Learning from yesterday, Living for today!

[chasingpavements]

Had a fun weekend with H. We headed out to the OHL hockey game on Friday night with all of his brothers and their wives and his sister and her boyfriend. I would say it went well. H had his work holiday party early afternoon so by the time we left for the game he was already pretty drunk. I am not too crazy about that but he doesn't do it all that often so I guess it's fine.

This is really the first time we have gone out socially as a group without the kids since before BD. Things seemed different and better this time, just because he was taking the time to include me and talk to me and involve me in conversation, rather than in the past where I feel he would ignore me for the most part.

We had a talk this morning. He wanted to tell me some things that he has been discussing in counseling. He said what he has come to realize is that he has had some MAJOR resentments of me since about 10 years ago when we moved to the city. We had been dating a couple of years and he moved to a city and hour and a half away due to a job. We were both only around 20 years old. He felt I had pressured him to have me move in with him and he felt like it took away from his freedom. He said he felt major resentment, and that is when our fighting starting between us. At the time we had totally different mindsets. I was thinking along the lines of marriage and starting a family and he was more interested in having a few years of freedom and drinking with his friends. He believes that every argument we had back then and also now stems back to that. I had no idea how to respond to him. I was young and perhaps foolish at the time, and definitely not the same person I am today. I can't go back in time and change how I acted. I don't resent my feelings of wanting to settle down but I do regret pressuring him into anything.

He also resents that when my mom passed away I grieved and became depressed and a lot of the family burden rested on him while I was grieving. It was the worst time of my life and remember the numbness my body felt like I could not move or function. A constant heavy feeling. I told him some things that he could do that I thought would help me feel better and he didn't do them, which I resented. He resented that I did not do counseling. I went to a counselor once and left feeling more depressed so I did not go back. Me being depressed and him having the burden really made him resent me even more. He had a work trip in Finland for 9 days and I cried so hard and asked him not to go. I thought I could not handle being alone in the city without help watching 3 very young children. He resents me acting this way. He does not understand how I felt, I feel he will never understand. I am so frustrated!

I don't know what to do moving forward. I feel like he is always going to resent me no matter what happens. I feel like I can't win. I want to have a magic answer that takes away all of the resentment. He has carried around all of this anger toward me for years and I had no idea. I am scared that he will always hate me for something. I feel like we can say sorry to each other and that still the anger will be buried. Is there a way we can once and for all let everything go and move forward?