Originally Posted by
Surfbee 
I'm feeling so anxious just now... 4am can't sleep ...
FireSprite asked question "what is he OFFERING you?"
My answer right now is... No love, no care, no reassurance...no safety. Why am I holding on so tightly?
Hope? Because you want what he was offering you? This is just a smattering of a few things you have posted:
We'd also been together for a year about ten years ago...The break up then was a lot down to me feeling insecure, having trust issues, and identifying he had an issue with alcohol.
So you start with the fact you had some history together.
Before getting back together, I believed he cut down on drinking and this was a huge reason why I gave us another chance.
And enter hope! You thought he had cut down on his drinking, so why not proceed?
I'm in love with a depressed alcoholic, who seemed very happy with me for the first several months... but his drinking issues and custody issues with this crazy ex began to effect me....
Turns out he wasn't "over" alcohol at all and that he is in fact an alcoholic, but what about that guy from a few weeks ago?
and would cry to me telling me how sorry he is for the way he has treated me, I would feel hope that maybe soon, he would have some kind of breakthrough!
Enter hope again!
So after a very open, tearful and clarifying chat with him on Monday night where he burst out crying and said how sorry he is for all the pain he put me through and how he's been miserable for the last few days not hearing from me and being alone in a big empty flat! How he's insane to let me go. I thought okay great! He gets it! He understands! But the next day (yesterday) when he came to collect some of his things from my place he was back to being irritable and cold. But then later when I saw him at the shop (we unfortunately live in same neighbourhood) he started to flirt with me
Lose hope, enter hope again etc
It's a real pattern here and this is just a small sampling.
Why wouldn't you be hopeful? He is showing caring and love, he is crying to you that you mean the world to him.
The truth is, he may well want what you want, that loving caring, equal, mature, kind relationship, but he cannot function within it. First it was the drinking, now he is attempting to not drink without addressing any of the issues at all. So nothing has really changed.
That's what I mean by, loving to the best of his ability.
He also mentioned at one point that being with you was too much pressure for him. He could probably cope if you expected nothing from him (and I don't mean that in a snarky way, i'm serious).
Why wouldn't you want the great part of the relationship? That's not what's on offer here though, what's on offer is both, the good and the bad, you can't have one without the other right now. Even if you agree to do that, will he just keep ending he relationship whenever he finds it too stressful? I guess that is what you were asking the other day about explaining the "all in" to him.