I had the million and one promises to change, too. God, I've heard it all. And, NOTHING ever changed. Well, it did get worse, but that's not really the 'change' I was going for. :/
It's such a sad situation for everyone involved, really. I feel like I've been through a emotional war with him, myself and everything that I normally stand for. It's amazing how caught up you are before you even realize how caught up you are. It's frightening, heartbreaking, confusing and exhausting.
It still hurts, I won't say it doesn't, but I'm feeling some peace and I desperately needed that. I feel like I've spent the last year beating my head against a wall. I think I finally decided something had to be done when I got tired of talking to him about it because it was always the same conversation with the same results. I'd say the same thing, he'd say the same thing and we just kept going around in the same circle and nothing changed. Ever. A day, sometimes a day and a half, but that was it. And with each talk, he seemed to up the ante on his behavior and I began to accept worse and worse behavior. That's not ok. It'll never happen again, I'll say that much.