Ep363 – 5 Steps to Navigating Your Partner’s Emotional RelapseEp363 – 5 Steps to Navigating Your Partner’s Emotional Relapse
Untoxicated Podcast
Matt and Sherry talk through his recent emotional relapse in sobriety and focus on how Sherry protects herself while staying in the relationship. She shares five concrete strategies for partners facing similar emotional storms at home.
1:04:41•31 Aug 2026
5 Ways to Handle Your Partner’s Emotional Relapse
Episode Overview
- Taking a short respite or break from intense conversations can help a partner avoid constant exposure to emotional volatility.
- Conscious detachment and refusing to slide back into old codependent roles protects personal wellbeing.
- Not placating with reassurances you don’t believe prevents future resentment and keeps communication honest.
- Setting quiet boundaries around time, routines and emotional energy stops both people from sinking into the same pit.
- Practising self-care – exercise, sleep, nutrition and regulation tools – provides a stabilising example during the drinker’s emotional turmoil.
“I just was not going to let myself wallow in the misery with you and be in the pit with you.”
What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This conversation between Matt and Sherry Salis shows just how messy emotional relapse can look long after the drinking has stopped – and how a partner can stay sane through it. The episode opens with warm, funny reminiscences about Dolly Parton, setting a relaxed tone before shifting into heavier territory: Matt’s recent "emotional shitstorm" during a stressful project.
There’s no alcohol involved, but his anxiety, sleeplessness and irritability feel very familiar to anyone who’s lived with a drinker. As Matt puts it, he’s had "far more often than normal" thoughts of checking out with whiskey, even though he’s clear he isn’t on the brink of drinking again. Sherry’s focus is firmly on what this means for the partner. Drawing from writing she shared in their Echoes of Recovery group, she lays out five practical ways she’s responding.
She talks about the need for a pause or "respite" so she isn’t constantly absorbing Matt’s snapping and negativity, and admits she briefly slipped back into old codependent habits, trying to soothe him with sex and caretaking. From there, she explains how she chose to detach, stop placating with empty reassurances she didn’t believe, and set quiet boundaries – like getting up at her usual time instead of staying in bed with "sad sack" energy.
One standout line sums up her stance: "I just was not going to let myself wallow in the misery with you and be in the pit with you." Instead, she models self-care: exercise, decent sleep, better food, nervous system tools they teach in their groups. The episode is aimed at partners and former partners of drinkers, plus sober folks who still struggle emotionally. It’s frank, sometimes funny, and very practical.
Could these five steps give you a bit more breathing room the next time emotional chaos hits at home?
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