What If You Don’t Want to Apologize?

I know two brothers who haven’t spoken to each other in eighteen years because one brother felt the other took advantage of him in a car-trading deal and the other brother said, “I told you the truth about the car.” That happened eighteen years ago, and not a word has been exchanged between the two of them since, even though they live in the same town. How tragic when people make a conscious choice not to apologize.

WHY DON’T PEOPLE APOLOGIZE?

“It’s Not Worth the Effort”

Why would people choose not to apologize? Sometimes they do not value the relationship. Perhaps they have had run-ins in the past, and a lot of resentment lies buried underneath the surface. As one lady said about her sister, “I gave up on our relationship. It seemed like no matter what I did, it was never enough and I was always in the wrong. She hurt me on numerous occasions, and I finally decided it wasn’t worth the effort. I installed caller ID on my phone so I could identify incoming calls. When she called, I didn’t answer the phone. All she ever did was condemn me. It was better not to talk to her. When I go to see my mother, if my sister’s car is there, I drive on. I just don’t want to get involved.”

For a number of perhaps valid reasons, this lady has made the conscious choice to devalue her relationship with her sister. Therefore, she is not motivated to apologize for her own destructive behavior.

“It Was His Fault”

A second reason that people choose not to apologize is that they feel justified in their behavior; the other person is at fault. A professional athlete who got involved in a fistfight at a local bar said, “I’m not going to apologize. He shouldn’t have made those comments.” This athlete’s philosophy seems to be, “You do me wrong and you will pay for it. Don’t ask me for an apology. You deserved what you got, and don’t ever do it again or it will be worse.” Obviously, his emphasis was not on building relationships but on exacting revenge. Such an attitude does not remove barriers—it creates them.

This is the infamous tit-for-tat approach to life, and many people practice it. It is in direct contrast to the advice of the Bible, which says, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil…. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge … for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”¹

The person who justifies her own wrongful behavior is self-deluded. The man or woman who thinks that he or she never does anything that calls for an apology is living in a dream world. The reality is, all of us sometimes make harsh, critical, and unloving statements, and we sometimes behave in hurtful and destructive ways. The person who refuses to recognize the need for an apology will have a life filled with broken relationships.

We came across this attitude over and over again in our research. Here are some examples of what we heard. Betsy from Birmingham said, “Over a ten-year relationship, I have learned not to expect apologies. I have tried to force/coerce them from him, but they are never genuine and he does not make changes. He says that he never does anything to apologize for. So, I have come to accept the fact that I will never get an apology. I just hope it doesn’t continue to get worse.”

Martha from Bangor, Maine, said, “My husband is a person of few words. I don’t ever remember hearing him apologize. His family never dealt with problems. There are so many hurt emotions in his family and in ours. Things that have been swept under the rug create resentment. As a family, we are just coexisting, because that ‘looks’ right. I feel like such a hypocrite.”

In case you’re wondering, this is not just a “guy thing.” Women also can refuse to say “I’m sorry.” For instance, Jon, who lives in Clovis, New Mexico, said, “Even though I know my wife has done things wrong to me, she always has a way of making me feel guilty. When I think she is about to apologize, the next thing I know, she hasn’t apologized for anything but rather has blamed me for her behavior. So I wind up apologizing for her to myself. It’s not a very satisfactory apology.”

And Mark from Indianapolis said, “My wife never apologizes except when she does something really bad, and even then I don’t feel as though she is really sorry.”

Often people’s consciences have been trained to shift the guilt to someone else. They actually have an insensitive conscience, unable to see that the wrong rests with themselves.

Dave’s Secret Addiction

Often an insensitive conscience is coupled with low self-esteem. Someone may have been taught growing up that apologizing is a sign of weakness. The parents who model this philosophy usually have low self-esteem themselves. They often blame the children for any problems that develop in the family. Consequently, the children develop a sense of low self-esteem and carry this to the next generation. Because they strive so desperately to be a person of worth, and because they see apologizing as a sign of weakness, they too will blame others for any relationship problems that emerge.

