With all due respect relationships with alcoholics are very different than those with non-A's. Yes, someone can lie and deceive or just be mentally ill and do the same damage that an active A might do, but there are common trends in relationships with A's that almost ALL of us here have experienced.
Relationships are negotiations. Compromises about what you want, what I want and what is "best" for us. When two parties come together, have an emotional connectionand then verbally agree to an arrangement (whatever that might be), then each party is RESPONSIBLE for what they agreed to do. This includes fidelity, loyalty, financial duties, whatever the case may be.
In active alcoholics the delivery of their part (in my experience) does not come through as it does with healthy, mature adults.
We as participants in those relationships are at fault for being in them at all. However, we at least I did not, know/understand what I was dealing with. I did not know that his word was basically no good. I did not know that he was lying behind my back. I did not know that he was cheating on me. When these things were revealed, I felt crazy, angery, confused, betrayed and hurt. He was out of his mind and rather than taking ownership for the destruction he caused, he covered what he had done with newer lies and turned things around on me. This behavior is typical to many, not all, active A's.
When we first discover the crazy-making stuff, we are so amazed to learn that we arenot crazy but in relationships with people who are not dealing with the same set of prinicples that we are. Yes, it isn't only A's who do this, but it is common with them. I have never had anyone else including my mom who had a brain injury behave with the level of deceit, manipulation and bizarre behavior that my exA did.
I am writing this for those co-dependants in A relationships to know that they are not alone and that they are not at fault for the deceitful behavior from their A's. Resentments build from that stuff.