How do you navigate holidays and family gatherings when your spouse's recovery is still fragile?

Something I don't see discussed much here: the specific weight of holidays and big family events when you're both trying to hold things together.

My spouse is a few months into recovery, and normally I'd say we're doing okay day-to-day. But this past week, with extended family in and out of the house, old patterns of stress crept back in for both of us. Not a relapse, but a noticeable tightening, more distance, more of that old walking-on-eggshells feeling I thought we'd moved past.

What's made this hard to talk about is that from the outside, everything looked "fine." We hosted, we smiled, nobody would have guessed anything was going on underneath. But privately, I felt myself slipping back into hypervigilance, watching his phone habits a little too closely, reading into who he was talking to at the table. And I know that's the trauma response talking, not necessarily reality, but knowing that doesn't make it stop.

I'm curious how others handle these higher-stress, higher-visibility periods, when you can't just cancel plans or disappear for a while to protect the recovery bubble you've built at home. Do you talk to your spouse beforehand about what support you'll each need? Do you build in check-ins during the event itself? Or is it more about accepting that some setbacks in stress and communication are normal during these times, without treating it as a sign that the whole recovery is unraveling?

Would really value hearing how people who are further along in this process have learned to protect both their own peace and the relationship during the moments that don't get talked about as much, the ordinary, high-pressure family stuff rather than the big crisis moments.