People who suffer from low self-esteem, blame-shifting, and a strong aversion to apologizing will almost always need counseling in order to deal with these deeply ingrained patterns of thought, behavior, and emotions.

What these people do not know is this: apologizing enhances one’s self-esteem. People respect the man and the woman who are willing to take responsibility for their own failures. Receiving the respect and admiration of others thus enhances self-esteem. On the other hand, those who try to hide or excuse wrongful behavior will almost always lose the respect and affirmation of others, thus further compounding the problem of low self-esteem. However, the person who is caught up in this negative cycle will find it difficult to understand this reality.

Dave and his wife, Janet, had suffered several significant losses in their lives. When they arrived for their first counseling session with Jennifer, Dave mentioned that he used to be addicted to pornography but was in recovery from that destructive habit. Janet, of course, felt very hurt, not only by their recent losses but also by Dave’s long history of secret addiction.

“Has Dave made an adequate apology for the results of his pornography addiction?” I asked. Silence followed, and then Dave explained, “Well, I’ve said that I’m sorry for my addiction, but I didn’t go into any detail, because I just thought that the conversation would go badly.” Dave was like a mouse that was caught in a trap; he didn’t want to jam himself in further by talking about his misdeeds.

I wanted to help Dave see that, ironically, glossing over the pain that he had caused Janet was only going to prolong everyone’s suffering. I explained the concept of “balancing the scales” to Dave and Janet: “When Janet learned of your addiction to pornography, it was as if the scales that kept your marriage in balance flew off-kilter. Her side of the scales plunged to the ground. She felt very low, sad, lonely, angry, and afraid of ever trusting you again. Your general apology was unable to bring your marriage back into balance. Janet continues to feel very hurt and scared. If you leave Janet on the low side of the scales, she is likely to unload the weights that are keeping her down by casting barbs at you.”

I concluded my analogy by saying, “Janet needs help in removing the weights from her side of the scale. You could do a great service to her and to your marriage by having the detailed conversation that you fear might go badly. Often, people who will give detailed apologies find just the opposite: as they unload the weights of hurt and validate their spouses, they receive gratitude in return. Janet might loosen her hold on the anger that she has been off-loading onto you. She might find your sincere apology to be wonderfully disarming and helpful.”

Dave listened carefully. He agreed to try a detailed apology at home and to report back the following week.

They showed up with lightness in their steps. Dave had this to say: “I tried what you said, and it wasn’t too bad. I explained to Janet how wrong I was to have kept a stash of pornography in the house all these years. I told her that I was sorry that our kids had found my magazines and that it may have damaged them emotionally. I went into other details—my sorrow over having made Janet feel like an inadequate woman, and my betrayal of her trust when I lied about my activities.”

Dave was so pleased with his bold move and the freedom it gave him that he told a male friend to do the same: “I’ve already explained these unbalanced scales to a friend of mine. He needs to apologize to his wife too, and now he says that he will do it!”

Finally, I turned to Janet. “How did it feel to hear these words from Dave?” She replied, “This was an enormous step for Dave. I had given up on ever hearing him take responsibility for his actions. Now, I am more hopeful about the future of our marriage.”

Dave added: “For too long, I believed the lie that ‘if we talk more about this problem, it will make the situation worse.’ I ignored my conscience and, sadly, I sent the message to my wife that I didn’t care about her feelings.”

Dave was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer only four months after his apology to his wife. He now marvels, “What if I hadn’t apologized to my wife and dealt with this whole issue while I felt healthy? Please tell your readers that there is a real urgency in apologizing while you still have the opportunity to do so!”

“What If I Can’t Learn a New Language?”

A second question we hear often is, “What if the apology language of the other person doesn’t come naturally for me?”

It is true that some people will have more difficulty speaking a particular apology language than will others. It all has to do with our history and what we have learned both as children and adults. The good news is all of these apology languages are learnable. We want to introduce you, therefore, to some people who learned to speak an apology language that didn’t come naturally for them. Most of them admitted that it was very uncomfortable at first, but they demonstrate the human ability to learn new apology languages.

