Apologize like a therapist

 

Cheated-on or otherwise hurt wives don’t feel satisfied with their husbands’ apologies and expressions of remorse. Adult children don’t believe their parent’s apology for years of abuse. Here is a basic lesson in effective and ineffective apologizing.

This is a bad apology: “I cheated on you with Fifi for a year. It was a terrible thing to do. I am profoundly sorry, sorrier than I can say. I’m stunned that I was capable of this, because I love you more than anything in the world. I hate myself for the way I hurt you. I will do anything that will help me not be that kind of person anymore. Whatever you want. I’ll go back to church. I’ll meet with our pastor, see him for counseling. I’ll join a church support group. I’ve bought the self-help books on infidelity. I’ll go to individual therapy. I’ll go to marital therapy if you want to. We can sign up for the Retrouvaille marriage encounter weekend. And I will never do this again. Here are my smartphone and computer passwords. You can look at them whenever you want to. I’ll call you when I arrive at work and when I’m leaving work. I called Fifi and told her that it’s over. I’d understand if you’d even want to contact her, to prove that I’ve ended all communication. I can understand if you can’t forgive me, but I hope that you’ll be able to someday.”

Does that sound like a good apology to you? It is empty, it is lame. It will, or should, leave her feeling troubled and confused: confused because it sounds so sincere, and may be sincere, and because it is incom­plete. There are two parts missing.* Here is how it should go:

Part One

All of the above, plus . . . .

Part Two

“I have done a lot of immense, brutal soul-searching. I’ve had to understand where this behavior, this urge, came from. I had to fall into the feelings, not just those I had when I was driving to her apartment and . . . being there, but all of my feelings. I see I’ve always been troubled. Somewhere under the surface there is a permanent feeling of wrong, or emptiness, or never had, or never given. It’s a feeling that love isn’t complete, or that there is a kind of love that can never be found. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, that can ever happen to me, but I carry inside an ungrown place. I’m making no excuses. But I’ve grasped that my childhood was loveless, and something in me is still back there waiting. It’s that something that looked in the wrong direction when I cheated.

“I’ve seen myself and it is a miserable child. And the fact is he’s still here. But now that I see him I know where to work. Because he’s still needy, but my need to be good is more powerful. My need never to lose real love is more powerful. I’ve called several places and I think I’ve found a good therapist. My first appointment is on Monday.

“You already have a disappointing husband. And now I’m showing you a botched child. I hope you will somehow find the reason to stay with me through this.”

Part Three

“I’ve been speaking and you haven’t. You need to be able to say everything, name and express all your thoughts and feelings. If you want to, when you want to. And I will hear everything and accept it. There will be no time limit.”

 🔑

To me, “I apologize” is like “I forgive.”** These are concepts as lazy as the words that label them. There are times when people need to get deep and not just run on their sur­face tapes, when they need to put psychology in action. You can’t apologize at the truest level unless you really care about the other person’s feelings. You can’t apologize with knowledge and the motivating power inherent in it unless you know who you are.

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* There is a fourth Part, to be sure: You can’t be a sociopath.

 ** https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2017/05/curmudgeon-2-forgiveness.html.