Depends on the addict and your needs I'd suppose.

I'd think that the tendency with an addict is that you wouldn't get your needs met though.

So, while I think this would be a very situational question the tendencies would be that a person would be unfulfilled by an addict.

I suspect that the war in iraq will make soldiers comming home who cannot simply turn the switch "off" into their trauma and violence, and since the Government will not pay for their healing, they will try to cope and self medicate with drugs or/and alcohol and such..
so their marriages or relationships will be strained, so should a wife leave him because he is trying his best to cope with these drugs and alcohol?

I think there is plenty of goodness in the ex-soldier, and he needs the support of the wife badly.

Well the wife might just decided to stand by her man and help him back on his feet, and the reward for showing such love will make it worth it for everyone.. including the society that put him to war.

I think it's very situational, in part because I believe that all people are addicts, it's just that some addictions are more benign than others. Someone who can't make it through the day without that cup of coffee in the morning won't have their ability to nurture their partner impaired by the addiction. A junkie who would sell his mother to prostitution if it gave him just one more "fix" is probably not a good candidate for a loving partner.

Most people fall somewhere in between. Only time and your own discernment will tell you if your partner falls more on one side of the spectrum than the other.

can we reasonably expect to receive from an egomaniac? there may be things to learn, to exchange, but to expect our 'needs to be met' in this situation feels like a set-up to me. it doesnt mean we can't love. we can, we can always love, but it does mean that, as a friend of mine once told me, unreasonable expectations are premeditated resentments...