When my alcoholic wife started drinking heavily, I felt incredible feelings of abandonment. It took another 15 years before she hit her bottom. I wasn't alone during that time, but I definitely felt unloved.
For what it's worth, now, I really do believe that alcoholism is a disease. I now see that I wasn't abandoned, she didn't love the bottle more than me...she was just doing what addicts do.
Trust me, I'm not recommending that anyone stick around for 15 years waiting for their addict to change.
When she hit her bottom, I hit my bottom. I started attending Al-anon meetings and I started my own recovery. I was finally able to take out those feelings of abandonment, that I had been working so hard to supress, and take a look at them. I realized that I had been relying on my wife, my sick alcoholic wife, for my happiness.
We're both still working on our separate paths of recovery. I think we're both in a better, healthier, place that we were. But there is no longer an "us," it's much more a "she" and an "I." We're much more separate individuals, and I think we're closer than ever.
I've become such a cynic about this thing we call "love," yet I'm working everyday to become more open and loving. It's a mystery, huh?