How To Make A Sincere Apology
It takes a lot of courage to apologize, but saying “I’m sorry” doesn’t have to be hard.
If you or your partner have ever struggled to apologize, you’re not alone. Accepting accountability for hurting someone you love is painful. But, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With practice and care, anyone can become a master at both the art and skill of apologizing.
The truth is, most of us don’t like to apologize. For some of us, making an apology triggers feelings of embarrassment, fear, and shame, and those are feelings most people like to avoid. Even though it’s natural to try to avoid unpleasant feelings, avoiding those feelings can also mean avoiding making an apology. And that type of avoidance can harm your relationship.
Why Learning How To Apologize Matters
Everyone makes mistakes. Even if you love your partner and try really hard, at some point you’re going to hurt them. Whether it’s through carelessness, selfishness, or anger, we all hurt the people we love. Some mistakes are big, and some mistakes are small. However, all mistakes deserve an apology and benefit from a repair.
When we avoid apologizing, we intensify the effect and impact of our mistakes on our partners. We magnify the pain, and we leave our partners alone to heal. Over time, these missed opportunities for repair can lead to resentment, frustration, and emotional distance in otherwise strong relationships. Many of the couples I see come to therapy when these feelings begin to interfere with their intimacy and trust.
Three Steps for a Sincere Apology
Making a sincere apology means acknowledging your mistakes, accepting accountability for your actions, and offering to make amends. Giving a sincere apology is both an art and a skill. It requires creative, careful consideration of your partner’s feelings, as well as a deep understanding of the best ways to communicate regret and accept responsibility.
Too often the apologies we make to the people we love are incomplete. Instead of fully accepting responsibility for the hurt caused, we minimize, defend, or explain away our actions. Instead of repairing a hurt, an incomplete apology can intensify the damage caused by a mistake and escalate conflict.
A sincere apology follows these three simple steps.
Step One: Accept Responsibility. Acknowledge your part in the mistake and take accountability for the hurt you caused.
Step Two: Make Amends. Take the time to listen to your partner, understand their feelings, and ask if there is anything you can do to make it better.
Step Three: Focus on the Future. Commit to changing your behavior and follow through.
The Defensiveness Trap
Although the steps to making a sincere apology are simple, they can be very difficult to follow. Too often, defensiveness gets in the way.
Defensiveness is both an emotional state and a set of actions that we engage in when we’re feeling attacked or judged. Although defensiveness is designed to protect our emotions and defend our position, it generally leads to more conflict and intensifies our partner’s negative feelings.
There are many different types of defensiveness, and it’s helpful to recognize them. One of the most obvious forms of defensiveness is denial. This type of defensiveness happens when we refuse to accept responsibility for our role in the mistake, or outright claim that it didn’t happen. Defensive denial almost always leads to an argument, and it can become a pattern of gaslighting over time.
Defensiveness can also show up as minimizing or dismissing our mistakes. Often, this makes our partners feel like they don’t matter, and it reinforces their belief that we don’t care about their feelings. If you’ve ever thought to yourself (or worse, said to your partner), “It’s not a big deal,” you’ve minimized your mistake and become defensive.
Shifting blame and engaging in counter-attacks are also forms of defensiveness. This happens when we try to point out our partner’s role in the mistake or bring up a time from the past when they may have done something hurtful themselves. Engaging in this type of blame often triggers defensiveness in our partners and leads to more conflict.
A less obvious type of defensiveness is called “defensive innocence.” This happens when we dramatize or exaggerate what our partners are saying or complaining about. For example, someone engaging in defensive innocence might respond to their partner’s complaint by telling them, “I can’t ever seem to do anything right. You think I’m awful.” Defensive innocence forces our partners to give up their own pain in order to soothe us, and it often breeds resentment and frustration.
Defeating Defensiveness
Everyone gets defensive at times. But the good news is that anyone can defeat defensiveness with self-reflection and self-soothing. The next time you notice yourself getting defensive, stop and take a deep breath. Take as many deep breaths as you need to calm your body, and then ask yourself why it feels so threatening to accept responsibility. What are you protecting yourself from? What are you scared of? Once you know the answer to these questions, you can challenge yourself to think differently and try a different approach.
Staying the Course
It’s important to remember that a sincere apology is more like a marathon than a race. Some mistakes are pretty big, and those mistakes can be very hard to forgive. In these situations, it’s important to view an apology like a long-distance run and stay the course. You may need to open your heart and listen to your partner’s feelings of hurt on more than one occasion. When your partner brings up the situation, remember the simple steps to a sincere apology and accept responsibility, make amends, and change your behavior so that this hurt is never caused again.
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If you and your partner struggle with conflict, couples counseling can help. If you’re ready to take the next step to heal your marriage and repair your relationship, reach out now. Schedule your free 20-minute consultation online or by emailing me at help@therapyevergreen.com. I'm here for you.
