I had a minor dispute with my mother last week. She did something that she regularly does and this time I got annoyed and called her on it. She said “sorry” and I replied: “sorry means you won’t do it again, but you just keep on doing it“. She looked at me as if Ihad ten heads and contested what I’d said and stated that an apology was not a

promise or guarantee to not repeat the same process in the future, it was a term of regret. Now she is totally correct in what she said and it has got me thinking about apologising and the meanings behind it. Considering as when I was growing up and had to apologise for misdemeanours often enough which were regularly followed by the phrase (from my mother) “now, don’t do it again!” I had linked the two together and to me if I was genuine in my regret and my wish not to repeat the incident I would usually apologise fairly easily. However, if I wasn’t even slightly regretful of the misdemeanour and had every intention of repeating the process next time (but just not get caught out) my apology was less than half-hearted and barely audible to the recipient.

I often see children being told to apologise to their friends when they’ve been fighting, “Say sorry and become friends again” and often it is easy to see the resentment and embarrassment of having to apologise publically to someone else in their faces. Small children don’t often willingly apologise because they don’t feel guilty about what they’ve done. They live in the moment, see something, want it, go get it, upset someone else and don’t care, then (usually) an adult hears or sees the offended child getting upset and set off to rectify and correct the situation. But a small child has no concept of guilt and we have the un-enviable job of layering it onto them by asking them how they would feel if the other child took the toy on them, then we make them apologise, when they don’t see why they should and hand back the item to the other child again, leaving the offending child confused, angry and upset. This

in later life leads to children either refusing to apologise, and when they become adults still refusing to apologise as they see it as a sign of weakness instead of something they regret doing.

I’ve often heard people apologise and tell me afterwards that they didn’t mean a word of it, it was just a means to getting out of trouble or shutting someone up who was giving out to them.The point behind that is they will continue to do what they know upsets those around them because they have no regret attached to the deed. On the other hand as already stated there are those who find it extremely hard or impossible to apologise, even for small things as they have associated an apology as a sign of weakness – only the wrong apologise and I’m never wrong – type of attitude and this can and often does lead to a complete breakdown in communication between people, which in time leads to more resentment as the injured party builds up resentments towards the person who won’t apologise. Over time the injured party either leaves or gives in, and while things return to a sort of normal there is still the resentment of “giving in to keep the peace” and over time that is a relationship destroyer, whether it is within a couple, friendship or work situation. Then there are the other apologisers. The people who say sorry at the drop of a hat and mean it. The people who don’t want to offend anyone and constantly apologise “just in case” they have offended someone. These are people who often have issue around self-confidence or self-belief. I had one

such friend who when she would say something would look intently at you to gauge your reaction and if she considered it bad she’d apologise immediately and if you called her on it would apologise for having apologised in the first place. Thankfully she no longer does that, it is as she reported quite tiring trying to second guess everyone else’s feelings and reactions, so much so that there is no time for your own.

So do you fall into any of those camps of apologisers and non-apologisers? I do apologise, when I feel the need to, and only then. Like when I bump into someone accidently, or if I knock something over accidently. Or if I am late for an appointment.When I apologise I am saying I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you, or delayed you and I will put every effort into preventing that ever happening again. I rarely apologise for what I say, mostly because I consider what I say before I say it and I say what I mean and mean what I say. So on the (now rarer) occasions when I do get angry and say something I shouldn’t, I am aware that when I said it, I meant it, every word of it. I am, however (even a split second later) sorry that my words had a negative effect on someone else when I chose to let them have control over my emotions in the first place.