“I’m Really Sorry I Let Her Down”

James, thinking about marriage, came to one of our seminars with his girlfriend, Serena. After they completed apology questionnaires, Serena told him that the thing she wants to hear most in an apology is “I’m sorry.” Later James told me that he didn’t know if he’d ever said “those words.” He said, “I guess I always thought that real men don’t apologize.”

“Let me ask you a question,” I said. “Have you ever done anything in your whole life that you really regretted? After doing this, did you say to yourself, ‘I wish I hadn’t done that’?”

He nodded and said, “Yes. I got drunk the night before my mother’s funeral. So the next morning, I had a big hangover. I don’t remember much about the funeral.”

“How did you feel about that?” I asked.

“Really bad,” James said. “I really felt like I dishonored my mother. Her death hit me very hard. We had always been close and I could talk with her about things. I guess I was just trying to drown my sorrow, but I had too much to drink. I know that would have made her sad. Mama always talked to me about drinking too much. I was hoping that people in heaven didn’t know what was going on here on earth, because I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“Suppose for a moment that people in heaven do know what’s happening on earth, that your mother really was disappointed in your behavior and what you did. And let’s suppose that you had a chance to talk with her. What would you say?”

James’s eyes moistened, and he said, “I’d tell her that I’m really sorry that I let her down. I shouldn’t have gone to the bar. I’d tell her that I really love her and I hope that she would forgive me.”

I put my arm on his shoulder and said, “Do you know what you just did?”

“Yeah. I just apologized to my mother. It feels good. Do you think she heard me?” he asked.

“I think she did,” I said, “and I think she’s forgiven you.”

James couldn’t speak for a moment. “Oh, man, I didn’t mean to cry,” he said, wiping tears from his cheeks.

“That’s another thing—you were taught that real men don’t cry, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve gotten some bad information through the years, James,” I said. “Fact is, real men do cry. It’s plastic men who don’t cry. Real men do apologize. They even say ‘I’m sorry’ when they realize they’ve hurt someone they love. You are a real man, James. You’ve demonstrated it today. Don’t ever forget it. If you and Serena get married, you won’t be a perfect husband and she won’t be a perfect wife. It’s not necessary to be perfect in order to have a good marriage. But it is necessary to apologize when you do things that hurt each other. And if saying ‘I’m sorry’ is Serena’s primary apology language, then you will need to learn to speak it.”

“Got it!” he said with a smile. “I’m glad we came here.”

“So am I,” I said as he walked away.

Difficult to Say, Hard to Admit

Marsha has trouble admitting she was wrong—which is exactly what her husband needs to hear as an apology.

“I don’t know why,” she told me. “Maybe it’s because I don’t ever remember hearing either of my parents say that, and they didn’t teach me how to apologize. They were strong on ‘Do your best. Excel. Reach your potential.’ But they never said much about apologizing.”

About a month after she completed the questionnaire, she left this message on my website: “Lately it’s been on my heart to learn to speak my husband’s language, so I’ve been trying. I have actually said out loud, ‘I was wrong. I should not have done that.’ But it is still difficult to say, and hard to admit. Each syllable felt like glue in my mouth, but it felt good after I said it, like a weight off my shoulders.”

Marsha is demonstrating that learning to speak the apology language of the other person is not always easy. She has identified some of the reasons why people find it difficult: It was not modeled by the parents; it was not taught by the parents; in fact, apologizing was not a part of her experience. However, as an adult, she was fully willing to admit that her words and behavior are not always loving and kind. Rather than excusing such behavior, she chose to learn to speak the apology language of her spouse. And it was beginning to make a real difference in the quality of her relationship with her husband.

For those who find it difficult to say the words “I was wrong; I should not have done that,” I suggest the following practice. Write the following words on an index card. “I am not perfect. Sometimes I make mistakes. I sometimes say and do things that are painful to others. I know that the other person’s primary apology language is hearing me accept responsibility for my behavior by saying, ‘I was wrong. I should not have done that.’ Therefore, I will learn to say these words.”

Read these words aloud. Then repeat the words “I was wrong. I should not have done that” several times alone and aloud in front of the mirror. Breaking the “sound barrier” and saying something you don’t feel comfortable saying is the first step in learning to speak the language of accepting responsibility.

