“Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is saying ‘I love you’ with a wounded heart in one hand and your smothered pride in the other.”
Richelle E. Goodrich
Don’t Kiss and Make Up
My mother hated conflicts, to a fault. As a mother she gave us many wonderful gifts, but conflict resolution was simply not in her parenting toolkit. Whenever my brothers and I started arguing or fighting, by the time it went to her it was an impossible tangle of, “Well you!” “But he!” “But she!” Accusation, injury, accusation, injury, hurt kids completely unable to reach toward each other with empathy, lather, rinse, repeat.
In total exasperation, she would try valiantly to get us to see each other’s point. We would inevitably hit the emotional wall of our sense of injury. The injury became magnified because now we weren’t feeling heard or cared for by either the other kid or our mother.
At a loss for anything else to do, she would say, “Say you’re sorry, kiss, and make up.” She meant it literally. We had to lie and say we were sorry for something we absolutely were not sorry for, (aside from being sorry that we now look bad to our mother,) kiss one another on the cheek and carry on as if nothing ever happened. Have you ever given or received a kiss that is a hidden assault? It’s an artform, really. Not particularly helpful.
Good Intentions
I think she thought her job was to find out what was objectively true and then arbitrate a reasonable peace agreement. That sounds perfectly sensible, except that 1. Elementary school aged kids are not known for robust engagement in peace accords. 2. Objective truth would be impossible to determine. And most importantly, 3. It’s the wrong conversation.
Compassionate Connection
Listening to all sorts of relationship conflicts in the 25+ years that I’ve been a therapist, I’m guessing that a lot of parents saw things the same way my mother did. I don’t fault her, or any of the parents who approached things this way, for not seeing the flaws in the plan. Add this to the pile of “Parenting Things We Really Wish There Had Been a Manual For.”
I hear spouses, partners, siblings, parent-child dyads and friends all falling into the same trap with conflicts. Even if they are able to agree on some version of the facts, focusing on who is supposedly right and who is supposedly wrong completely ignores the more important piece from a relationship standpoint: How are we treating one another?
A Sorry Apology
It is inevitable that if we are going to enjoy closeness with other humans there will be times when we hurt one another. Whether that harm is intentional, unintentional, careless, unavoidable or malicious, addressing the injury well has the power to bring us closer together. Addressing it poorly can ultimately cost us the relationship altogether.
Here are some ways we mess up apologies:
- Apologizing in vague terms that do not name the injury to the other person.
- Apologizing over and over again. (The first apology is for the harmed party. Any apologies that follow are an attempt by the offender to feel better about themselves.)
- “I’m sorry… IF…” There is no “if” when the hurt party has told you they are hurt.
- “I’m sorry… BUT…” which tells the offended party that they “shouldn’t” be hurt, that we didn’t intend to hurt them. (This again puts the focus on vindicating the offender first, rather than caring for the offended.)
- Apologies that rush to get the offended to see the situation from the offender’s perspective. (I personally fall into this one in a hurry.) While that information might be a constructive part of ultimately healing the rift, first thing’s first – demonstrate care that the other person is hurt.
- Apologies that do not include a negotiated plan to do things differently moving forward. Talk is cheap. It is not “the thought that counts.”
A Not Sorry Apology
A well-constructed, sincere apology accomplishes some very important things:
- It makes it clear to the hurt party that their experience of the situation matters; We care that they have been hurt.
- It engenders greater trust, safety and candor between the two people.
- It opens the door for both parties to be more completely represented in the relationship, better able to say the hard things.
- It opens a path for working together to find a way of understanding one another better.
- It puts “legs” on change points that are necessary to avoid future harm, demonstrates tangible repentance, and builds trust.
To simplify the process, I offer you “Dear SER.”
S - The apology names the specific behaviors that hurt the other person.
E - The apology offers empathy for what the other person experienced.
R - The apology includes a proposal for remediation. What concrete things can the offender do in order to avoid reoffending? This needs to go deeper than simply “I won’t do this/that again.” In order to create real change, some introspection is required to understand why the offender made the choices they made, and what they would need to do in order to change the conditions that led to the problematic choice.
Notice, this is a proposal; not an answer. It’s the start of a negotiation. The offended party is the ultimate arbiter of whether or not this plan of action is satisfactory. Word to the wise - If either party gives to the point of resentment it will fall apart or blow up. We owe it to ourselves and one another to be starkly candid about what is and is not acceptable to us.
But! But! But! But!
Very often, the offender is clear that the offended feels what they feel because they interpreted the situation in a way that was unnecessarily injurious. It’s easy to think that if we just set the record straight, the injury will go away. For example, “You are hurt because you thought you heard me say that you are a terrible cook. What I actually said was, ‘Chili is not your best dish.’ I think you are a great cook. I just don’t care for the way you make chili. We aren’t going to agree on everything.”
While it is true that the offended cook is likely to feel differently about the scenario when more detail is added, the person is not in a position to hear that reframe until they know that it matters that they are hurt. Demonstrating that you see the other person’s hurt and care that they have been hurt is much more important than offering a corrected version of the facts. As a bonus, most often when we stand down and offer empathy first, there is more room for the healing reframe to follow.
Words Have Power
How we say what we say wields a great deal of power in relationships. When people are already hurt and feeling a need to defend themselves from further harm, wading through how we deliver our messages can get farther and farther out of reach. In the past, I have offered a number of tools that can help shift our conversations to hold both honesty and intimacy. If you, like the rest of us fallible humans struggle with this, I invite you to spend a little time with the following blogs and reels. Use what works for you and leave the rest behind.
Blogs
(Note: These were originally offered during the pandemic shutdown, but the tools themselves are much more broadly applicable.)
Fact Checking, Assumptions, “You and Me Against the Problem”
Expectations, the “What” and the “How,” the XYZ Formula
XYZ and This is Not OK With Me
Emotional Loading and the 4 Answers
Reels
(Note: These are much more concise and short versions of the tools.)
You and Me Against the Problem
May we all meet one another with an ever-growing ability to connect with compassion, to love well and to be well loved.