The Steps and Relationships in Recovery---Concluding Post

Most married folks in AA have very happy homes. To a surprising extent, AA has offset the damage to family life brought about by years of alcoholism. Permanent marriage breakups and separations are unusual in AA.
12 Steps and 12 Traditions

Would that the above statement were as true today as it may have been when written more than fifty years ago. It would be wonderful if going to meetings, getting a sponsor and working the steps were all that is needed to have a happy home in recovery. But my experience as a marital therapist as well as my observations as an active member of AA tell me otherwise. Working the steps is a necessary part of finding marital happiness in sobriety, but for most couples today it is far from being sufficient. Making relationships work in recovery requires more knowledge and skills than can be gained simply by working the steps.

Making any marriage work requires much more effort these days than it did when 12 Steps and 12 Traditions was written. During the Fifties, divorce was not seen as a real possibility for most couples even when partners in a marriage were deeply unhappy with each other. In such circumstances husband and wife often separated emotionally, living parallel lives, but they were less likely to separate physically and even less likely to end their marriage altogether. Nor was living together without being married viewed as a viable option by most couples a half century ago.

The Sixties and Seventies saw a major change in societal attitudes and practices regarding marriage and divorce. If one or both partners came to feel that their differences were insurmountable and remaining together was too painful emotionally, then separation and divorce became the solution for many couples. Although the divorce rate has diminished somewhat in the last two decades, it remains substantially higher today than it was for the parents of the Baby Boomers. As a result, staying married has become an ongoing choice, not an obligation---and that means that all couples, in recovery or not, have to acquire the skills and outlook that make it possible to stay together when the going gets (or has been) rough.

I suspect that the AA marriages Bill W was talking about in 12 Steps and 12 Traditions were not quite as happy as Bill stated. First of all, I wonder how happy and close Bill and Lois actually were in view of Bill's continuing extra-marital affairs. But more important, I wonder how accurate Bill's perceptions were about the marriages of other early AA members. I can't tell you how many times in the last 25 years a husband/boyfriend has urgently called my office requesting a first meeting ASAP because his wife/girlfriend has just announced she wants to end their relationship---in the initial counseling session I invariably hear the woman talk about how she has long been unhappy about the relationship and has repeatedly voiced that dissatisfaction, but the husband/boyfriend seemed unable/unwilling to hear her unhappiness until she had reached the point of no return and was ready to walk out the door. So I have become a bit suspicious when a guy in recovery pronounces his relationship as happy and free of problems unless I have also heard the same thing from his wife/girlfriend. We men seem to have a huge blindspot when it comes to accurately perceiving the state of our intimate relationships.

And that brings me to the next issue I want to talk about in this blog: gender. Men and women really are different, and those differences are significant when it comes to making a relationship work in recovery.