Part of learning to accept responsibility for one’s behavior is the realization that no one is perfect. I am imperfect and sometimes do and say hurtful things to others. When I choose to admit to myself that I am human and am willing to accept responsibility for the mistakes I make and will apologize using the language of the other person, I am making progress.

“I Might Fail”

Verbalizing one’s intent to make real changes—“I will work hard to see that this doesn’t happen again”—is difficult for some people. Owen was being very honest with me when he said, “I don’t want to promise that I’ll change, because I might fail. I really do intend to change, or I wouldn’t be apologizing in the first place. But when I say that I’m going to try to change, I’m afraid that I’m setting myself up for failure and it will hurt the relationship even more. Why can’t I just demonstrate the change rather than talk about it?”

Owen is expressing the sentiment of many. However, the problem of not verbalizing your intention is that the other person cannot read your mind. You know that you are trying to change, but he or she doesn’t know. In a very real sense, we verbalize the intention to change for the same reason that we verbalize the other apology languages. We want the other person to know that we recognize that we have offended them, we value our relationship, and we would like to be forgiven.

Allyson in Mobile, Alabama, expressed it this way: “My husband doesn’t see a lot of merit in actually saying the words ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘I was wrong,’ or ‘Will you forgive me?’ or ‘I’ll try not to do that again.’ But when he does not express the words, I can only assume that he isn’t sorry, doesn’t realize that he has done wrong, and doesn’t intend to change. Even if he is sorry and really is trying to change, I don’t know that. Without the words, how do I know that you have really apologized? How do I know that you are really trying to change? For me, seeing a plan for change is my primary apology language, and if I know that my husband is at least trying to change, I’m willing to forgive him. But if he doesn’t tell me, then it’s like he is not speaking my apology language, and I have a hard time believing that he is sincere.”

Allyson is making it clear that expressing the intention to change is the first step in speaking the apology language of planned change.

I am not suggesting that you promise that you will never do it again. What you are expressing is that you are going to make every effort not to repeat this behavior. It is effort that leads to success. Changing long-standing patterns of behavior can be difficult. But the first step is deciding that they need to be changed, and with the help of God, you will start walking down the road toward positive change. Most people will be encouraged by your efforts and will be willing to forgive you when you stumble along the road if you are willing to confess the failure.

Don’t allow the fear of failure to keep you from taking the first steps down the road of successful changes. If this is the other person’s primary apology language, nothing will take the place of the words “I’m really going to try hard to change this behavior.” Then developing a plan and following that plan leads you further down the road to success and the healing of past hurts.

CAN YOU APOLOGIZE TOO MUCH?

We have found that there are some people who apologize almost daily. Anytime there was any sense of tension between them and another person, they immediately apologized.

“I Shoot Myself in the Foot”

People who tend to be overly apologetic do so for differing reasons. Some people apologize frequently because they are frequently guilty of words or actions that inflict pain on others. Jeremy told me, “I have more experience apologizing than my wife does because I’m constantly shooting myself in the foot. I’m a rather talkative person. And sometimes that gets me in trouble. I say things without thinking and later realize that I have hurt my wife or someone at work. So I do a lot of apologizing.”

Emma says her husband, Andrew, apologizes regularly for a similar reason: “He does something to apologize for every day.”

I thought at first she might be joking, but I didn’t see a smile on her face. So I said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

She said, “Yes. I never met a man who was so insensitive. But he’s quick to apologize. I just wish he could learn to stop doing things he has to apologize for.”

For people like Jeremy and Andrew, the problem does not lie in an unwillingness to apologize but rather in a deficiency in relationship skills. They have learned to cope with this deficiency by frequently and freely apologizing. A more satisfying and long-term answer would be for these people to attend classes on how to build better relationship skills, go for counseling, and/or read books on the fundamentals of relating positively to other people.

