Thank you two so much for your generous responses. It is so helpful to be able to organize some of these thoughts; they get unbelievably confused when i start to unpack them.
It has been hard to think about my needs; somehow I end up feeling that I am critical and judgmental, as if I am finding him wanting. I start to think I am blaming the victim.
I did not mention in my previous post that when I broke up with him some time ago he attempted suicide. I never meant to just drift back into the relationship after that (I thought he would not forgive me for putting him through that) but I let it happen. I just looked at the good things, I guess. I craved the emotional connection. But that event has been extremely disturbing and scary and I have not known how to process it. Why do I let things like that slide?
Boundaries: I do not think I have set explicit boundaries about drinking, but I have told him many times that dishonesty is not something I can live with. So I guess that is the boundary that I have set and yet I keep going back on it because the answer is always that he lied because he was afraid of losing me. So then (in a confused way) me leaving the relationship when I finally know the truth seems to confirm that fear and almost justify it (I know: wha…???)
How does his drinking affect me? It makes me avoid commitment but still stick around. It makes me watchful and scrutinizing. It makes his life precarious and vulnerable and so I am with someone who probably cannot provide a solid basis for daily life. I am afraid for him. I think when he drinks be becomes more needy, more effusive, more desperate. On a few occasions when he was drinking he became cranky and irritated, but generally he hides away, I think, and then starts to slowly deteriorate. The lying has often been the cause of a crisis with us that gets him back into Working the Program.