I think that what might be part of the problem with your wife is that she went from living at home to a marriage and mother and she became a homemaker. It used to be that was recognized as having value and respected. That is not the case anymore and people can be mean and critical calling these women as being dependent and lazy.

Women are expected to be much more in today’s world where they do it all and even independent and self sustaining. Now being a mother and full time home maker is so devalued that a woman can be encouraged to feel unfulfilled. These women are not sitting and watching soap operas and eating bomb bombs all day. Instead they get the children off to school, they plan the meals, they shop and do the laundry and greet the children when they come home and often drive them to soccer practice or ballet class or whatever the child has as extra activities.

It is possible a woman loses herself. It’s possible as her children get into their teens that there is a sense of loss. And some women combat daily stress with drinking wine at nite. Some women develop a problem and it is gradual until it becomes self medicating as an escape.

It’s not wrong to look for help and support type group. However, it can become a situation similar to expecting a first grader to enter a 6th grade class and suddenly be able to be a sixth grader.
A sign of this mismatch is when a woman begins inventing things to fit in.

No one JUST masters independence over nite. Also, stopping the use of alcohol as you have shared your wife doing doesn’t FIX the disease.

I think your wife knows you are not the problem. I think what she is trying to create is being a kind of free that she never really experienced before. She doesn’t realize she can be both either. I think she is trying to say, you a good guy but I need to just do me for a while.