I'm not sure if this is helpful but it was a huge 'aha' for me in my own recovery.....
I have to share this story then I will explain why I found it so helpful -
For the longest time I had a huge problem with my husbands shampoo...not logical, didn't make sense, but I felt anger, stress, anxiety when I smelled it. I asked him to change it but he wouldn't...why should he there was no logic behind why he should. Then, while sitting in a class learning about post tramatic stress syndrome and how it can impact my students (I'm a teacher) they talked about triggers - smell being the strongest and most common trigger. That when someone is triggered they are brought back into the trauma of all the emotions but not necessarily the actual memory. Then, while sitting in this class, hearing this information....I smelled his shampoo (even though it was nowhere around). The room appeared to darken around me and all I could see, hear, smell, feel was when he used to have seizures due to his drug use and I held his head in my lap. The sweat from his head, moistened his hair filling my face with the smell of his shampoo...BINGO! That is why I felt angry, stressed, and anxious when I smelled his shampoo.
The reason I'm sharing this story is to remind us all that sometimes we have triggers that don't make sense and we don't understand. Addicts can more easily identify their triggers to use because the result is 'using' which is black and white, either you do or you don't. Codependents are triggered with feelings...and feelings are in our everyday, we don't know if they are real, appropriate, timely, or a response to a trigger. And if 'we' don't know that, the recovering addict can't possibly know that. It is going to cause crazy feelings and reactions to fly at unpredictable times. It is going to cause us to jump into 'fight or flight' reactions, especially when it has to do with our children.
Calabash, although walking away from an agruement may be wise, you never know if it is a trigger for her. I know it would be for me because when my husband walks away from an agruement it means he is going to avoid it, drug himself out for days, then so I don't rock the boat when he comes out of it, I drop it - issue never dealt with.
My advice is to avoid thinking that your wife's reactions will be logical, that she will understand what she is feeling or why she is feeling it....but respect her feelings because they are real. As codependence, we survive, we take care of all the pieces as the addict crashes our lives apart. We appear to be able to handle anything and everyone starts to expect that from us....when normal life starts to reappear is when 'we' start to see and feel the damage that has happened.
Not sure if that made any sense, or if it is helpful at all.