how do i recover the password that was used for my iPhone backup?

If on a Mac, and you elected to save such to your Keychain, you can recover it from your Keychain. Otherwise, you can't.

If you can't remember it, you'll have to delete your existing backups & restore the phone as a new device. Your data will be unrecoverable.

Wow, this is one reason I will never purchase another Apple product. I reset my password & it still won't let me backup, is it because I don't own one of their over-priced beauty queens?