It sounds like "you" were neglected in your childhood because you grew up with a binge alcoholic parent. There was a pattern with this that became normal to you, even when you did not know to even realize it as an unhealthy pattern. A parent who binges is "there and then not there" very similar to what this boy friend is doing. You have accepted this pattern of behavior not realizing it was NEVER healthy for you to be around.

Also, a lot of the time, binge alcoholics drink so much they black out. They don't remember what they are doing when they get to a certain point when they get drunk. When they binge, they don't think about anyone or anything except the binging into a drunken stooper and pass out.

I saw my father do this where he tended to binge on the weekends and would drink until he passed out on the sofa. I did not KNOW that was a binge alcoholic. My mother would fight about it with him too, and he always had excuses, it was always her imagination etc. A binge alcoholic doesn't like it when someone calls them out. They often say they don't have a problem and they think that because they don't do this every day that they don't have a problem. They think they are controlling it when they wait till the weekend or only drink when they are not working etc. Thing is, an alcoholic keeps drinking until they are drunk they want to be blind drunk. A person who doesn't have the problem doesn't drink and drink but can be ok with just having one beer or one glass of wine.

I think you are LEARNING how you unknowingly learned to see things as ok or normal when they are NOT normal to anything but to the disease itself. The disease of "addiction".

My input isn't so much about you understanding him as much as you understanding YOURSELF and how you fall into this "it's what you know" that keeps you going back. What is "familiar" doesn't always mean something is good for you or healthy for you to have in your life. This ex is an unhealthy person and YOU cannot fix him and he may not be able to fix himself where he can experience an actual healthy relationship.

For some people getting sober is only the first step because a lot of alcoholics have deeper problems they never resolved but instead used the alcohol for an escape. Actually, many recovering alcoholics discover they suffer from ptsd. If this ex experienced childhood neglect, he may have began using the alcohol as an escape. Thing is, when someone does that they stop growing and maturing. This individual is not an adult and neither was your mother.

You know what they say, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". You keep going back because it's what you know and everytime you do, you exprience yet another bout of you being unhappy.

What have you changed in your own life that exposes you to healthier people?