I believe it happened for me when I worked through the Acceptance stage in my recovery.
There are 3 stages of recovery:
Awareness
Acceptance
Action
You appear to be aware of your situation: Wife is alcoholic, in denial, and (a list of unacceptable behaviors).
I had the awareness of how unhealthy my marriage had become. I was accepting unacceptable behavior from my life partner. Yet I continued to hold onto magical thinking that maybe it could change, if only.......
Breaking free of the magical thinking involved facing my reality.
The reality that my partner did not respect me, our family, our life.
My partner valued his lifestyle. period.
We no longer shared the same values.
I was powerless to change his values.
I was powerless to change his behaviors.
I was powerless to change him.
With time I finally grew from magical thinking to seeing my reality. That is when my confusion stopped. I faced my reality. I accepted my reality.
It was liberating and painful to accept my reality. My SR family and my Alanon family helped me through the process.
Then I was ready to take action.