Hope you don't mind my stopping by. I just wanted to reinforce something 25 is pointing out about possibly understanding some of what might be affecting your h's thinking.
I don't know how traumatic were the precipitating events in you guy's first split, his rehab stint, and so on.. but I know that nobody walks through this stuff unscathed.
Fear; shame; guilt;.. the greatest of these is fear. A vicious cycle, three cords strong.. difficult to break. Like a black hole, gets heavier, spews energy.. but NOTHING escapes. Turns a man inside out. And, he's da--ed if does/ da--ed if he don't, in a sense, because; he has a life-long disease that distinguishes him from the population at large; and he's only a hair's breadth from another drunken fiasco on any given day.. it's a weird --"I live in a fishbowl"-- effect that even alienates a guy from those he adores and cherishes with the very breath of his being.
Having a "disease" serves a like a heat sink, so to speak, for all the crap I've pulled... see what I mean? The fear, shame, guilt is anchored in the disease. Having a disease blunts the crushing moral weight of my behavior and subsequent circumstance.
I bet that's a drag to read [sorry 'bout that].. it's a drag to write.. imagine what it's like to LIVE it.
When [not if] a person is truly indoctrinated to that mindset it sends a weird fugue to the moral machinery.. just think about it.. a guy can't really trust himself.. because he can't fully accept the whole moral load for "it".. true disease driven behaviors [like dementia, head injuries, and so on] aren't the responsibility of the patient.. that's what health care people do.
There's an antidote: Faith, Hope, and Love.. the greatest of these is Love
The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love
