So I've tried and tried to get it to work with no success.

I have a newer garage door opener so that is not the problem.

I hold down 1 of the 3 buttons until it starts blinking slowly then i hold down the button my garage door opener and the homelink button at the same time till it starts blinking rapidly. and then i let go. When i press the homelink button it will not open my garage door.

does the regular garage door opener opent he garage door?
Hate to ask a stupid question but you never said if it worked or not and I remember having to program my remotes to the main opener before they would work...

the rapid blinking means you need to pair your homelink with the opener, look for a button on the garage door opener that says program

usually you hit the program button and you have 30 seconds to send the signal from the remote to pair it, it is a security feature so people can't code hop and open your garage

well i just pressed the button that opens up my garage door on my garage door opener. I put it 1-3 inches from my homelink button like it said and i held them both down.

and yes my garage opener does work, sometimes it does take a few clicks though.

right that gets the homelink to match the frequency of your remote, now you need to pair the remote to the opener itself, its like adding a remote to the car, the car needs to know that it is receiving the signal from your remote not someone who is trying to break in

from your homelink it works or the remote you programmed it with?

can you tell me the exact steps on what to do? because i did what my manual said.

I would start fresh, I don't have the manual right here but I think you hold the outside 2 buttons to erase all the codes it has in memory then hold the garage door remote close to the homelink and push a button on each one until it blinks fast. Now you have programmed the car to put out the same frequency as the remote

Now you need to go to your garage door opener motor itself and look near all the adjustment screws, there should be a button that says something like train or prgram(on the newer craftsmans it is a purple square button but you will have to look through the manual for the garage door opener) hit that button and usually you hold the button on the homelink until the light on the opener motor blinks

this is how I had to do it for the homelink in my Bonne and my dad'* Journey and both are on Craftsman openers, the high security ones and we haven't had a problem

Always start fresh ...

Two outter buttons like mentioned..
Then the one button

Keep in mind Homelink buttons are usually not a touch quick and presto. You need to touch and hold for say 2-3 seconds for it to work. I think they did that so we wouldn't operate items by mistake.