How to Navigate a Half-Sober Relationship

Michael Houtz

Jenifer Levy, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in addiction issues, compares abstaining to “developing a new identity.” It is, she says, “a new way of being in the world. A new way of being with yourself and with others.”

In many cases, this transformation introduces changes to one’s romantic relationships. This can take endless forms, but one common situation is a partner who decides to get sober and stay in a relationship with someone who hasn’t made that choice. This can be a source of strain: For example, discordant alcohol use between partners—one person drinking heavily, one person not—was predictive of martial “disruptions” according to one study, even more than heavy drinking in general.

This does not at all mean that half-sober relationships won’t work. There is ample evidence showing just how much families and close social networks matter when it comes to getting and staying sober. When asked to “describe the most significant experience(s) that helped you start and maintain your recovery,” the second-highest answer—given by 30% of those surveyed, behind only negative consequences of substance use—was the support of peers, friends, family, and romantic partners.

I spoke to experts and people who are in recovery with not-sober partners about what works and what doesn’t. Pretty much everyone—anecdotally and scientifically—agrees that partner support is crucial to sobriety and recovery, even if that partner isn’t sober.

Communicate.

Being and staying sober requires a lot of vulnerability and a willingness to open up to your partner. Emily Ehrens, a social worker and therapist who specializes in recovery, put it at the top of the list of what couples need for one of them to remain successfully sober. “Oftentimes, we want to think that our partner can read our mind or know exactly what we need,” she explained, but she encouraged partners on either side of the equation to be proactive and check in with each other.

One question she suggested is, What is it you need from me in order to feel more supported in this chapter of your sobriety? “Sometimes, early in sobriety,” she cautioned, “you might not know what you need, but that's where you use mutual understanding to try to figure that out together.”

The hardest parts don’t necessarily last forever.

Virtually everyone who is in recovery will tell you how much better being sober has made their life; they will also tell you how difficult the first year of sobriety was. One survey found that during the first year of sobriety, happiness and self-esteem decreased, even though they increased in the long term.

Also, you and your partner are doing something new, something that is likely to change a lot about how you interact with one another. As Ehrens put it, you might have to “grieve who you were in the relationship in which alcohol and substances were present,” in order to get to a better place currently. It’s OK to be sad that you can no longer split a bottle of wine, but it’s important to talk about and process those feelings rather than allowing them to fester.

Make and remake boundaries.

What you need for your sobriety is not going to stay the same across time and space and kids and vacations and open bar weddings and traumas and 40th birthdays. Dr. Levy asks patients questions like, What are your vulnerabilities? What might be high-risk situations for you? How might we navigate that with a partner? That could be the request to not drink at all when you’re together, or it might be for there to be no alcohol visible at home.

One person I spoke to, Cody (not her real name), is sober even though his wife is not. “One thing that my partner did that was really, really helpful was providing me the space to say, ‘I really cannot go to that dinner party tonight. There’s going to be a lot of wine and beer,’” he said, adding that especially early on, being able to turn down invitations to situations that might put his sobriety at risk without judgment, or without making him feel like he’d ruined her night, helped a lot. Seven years into his sobriety, he doesn’t often feel the need to skip events where alcohol is present. As sobriety and recovery change, so too will your boundaries and what you need.

Watch out for resentment.

People I spoke to who were sober said that early on they occasionally resented their partner’s relationship with alcohol and drugs. “I really missed booze and drugs, and I harbored a little resentment that she was still able to drink and do stuff that I couldn't,” Cody said. Corrine (not her real name), echoed that sentiment, saying, about her non-sober husband, “It's like a tinge of resentment that I can't have the same relationship with substances.” Part of avoiding resentment is being honest about it when it comes up and trying to be honest about what you need in the moment.

Don’t over-monitor each other.

Corrine described finding herself occasionally monitoring her husband, who does not struggle with addiction, when he drinks in a way that she deems “not casual.” Although she knows that “if I really investigate it, I think there’s a part of me that wants to be able to do that. I’m projecting my own experience with drugs and alcohol on him.”

It isn’t the non-sober person’s job to watch out for temptation or relapse or to monitor the sober person’s behavior; it’s also not the sober partner’s job to ensure their partner’s relationship with substances is never ever unhealthy. Both people have to make individual choices.

Find outside support.

One thing that can be difficult for partners where one person is sober and the other isn’t is feeling like there’s a lack of shared experience or language. “I think there are times,” Corrine said, “when my husband probably feels left out because I have a pretty big network of people that do speak the shorthand.” Still, she’s grateful that he’s surrounded by a lot of people in recovery, including most of his best friends. Cody went to an outpatient rehab program for a few months and said he found that he was “a lot more comfortable talking with people in my group and counselors” about certain things and that “it was easier to express things with people who were also addicts.”

Related to this, multiple people I spoke to brought up Al-Anon. Founded by the wife of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon is, in its own words, a “worldwide fellowship that offers a program of recovery for the families and friends of alcoholics, whether or not the alcoholic recognizes the existence of a drinking problem or seeks help.” These meetings could make sense for your situation.

Accept each other’s growth.

It can be difficult for any couple when one person seeks some type of personal growth—it can feel like the other partner is stagnating or resisting. It often leads to feelings of superiority or, again, resentment. Corrine mentioned occasionally feeling like she’s done deep inner work on herself while feeling like her husband isn’t forced to confront his past behaviors and traumas. Ehrens pointed out that she sometimes sees people who get sober “start to just kind of be unattracted to their partner,” especially when they drink—even in moderation—“because it’s no longer what they’re doing and who they’re surrounding themselves with.”

Corrine said that “the ultimate goal is to feel okay, no matter what he’s doing.” She finds that she’s most critical of her husband’s growth when she’s struggling herself, and that recently they’ve been doing much better; she’s been working to approach her own feelings with curiosity instead of judgment. “When I’m doing the shit I need to to be in recovery—going to meetings, working with other alcoholics, working on myself—I’m able to respect his journey. I’m able to recognize that he’s a human having his own experience.”

Originally Appeared on GQ