Nc'd
My brother in law (husband's brother) has 2 young children with his ex. When they were together we were all quite close and I've kept a friendship with her in the couple of years they've been split. We've always helped them with their DC as the ex has no family and brother in law very little.
About 6 months ago brother in law seemed to be struggling a bit with depression and I stepped up the support a lot. He ended up taking his frustrations out on me a couple of times (verbally) once without children present and once when they were. He apologised and I forgave him as I knew he was struggling. A while later he found out that his ex had a new boyfriend and although they had been getting along fine he changed all this when he found out. He messaged me and told me he didn't want me in his life anymore as I was too close to his ex. My husband was at the time very unwell in hospital. So it was the last thing I needed. It broke my heart as we had a very close brother/sister type relationship and I was also very close with the DC.
A couple of weeks later it was his birthday. My DH was now home. He was furious about what had happened, but sent his brother a message saying he hoped he had a happy birthday but as he didn't want me in his life (after all I'd done for him) he'd just be dropping in the gift we had from the DC to him - DH also gave him a card and a bit of money from us. This then really set BIL off, that we'd walked away from him. That I'd replaced him with his ex. He went on to send me messages that he was going to stop me seeing the DC completely (I e not even see them when they were with his ex). After this I blocked him on everything and DH sent him a message telling him we were both blocking him as we needed a break from him.
About 3 months have passed. I was walking down the road and he was walking towards me with the DC. Without planning it I just said hello to him and the Dc. He said hello to me and said he was glad to see me. He asked if I'd got the apology message he sent me and I just explained I'd blocked him on everything so I hadn't. Then we said bye.
I decided I wanted to see if we could move on. I unblocked him and sent him a nice photo I'd taken of his DC. He responded with thanks. Later on he messaged me an apology. He said he knew how much I'd helped him with his DC. He said he understood he'd hurt me and apologised for it but said I'd hurt him too. That he'd said things through anger and upset and that instead of taking them to heart he wishes I had said how can we meet in the middle and sort things out. As I didn't do that he felt that he meant nothing to me.
I honestly, don't know how to reply. It doesn't feel like a proper apology. It's like sorry I was wrong but you were equally wrong. When I feel all I did was to respond to how he was treating me. He hurt me so much saying he didn't want me in his life, but now it is my fault because I took him at his word and removed myself from his life. He also says he doesn't know if we can ever be close again because I'm close to his ex. I just feel like saying - yes, I'm close to her because she doesn't abuse me! I do want to move on. I miss him and spending time together with our DCs. But I really don't know if I should just accept his apology and then apologise for hurting him too?