason she has this need to dress up and flirt is because she needs to feel she has value to make up for lack of sense of value that can go way back for her. The same is true when you forgot her order or dates and times, she gets triggered. People can get pretty defensive and stubborn about the things they choose to do that help them gain their sense of personal value and relevance.

Growing up I watched my mother put a lot of effort in getting dressed up to look nice. As a little girl I thought it was fun and I loved seeing her get all dressed up. Yet, when she came down the stairs and my father saw her all dressed up he never once smiled and told her how nice she looked. Instead he looked for a way to find something wrong, a little spot, a hanging thread, anything to deflate how wonderful she felt. It was a terrible thing for his little girls to witness. The reason he did that with her is that it made him feel threatened because when he was around 12 his mother ran away and abandoned her two children. Yet, when I was a child I did not know about that, it was not talked about. Truth is that most of the unhealthy things I witnessed take place between my parents was connected to how my father was abandoned by his mother. My father was very controlling of my mother. So he normalized behaviors that were actually unhealthy. Often this can lead to a daughter picking the wrong partner too due to things that are familiar, when these things instead should be considered red flags of a potentially unhealthy relationship.

It's unfortunate, but one of the things individuals do when they want control is they use methods to devalue the other individual. Yet, at the same time many individuals can grow up in environments where they are emotionally neglected and devalued in some way. And some of this is projection but as I mentioned, a child isn't capable of understanding what that means. This can contribute to that individual struggling with cognitive dissonance where they are haunted by good thoughts and bad thoughts that affect their personal sense of value that developed in them from their childhood. This tends to be accompanied by anxiety and even depression. And as I mentioned earlier, other emotions that bubble up that a child has no idea what to do with. And thus forms a habit of stuffing these emotions or even seeking self medicating like alcohol use to bring some form of relief.

I see you are trying to work on these challenges that bubble up and cause you so much distress. And I know you desire to find a way to explain to your wife what it means to you to struggle with these emotions and you desire her to empathize and comfort you and help you feel "safe" and "loved". Well, unfortunately a lot of people lack the depth to do that, and many do have their own challenges with self worth. That's really the common problem when it comes to relationship challenges. A good therapist takes time learning about the things that contribute to personal challenges in each patient, then the goal is to help a couple work on interacting with each other where each one feels valued and respected and improves on their behaviors and communication with each other.

With your exwife, that would not work, she was only interested in her own needs and doesn't have the capacity to care about how others feel. That was never anything you could change about her either. Yet, as with your parents, she left you with some deep wounds, emotional wounds that can come up when your wife now behaves in certain ways. If only she could understand that and change her behaviors that trigger these challenges you experience. If only she knew how hard it is for you to TRY and not feel all these feelings. And then there is that question of "does she value me enough to have interest in reducing that challenge her behaviors create". Yet, if she does this to gain a sense of her own value, that can be very hard to get her to stop doing too.