Step Three, Part Three--Our will and our lives/willingness

It has been almost a year since I saw Bill and Jeanne. They came to me for couples counseling about 30 days after Bill had completed a 30-day residential treatment program. Bill was the one who initiated the contact because he urgently wanted to save his marriage. During our initial phone call, he indicated that Jeanne was fairly reluctant to come in, but was willing to give it a try.

From the outset it was clear that Jeanne had burned out on the marriage and felt quite distant from Bill. Bill, who was a powerful man with a good deal of career success at a fairly young age, kept trying, in the words of the 12x12, to "bombard the problems" of his marriage, insisting that Jeanne open up, make herself emotionally vulnerable, and work on their marital problems. Jeanne, who visibly flinched whenever Bill came on strong, kept talking about her doubts and her need for space in order to figure out whether she even wanted to be in the marriage.

After a couple of sessions, Jeanne said she was willing to keep coming back for more couples sessions, but she wasn't willing to make any longterm commitment to the marriage. Her unwillingness to make that kind of commitment spurred Bill on to try even harder to make the marriage work singlehandedly. He wasn't ready to bring his willpower "into agreement with God's intention for (him and Jeanne.)"

After about 4 months of weekly counseling appointments, Jeanne said she just didn't have any more willingness to continue. She couldn't give Bill the reassurances about their future that he seemed so desperately to need and she couldn't stand the fights they had almost every week about the issue. Even though she had wanted to wait a year before making a decision to stay or go and even though she was fearful of how their two young daughters would be affected by her decision to seek a divorce, she felt she had been pushed too hard to make a longterm commitment to the marriage before she felt ready to do so. Instead, she had come to the conclusion that it was necessary for her to end the marriage.

I generally try to discourage couples from seeking counseling to work on "their issues" during the first 6-9 months of recovery. Engaging in individual recovery by going to meetings, getting a sponsor, and working the steps takes a great deal of time and energy. Trying to deal with the emotional turmoil created by addressing the multitude of relationship problems during these early weeks and months of sobriety and recovery is usually counterproductive. Either it pushes one or the other partner to make an early decision to end the relationship or it pushes the alcoholic/addict into relapse--sometimes both events occur.

"Turning our will and our lives over to the care of God" means turning over your relationship to your Higher Power's care during the early days of recovery. Being willing to entrust your relationship to the care of your Higher Power frees you up to focus your energy on the primary task at hand--establishing a strong foundation of recovery. When that foundation has been securely established, then it will be time to ask for the willingness to tackle the often painful task of healing a relationship severely damaged by addiction.