How long must I be patient?

Hi all,

I will try my best to make this long story short for all of your sakes. LOL.

I have been married to my high school sweetheart for 19 years. We are the best of friends when things are good. My husband has always had anger issues, not at me, just a lot of pent up anger and bitterness from his childhood that is just NOW starting to be discussed (he's 40 years old now).

About 11 years into our marriage, he became distant, slept a lot, just out of character from his normal self. I was very bitter about this and it definitely affected both of us. I find out 2 years later that he had an on-again/off-again sexual relationship with a close family friend. Now I give most of the blame to him, but this girl used to love getting under both of our skins, she would threaten to tell me a lot and told him that she held all the power. His anxiety was through the roof...saying he wanted to die, leaving the house, spending money and lying about it. He finally told me the truth, I went nuts for a bit, then we went to counseling and were on the road to recovery.

Fast forward a couple of years and his anger was just getting worse. He had no coping skills other than to slam things, yell or even punch himself (to calm him he states). I told him he needed to get help. He agreed and the diagnosis was anxiety, major depression, OCD, PTSD & BiPolar - Manic 1. It all started to make sense! He started therapy, an outpatient hospital plan for 2 weeks, lots of cocktails of meds (which was really hard) and was on his way to getting "better."

Keep in mind, he is active military, an officer, and the military does not allow him to take certain classes of medications so what he was taking was not nearly as effective but he wasn't prepared to be kicked out of the military due to the stigma behind mental illness. A new job started about 2 months ago. He HATES it! I yet again see the distance seeping in, and I'm sure my constant badgering (his perception mostly because he has negative, irrational thoughts) plus his inability to communicate and just shut down when he has to "adult" was part of this. I found out through a random anonymous text message that he has had a relationship with a local girl (I sorta know her). I confronted him, he confessed and shut of all communication because he "loves me." I see the guilt he has, on top of all the other crap he must have going on in his head that I can't even begin to comprehend.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That's my head talking. My heart wants to just love him and help him. He always treated me with such respect (with the exception of these instances). I just keep saying this isn't his character. The first time it was "I would never do that to you again. I saw the hell I put you through and I would never want to do that to you." I believed him. But here we are round 2. Now, he was not taking his meds right, he was drinking and has no friends because he feels he doesn't need them, he just needs me. I disagree. I feel like his enabler, I control too much...like his mommy. I have to let go and trust he can do this on his own. I feel like this will help him help himself. He was in inpatient for 3 days and is now in outpatient again. He feels that last time around he did learn things but didn't apply them. He told them today that he just said what needed to be said in order to get out. So he is now acknowledging his manipulative ways, lying for no apparent reason, impulsiveness that he can't control and says I just have to trust him (rich right?) and allow him to love me. He says he is going to try. So far, he has signed up for anger management classes and contacted someone about equestrian therapy. I want to believe him but how long do I wait? I just don't know if I can go through this cycle again.

Any advice is greatly appreciate.