“I ASSUME IT’S MY FAULT”

Others who tend to overly apologize are suffering from low self-esteem. Lucy is a thirty-five-year-old single who said, “I usually feel as if everything is my fault—at work, at home, and in all of my relationships. I guess I never felt very good about myself. So when things go wrong in relationships, I just assume it is my fault. So I apologize. People often say to me, ‘You don’t need to apologize for that. You didn’t do anything wrong.’ But I always feel like I am in error.”

Patricia lives in Phoenix. She and her husband retired early and moved from Michigan to a warmer climate. She said about her husband, “Dave constantly apologizes by saying ‘I’m sorry.’ But it is with the attitude ‘I know I’m worthless and I can’t do anything right.’ Obviously, he is not worthless. He is a great businessman; otherwise, we would not have been able to retire early. And he doesn’t do a lot of things that call for an apology. I think it is probably just low self-esteem on his part. But it takes away from the apology.”

I never had an opportunity to talk with her husband, Dave, but I had the sense that he was either suffering from low self-esteem derived from his childhood experience or that his excessive apologies were his way of responding to an overly critical wife who had found fault with him through the years, and his way of coping was simply by accepting the condemnation. In either scenario, he was suffering from a self-esteem problem. The road to a better relationship would likely lead through a counselor’s office where Dave could deal with his self-perceptions and come to a new and more positive understanding of who he is. He was locked into a pattern of low self-esteem that did not need to continue for the rest of his life.

“I Want to Get It Over With”

Many people are conflict-averse and want to get an issue settled quickly so that things can “get back to normal.” They are willing to accept responsibility and apologize even if they do not sense that they are at fault simply to get the issue settled. They don’t like the emotional discomfort that comes from long discussions about the issue. They would much rather apologize, accept the responsibility, and hope that they can move on. Here are some examples from our research of people who fall into this category.

“If I want to sleep, then I have to get it over with,” says Maria, married to Hector for twenty years. “I find that I apologize [to Hector] even when I’m not in the wrong, just so I can end the fight and wake up with a clean conscience.”

John is from New York City and was attending a marriage enrichment event that I was leading. He said, “My parents were nonconfrontational when I was growing up. I’m not used to seeing disputes. So when I get upset or disappointed, I feel I have to apologize and set things right. I grew up Catholic, and I loved the sacrament of confession. I just felt good about confessing aloud and being forgiven.”

Jonathan is thirty, has been married for two years, and really enjoys his job. “I don’t always have to win, and I don’t like confrontation. I will apologize even if it is not my fault because I want to move on. I don’t want to waste time arguing. I guess I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Interestingly, several people told me the “best apologizer” was the one who apologized the most—even if the apologizer was not at fault. When I asked Suzanne, “Who is the best apologizer, you or your husband?” she said, “My husband is by far the best apologizer in our marriage. In fact, I would say that he apologizes 90 percent of the time, even when it is not his fault. He wants peace between us, so he is usually the one to make up first.”

A “Peace” That Leads to Resentment

For these and thousands of others like them, they desire peace at any price. They would rather admit wrong if the arguments and conflicts will cease. Emotional calm is more important than being right. While this may appear to be an admirable trait, it often simmers as inner resentment.

Kim and Garrett have been married for fifteen years and live just outside Williamsburg, Virginia. She said, “I’m the one who seems to apologize most in our marriage. Garrett is not good at verbalizing his feelings. And in order to get past whatever it is that went wrong and caused hard feelings, I usually end up apologizing just so we can get back on speaking terms again. I often end up internalizing hard feelings because I have to apologize, even when I’m not the one who caused the problem.”

Such internalized resentment often creates emotional distance between people. On the surface things seem to be relatively calm, but underneath an emotional explosion is in the making.

If a person senses such emotional resentment building, it is time to talk to a counselor, pastor, or trusted friend. Failure to process the resentment can lead to the destruction of a relationship. Peace at any price is not the road to authentic relationships.

TALK ABOUT IT

When was a time you chose to wait to apologize rather than doing it immediately? How did this affect the relationship?

“Why should I apologize when she’s the one who started it?” said the man in the chapter. What would you say to him?

Many people form an “insensitive conscience” over time and no longer consider what they do as being wrong. How have you experienced this in your own life? In the lives of those close to you?