Hi -
As far as the serenity prayer goes, I suspect that you need acceptance of the fact that it could take a while to show your wife that you are willing and able to change. And the courage to focus on your own recovery and change. The step work is all about change, and without changing it will be very hard to make those living amends to your wife, especially if she is being prickly.
Are you doing step work with a sponsor? If so, it's worth having a good chat with them about this. They'll know exactly where you are with your recovery work and be able to guide you with this in mind. If not, it's really worth thinking about doing them. Those Promises really do come true, and will help you either with the relationship as it rebuilds, or the loss if it does, sadly, break down.
There are a number of things that help me when there is potential for my partner and I to be at odds (he still drinks heavily at the weekends, which could easily cause arguments if I allowed myself to get drawn into them).
1) I was told, that in most cases where there is bad feeling, I need to either apologise or forgive. Sometimes both. (At that stage I was still at a stage where most of the time I couldn't tell which was the case, so my sponsor often got called for advice on this). I have always struggled with apologies - they scared me. They always seemed like giving someone an invitation to judge me. And I never believed that any judgement of me was likely to go well. ) Anyway. I have got better at making apologies (and meaning them
) . Forgiveness was also something I always found tricky - my memory has generally never been great, apart from with regards to those times that I have felt wronged or that someone was being mean - then my memory is elephantine. Anyway, the step 4 work around resentments really helped me with that.
The resentment prayer is something that I use a lot, and find extremely effective...
RESENTMENT PRAYER:
God, I have a resentment towards X that I want to be free of.
So I am asking you to give X everything I want for myself.
Help me feel compassion; understanding and love for X.
I pray that X will receive everything they need.
Thank you for your help and strength with this resentment.
I also start each day with a 'Do it Anyway' prayer - just to remind me about what I need to accept, and what I need to change. And if conflict or hurt feeling arise in the course of the day I go back to it again ...
God, help me to accept that people may be unreasonable and self-centred. Let me forgive them anyway.
Help me to accept that if I’m kind, people may accuse me of ulterior motives. Let me be kind anyway.
Help me to accept that if I find happiness, people may be jealous. Let me be happy anyway.
Help me to accept that the good I do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Let me do good anyway.
Help me to accept that I may give the world my best, and it may never be good enough. Let me give my best anyway.
God, help me to remember that it is between you and me. It was never between me and them anyway.
In the past, if me and my partner argued, the only way for us to get over it was to wait til we woke up the next day (that seems crazy now). And I now see that it wasn't him making that so, it was me. (Oop.
) So, part of my living amends is to be ready and willing to apologise, or accept his apology and start the day afresh straight away. This is pretty difficult for me, so I make this part of my morning meditation / prayer...
'...Throughout the day, sharpen my awareness so that I can start my day again any time I choose. Keep me mindful, ready to forgive, and remembering to place principles before personalities in all areas of my life. Let me be wary of taking offence, and remain free from the shackles of my fears and ego... '
Initially when I went sober, my partner found all that 'change' quite threatening. We'd always been drunkards together. Now I was going home early, and going to meetings and making friends with people he didn't know. And even though some of my old behaviours weren't necessarily 'desirable' (ahem), I suppose there is a certain comfort in familiarity and being able to predict someone's reactions. However, now (19 month sober) my partner says that I am a much easier person to be with now. We have gone from being quite cold / distant to him telling me a number of times every day how much he loves me, and giving me spontaneous hugs.
There is always hope. Just keep your side of the street clean. She might be feeling scared and threatened, or resentful, or whatever. Let the counsellor work that one out, and keep doing your bit. When is your next counsellor session? Hopefully she will have had some time to think about how the pair of you could go about adapting your two differing communication styles so that there is less room for misunderstanding to arise and resentments to fester.
I hope things get smoother for you soon.