For me, at the worst points of the drinking, it was a mixture of compassion, affection for the good I could see in him underneath the alcohol, and a lot of romantic nonsense/blather.
If you subtract the romantic nonsense/blather, I could say that I loved him, even though I was no longer "in love" with him. I was "in love" with the IDEA of being "in love." But I no longer wanted to live with him and with all the chaos that goes along with the live of an active alcoholic.