I saw rocky rocky relationship and it caught my attention. Im going to offer my disclaimer straight off: Im a wife. Neither one of us are involved in 12 step recovery but Id like to share what I see in case it could help.
I think you’re on the money with assessment of your wife. She probably developed a set of unhealthy behaviors when you were not sober, and now the balance is all changed and she is freaking out !! I know you said you used Lifering and Im not familiar with it, but the article below is from Smart Recovery and it talks about the change in family dynamics. If you notice it points out BOTH people have to be willing to accept responsibility for trouble in the relationship and be willing to change and compromise.
Maybe your wife if trying to do it with the program she is attending, but is she MAKING PROGRESS? She sounds verbally abusive from what you depicted and I worry you will be inclined to stuff your feelings to keep the peace and I don’t think its healthy for your recovery, or for your marriage in the long run.
If you both work, its not fair of her to expect you to spend every Saturday watching the kids so she can leave and spend all day doing her recovery. She may feel like its justified because when you were using she had to carry an unbalanced load? I can understand those feelings, but it cant go on like this forever! Now you need balance, time as a family along with your respective recovery work. She is not seeing this from where I sit.
Can your counselor help?
My husband and I do family counseling together and I love it ! I think your wife is taking for granted the effort you are putting in to make things right. No, don’t try to interfere with her program because I think it will only make it worse and probably she will take it as your trying to control her. I would USE the counselor. It sounds like she has seen firsthand how aggressive your wife can be. Maybe you could make an appointment to talk to her alone and express your concerns. Does your wife do any individual counseling? Ill try to make this short, my husband went to rehab and came home for a visit at 30 days, he relapsed and I went crazy with hurt, anger, feelings of betrayal. His doctors then got me into my own counseling, and started us in family counseling and its made the difference. I started last year and stopped my individual about a month ago. I feel better and dont want to be stuck in a perpetual recovery. I have been exploring some at SMART recovery online because I find it filled with rational thought and it makes me feel encouraged reading there. I will go back to counseling if I feel like Im coming unglued again. I needed the 1:1 with someone who is professional, detached, and can set me straight with the facts. Reading your post, it sounds like your wife NEEDS it too.
Its all I wanted to say. I don’t know if you will be compatible going forward, but you have to be who you are, authentic self. No more yes dear and stuffing those feelings to keep the peace. Ask yourself if you want a marriage where you cant be YOU.
A look at how changes can affect a family.
The human being is a social creature. We have families, we have significant others, we have friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Once we have initiated and begun to make changes in ourselves it will have an effect on the "others" in our lives. These "others" will, in turn, have an effect on us as they respond to the changes we make.
Change will almost invariably create anxiety to some degree. How best to help, how best to minimize conflict and anxiety, how best to keep together the "good" in our relationships without allowing the natural "anxiety of change" to pull it apart?
This is a complex issue. This essay is intended only to bring to light a few of the factors involved and prompt further study and effort.
What follows are edited excerpts from "Chronic Anxiety and Defining A Self — An Introduction to Family Systems Theory", by Michael E. Kerr, published in "The Atlantic Monthly," September 1988. Dr. Murray Bowen, a professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center, seeing that the family is not a collection of autonomous entities but rather an interlocked emotional unit unto itself, developed the concept and perspective of "Family Systems".
One aspect that led to his conclusion of emotional interdependence and the family as a unit, was the observation that family members frequently function in "reciprocal relationships". For example, one member will act "strong" in the face of another's "weakness". This process was frequently played out with one member becoming anxious about what he or she perceived as a problem or potential problem in another. This anxiety then would tend to exaggerate the demeanor, appearance, and attitude of the anxious family member and further escalate a "Problem-Anxiety-Caretaker" cycle. This then results in a greater "caretaker" role which further enhances the "weakness" of the other. Each person becomes an emotional prisoner of the other, while giving a pseudo sense of togetherness.
Because of this and a number of other reciprocal relationship systems, it is suggested that it is important when making personal changes to also focus attention on the family unit and have strategies in place to address their needs. When one person makes a "change" in the family system it will have an effect on the other members' roles. Those effects may be subtle or intense and will create "stresses" in the others. If these stresses are not addressed in healthy ways, the family unit may break down or the personal change may not be successful.
Intense feelings when one family member is actively making changes are normal.
To navigate through the emotional challenges experienced by all members of the family when one individual is making a significant change (such as working on recovery from addiction) a well thought-out direction and tolerance of intense feelings is necessary. Otherwise, the individual making the change may well be inclined to give up the effort and restore the relationship to its previously uncomfortable but familiar state. The intense emotional challenges for the family members are fed by anxiety, the "fear of what might (or might not) be". The more people's responses are based on anxiety, the less tolerant they are of one another and the more irritated they are by their differences. They become more controlling or demanding and are less able to permit one another to be who they are. Feelings of overload, overwhelm, helplessness and isolation increase — along with feelings that are accompanied by the wish to have the responsibility removed. For example, the "problem-person" may wish to seek escape by resorting to substance use; the anxious "care-taker" may wish to seek escape by ending the relationship.
With these aversive possibilities people become more intent on getting others to do things their way. Frustration when others resist often leads to disappointment and anger, further increasing the likelihood of giving up or withdrawing.
Efforts to get others to change can result in escalating the "problem-person's" feelings of being criticized, becoming defensive, and resorting to counterattacks. The flames are fanned when each party blames the other for the conflict. Projection of one's feelings and attitudes onto another may also be used to relieve anxiety by allowing one to view the other person as the problem.
When people have difficulty dealing with family or other relationships, contacts are frequently kept brief and superficial to reduce the discomfort. However, when people deal with difficult emotional situations in this way, they are prone to become so emotionally invested in the success of any new relationships that they easily lose perspective and recreate problems in the new relationships that they thought they had escaped.
In addition, when people use distance or denial to manage their anxiety, they may lower their own anxiety level, but this may raise the anxiety in the other. So one may become more comfortable with oneself but increase the level of anxiety in the other. Such an outcome is a mixed blessing.
So, how to break this natural cycle?
When a family member can become more aware of his own part in whatever problems exist, become willing to assume responsibility for that part, and become more able to act on that basis, improvements in his functioning will no longer be contingent on someone else's "absorbing" his share of the family's immaturity.
It is a change in functioning that does not lead to the seesaw effect.