How do you know when it's too late?

[LaTeeDa]

Last night, over dinner at a pizza place with the kids, my husband tried to bring up an incident from the very distant past. The incident in question involved behavior on my part that was shameful and embarrassing to me. I say tried to bring up, because I kept answering his 'probing' questions about it with one word answers and changing the subject. He would not let it go. He kept trying, I kept avoiding.

Now let me say that if he wants to discuss this particular incident with me in private, okay. I don't really see how digging up the past that happened over 15 years ago, before we even had kids is going to be a good thing, but I'm open to talking about it if he wants to. Bringing it up in front of the kids is an entirely different matter.

I know he still harbors anger toward me for how I treated him when he was drinking. He has every right to be angry. I was mean, hurtful, and gave him a verbal lashing every time I was angry with him. (which was pretty much all the time) And I'm even ashamed to say that I belittled him in front of our children. I have made amends for my past horrid behavior and continue to do so when needed. More importantly, I have forgiven him for the behavior that provoked this dark side of me and forgiven myself for my awful past behavior.

Now the only reason I can see that he would do this is some sort of vengeance. Shaming me in front of the children as I used to do to him. He denies this and claims that he was merely recalling a memory. He admits that it was an inappropriate time and place to bring it up and apologized for that. I can't help feeling that it was brought up to 'punish' me or somehow 'get even.' We have a joint counseling session tonight and this is sure to be a topic of discussion.

My question is, how do you know when too much damage has been done to a relationship? Not too long ago, I was optimistic that we could move on and save our marriage. I am not as optimistic today. What if he cannot forgive me for my past behavior? How can I know if there is any hope, or if I should cut my losses? I have forgiven him and I can honestly say that I have absolutely no desire at all to 'punish' him in any way. I sincerely want to work this out, yet I am only one half of the relationship. I cannot and will not live with having to 'pay' for my mistakes over and over. Do you think I am making a big deal out of nothing? It sure doesn't seem like nothing to me.

It ought to be a really interesting counseling session tonight.

L