BuffaloGal

Having been married to a man with alcoholism and sexual issues...

Please consider protecting your heart as well as your marriage. Because no matter how much you believe one way or another, there are two possibilities:

1. He will cheat and/or lie again, or
2. He won't.

And those choices are his. All the external hope, love and belief in the world won't change who he is.

Alcoholics are not noted for their control over their their impulses, or their ability to tell the truth to themselves, never mind anyone else. My ex did try, very hard. He's not a bad person, and I suspect that he truly hates and is bitterly ashamed of the things his addictions bring him to do. But he hasn't found the strength to confront them, and that's who he is.

I think you referred earlier to your husband's desire to escape from himself-- my former husband had a terrible need to do that as well, and in the end, he escaped from as many good things as bad ones, including our marriage.

Don't underestimate the difficulty of loving someone who doesn't even like himself, never mind love or value himself. I sometimes thought my ex screwed up his life semi-deliberately because he believed, way down, that he did not deserve better. And no amount of my love ever changed his basically self destructive nature, although I loved him in that intense, passionate, give-anything, once-in-a-lifetime way. It wasn't enough. (His new gf loves him that way too... and he still drinks, and he still deceives himself.)

I'm not saying don't hope-- we can't live without hope-- but as you work on healing your marriage, don't replace facing facts with hope and belief. They'll all serve you well, if you keep them where they belong.