Abstract: To reveal the deterioration patterns of mechanical properties and intrinsic damage mechanisms of sulfate saline soil under coupled wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycles, remolded saline soil specimens with varying sodium sulfate contents are prepared. Coupled wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycle tests with varying numbers of cycles and triaxial shear tests are then conducted. The research results show that under damaged conditions, 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. With the increase in the number of cycles, depending on the presence or absence of salt content, the specimens exhibit two distinctly different strength attenuation modes. Salt-free specimens exhibit a quasi-monotonic attenuation mode characterized by monotonic deterioration of cohesion and an increase in the internal friction angle; in contrast, salt-containing specimens show a unique W-shaped oscillatory deterioration mode, where their peak stress and cohesion undergo significant recovery at N = 6 and N = 15, while the internal friction angle presents complex non-synchronous fluctuations. Meanwhile, high confining pressure conditions can effectively inhibit the transformation to a perfectly plastic mode caused by cyclic damage. Salt exhibits dual effects of damage and recovery during coupled wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycles. The salt-dominated damage-recovery dynamic feedback mechanism is identified as the root cause of the aforementioned complex evolutionary patterns.