How do you trust someone who isn't sorry?

[hope2011]

Bond, I'm not sure that will work. H is very insecure, and egotistical. His biggest fear and weakness is being adored. When he joined that site, he felt alone, like I hated him. To be honest, I kind of did. He was a jerk, selfish, uncaring. But I wasn't the greatest wife either. I'm loving, kind but I'm not a maid. In fact, he does most of the cooking and shopping. I do cleaning and laundry. I've never waited on him hand and foot and he wouldn't care less if I stopped doing his laundry. He'll just trade me in for someone who he thinks does care about him. Putting up walls, not doing anything, going on domestic strike, yelling back, standing up for myself, fighting.... made it all worse and got me nothing positive at all. The only thing that's made a difference at all in 2 years is being kinder to him, winning over his trust, showing him my changes are real, not fighting him but trying to understand him. If I go back to past behavior, it will only show that my changes weren't real or permanent.

But then, I don't want to be naive or a doormat either.

He has been making changes too. His backslide the other night though really shows me his changes may not be permanent.

To be fair, he really has been trying, he has been kinder, he has been supportive. He has done a 180 himself in the past 2 months. But he's not listening to me, not letting me talk. I'm walking on eggshells. There is no R talk, no apologies. I'm having major trust issues that I can't get past. He doesn't seem to care that all this has broken my heart. I feel like I'm constantly auditioning for the part of his wife and if I pass, he reciprocates my efforts. If not, he pulls away. It's exhausting and unfair and makes me pull away more every day. So I am GAL'ing, building up walls even as I DB.

H responded by text that he had a hard time checking in because of bank issues but he got in.

Bank issues because he can't balance his checkbook. He mentioned before he left he may need my help cashing a check into his bank acct and help picking up the boys on Friday. Well, he didn't ask so how was I to know? He got himself into that situation, not me. I would've helped, had he asked and been kind and cared at all when I needed his help. Heck, I would've helped him anyway because I don't want him stranded. I'm sure tomorrow he'll ask for help with the boys. He rarely asks for help with them (because his XW would never help him at all with them), so I'm not sure how to respond if he does ask.

I responded "ok" to his text. He said he was ok so what else was there to respond to? I'm not going to apologize for a situation I didn't cause just because I didn't save him when he didn't ask for help. If I didn't respond, I'd seem cold and uncaring. So "ok" is enough. The ball is back in his court.