Abstract: To reveal the deterioration law of mechanical properties and intrinsic damage mechanism of sulfate saline soil under the coupling of wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycles, remolded saline soil with varying sodium sulfate contents was chosen as the research object, and was subjected to the coupling of wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycle tests with varying numbers of cycles, followed by unconsolidated undrained triaxial shear tests under various working conditions. The research results show that under the damaged state, the salt content has a significant inhibitory effect on the strength, and the attenuation of the specimen strength is dominated by the monotonic deterioration of cohesion. Furthermore, depending on the presence or absence of salt content, the evolution of cycle numbers drives two distinctly different modes of specimen strength attenuation. Firstly, salt-free specimens exhibit a quasi-monotonic attenuation characterized by continuous loss of cohesion and optimization of internal friction angle; in contrast, salt-containing specimens show a unique oscillatory deterioration mode, where their peak stress and cohesion undergo significant recovery at and , while the internal friction angle presents complex non-synchronous fluctuations. Meanwhile, high confining pressure conditions can effectively inhibit the transformation to an ideal plastic mode caused by cyclic damage and attenuates the oscillation amplitude of strength recovery in saline specimens. Salt plays a dual role in the coupling of wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycles, acting as both a damaging and a healing agent. The salt-dominated damage-healing dynamic feedback mechanism is identified as the root cause of the aforementioned complex evolutionary patterns.