TLDR: my partner is newly sober (5 months) and I’m not sure if the issues we are having are due to his newfound sobriety or him as a partner. I care for him very much and want to make it work but don’t know if it’s worth it. What is some advice so I don’t lose myself in this? (He and I have personal therapy but he says he is not ready for couples therapy.)
My partner is a recovering alcoholic. He struggled with alcoholism for the past 5+ years and reached the milestone of 5 months of sobriety recently but our relationship has worsened.
He’s become more sensitive about almost everything. Last night I made a joke about not knowing the age of a coworker we once worked with 8 years ago and he instantly shut down with “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He’s also more critical of many of my actions. Some of the smallest things. Examples being he doesn’t want me responding with “ok” because it makes him self conscious.
On top of that, he’s no longer physically affectionate with me anymore as he has shared that he currently doesn’t feel comfortable doing that.
He says he wants to work to make our relationship better which is why he acts like this and he is much more in control of his emotions as well as does try to give me some words of affirmation when we aren’t arguing or in a state of discomfort. I don’t know if this is a result of his sobriety or if this relationship is just failing.
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It could be part of the sobriety process. He could also be doubting the relationship, now that he’s more clear-headed. Unfortunately it’s impossible for us to know.
It sounds likely to be a result of whatever caused him to be prone to addiction in the first place. Has he been getting therapy on healthy coping mechanisms and distress tolerance as part of his addiction treatment or is he purely focusing on quitting? Because if he doesn’t fix the underlying problem, you often end up with replacement problems. Dialectical behavior therapy would be my first choice for him, but cognitive behavioral therapy might be sufficient. You could also consider couple’s counseling as an option – it tends to be good at communication and working together as a team to get through things, but he needs to work on the underlying emotional regulation issues in order to really make progress with that.
It’s very likely that whatever feelings or issues he was handling via his alcohol use, or now coming to the surface. Many people think “I got sober! I’m fixed!” But it’s often more of a “I got sober! Now I have to deal will all that shit I was masking and avoiding… dammit.”
Times of transition are always difficult, and no one else can tell you if it’s worth it or not. Work with your therapist to figure out what your boundaries are.
He needs to extend more grace and the benefit of the doubt to you. If he doesn’t, he will always feel like you’re an opponent and attacking him no matter what you do. If you feel like you’re in a situation where nothing you do is “perfect enough” to appease him or manage his moods, then that is a situation to consider leaving.
Two years sober here: getting sober is a MAJOR life adjustment. When I quit drinking I had to relearn how to enjoy simple things like reading and watching movies without a drink in my hand. It’s hard, unrewarding (in the beginning, at least) work and that adjustment period made me cranky as hell. I used alcohol to numb the things that I didn’t want to deal with and getting sober took away my shelter and left me exposed to the irritating unblinking light of reality and it took quite a bit of getting used to. (It’s probably worth pointing out at this point that I did eventually get used to sobriety and am now much happy than I was when I was in the throes of addiction).
If he isn’t in therapy right now, I highly recommend it. In addition to regular therapy I did a twenty day session of outpatient rehab with cognitive behavioral therapy that taught me how to deal with both the frustrations of the newly sober life and the anxieties that led me to numb myself with drink in the first place. Have a talk with him about how you’re feeling and what the two of you can do together to make things work. Try your best to make the conversation not feel like an accusation, he is probably not his own biggest fan right now and criticism and accusations are only likely to make his mental state worse. Nine years of partnership is an accomplishment and if you can approach this as members of a team, you can hopefully make it work.
Best of luck.