r/Marriage•
dearabby030217

How to systematically address resentment?

Without getting too far in the weeds, I broke my husband's trust with way too many broken promises over these last few years. These range from small "didn't follow through" to financial decisions made solo, to me altering our life (his especially) with promises that I never followed through on that caused us to uproot our lives only to be in a worse spot. My husband has stayed through it all and is willing to still, but really needs me to address and take action to address the resentment he feels. We both know that I can't change the past or actually change his emotion, but instead I want to show that I am taking action to fix the hurts and he can see an actual altering in the present moment. Now if this was cheating, there are obvious things I could do to rebuild trust and address the resentment: share phone with him, delete dating apps, have a family email account, put phone tags in my keys etc, but for broken promises that I didn't follow through on/lied at times, how do I systematically approach this? And not 'ill follow through on things in the day to day" because he doesn't trust me anymore from all of these past promises.

I want to make this work and feel terribly for what I've done, but can't undo any of it. I need to move forward, follow our vows, and stop letting my emotions run the show and just react to everything without prioritizing my husband. But first, I need to address the lack of trust and resentment from my betrayals. Any ideas?

TLDR; how do you meaningfully address resentment in the present moment without future promises (that require trust to consent to).

Posted Dec 3, 2025, 1:33 AM UTC

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