104. 5 Steps to a meaningful apology.
Podcast Summary and Shownotes
Have you ever tried to apologize to your partner and it just seems to make things worse? That's because just saying "I'm sorry" isn't a real apology. In this episode, you'll learn how to make a real apology, an apology that actually makes things better. And, I'll show you how to avoid making the mistakes that most people make that end up undermining their apology.
My name is Jacob Brown, and I'm a Couples Therapist in San Francisco. To learn more, visit:
Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi, my name is Jacob Brown and I'm a couple's therapist in San Francisco. I wanna welcome you to sex love and couple's therapy. We all want to feel loved. That's a universal desire sometimes instead of feeling loving our relationships, feel confusing, frustrating, and a little crazy making The purpose of this podcast is to help you clear up some of that confusion so that you and your partner can find ways to make your relationship feel closer or connect to do more loving. So stay tuned. We've got a lot of great stuff to talk about, and now let's go talk about my three favorite topics, sex love in couple's therapy.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Today. We're gonna talk a little bit about how to make an apology. Now that may seem like a silly thing, cuz we all know how to make an apology. You say you're sorry, but it turns out that just saying you're sorry is not a real apology. And often doesn't do much help. And in fact sometimes just makes things even worse. So today I'm gonna walk you through what I see as the five to making a real apology, an apology that really helps the situation. Now it's not surprising that, um, we don't really know how to make an apology very well because all of us have been taught from an early age, how to give bad apologies or fake apologies. You know, you probably remember some time, you know, when you're two or three and you're sitting in the sandbox at some point, for whatever reason, you pick up your little plastic shovel and you Bon the kid next to you on the head and almost instantly some nearby parent comes up and says to you say, you're sorry and kids aren't stupid kids really quickly learn that.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
All they have to do is utter the magic words. I'm sorry, and everything is forgotten. Then you could get back to playing. And if you're lucky, you might even get a juice box out of it. But because that's what we're raised with this kind of false, I'm sorry, which everybody knows. Nobody means we never really learn how to make a real apology cuz just saying, I'm sorry. Isn't really enough. Then when you're older and you begin to have serious relationships, either work colleagues or friends or family or intimate relationships with a partner, you can't help, but sometimes hurt the people you're closest to. It's unavoidable. My wife and I have been together for 41 years and you know, we get along incredibly well. And yet we still occasionally say or do things that hurt the others feelings. You can't help it. We're just human. But we've learned through hard experience.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I should add that a real apology, an authentic apology goes a long way to repair any injury to the relationship as adults. We discover that the magic words aren't helpful anymore. Even when you regret the actions with all your heart. In fact, as I said earlier, instead of making things better, just saying you're sorry, sometimes seems to make everything even worse. And that is so confusing. You just don't don't know what to do. And the problem is that in a sense, we have the wrong goal. The goal of an apology is not to get out of trouble or to have the other person stop being angry to you. But that's what we think we're supposed to do. We're supposed to calm them down, get them to like us again, you know, get out out of trouble. And that's what we're taught as a kid. But the real goal of an apology is to mend a rift in your relationship.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I don't care if it's a work relationship or with your partner when something's happened, there's been a rift. And the goal of the apology is to mend. It it's is if the fabric of your relationship has been torn and you are trying to sow it back together to make the repair, you have to craft an apology that is both authentic to you. That means you mean it and is meaningful to the other person. It's not enough just to sh show that you're sincere when you apologize, the goal is to help mend the rift. And here, I want to say one thing, if you don't mean it, don't say it. Okay. There's nothing that does more damage to a relationship than an insincere apology. So I'm going to walk you through what I see as a five for making a meaningful apology with my couple's therapy clients, I stress that a meaningful apology has several parts and each part is important in helping to heal the damage.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Here are what I believe are the key steps to an effective apology. But I want to remind you, apologies are hard. They're difficult because you might be embarrassed. Um, you might be ashamed of what you did. Um, you're afraid of what's gonna happen. You don't want to tell the truth, cuz it's embarrassing. Um, you're afraid of how they're gonna react to it. It leaves you open to make it an honest apology. And for all those reasons they're hard to do and people tend to back away from them. So what I've added is also for each step, I've also added the ways that people unconsciously undermine their apology. That's what they do is they apologize. And then they kind of snatch it back. So here we go. Let's walk through the, the five steps of a meaningful apology. Step number one, I was wrong. You have to start with a very clear admission that you made a mistake. This is a critical first step that shows you understand that what you did was wrong. That at this point you, you don't mention anything that they did or their participation. You have to say that you were wrong. And if you don't think you were wrong, don't apologize. Cuz that will just make matters worse.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
If you don't think you're wrong, there are lots of other ways to, to mend the relationship, but making a fake apology that you don't really believe will just cause more damage. And then here's how people undermine that first step. They try, try to justify their actions. They say something like, I didn't really mean to say it. I said that because what of what you did or I was still angry over our last fight. All these statements, tell your partner that your, what you really feel is it wasn't your fault. And when you started an apology by saying, it's not your fault, it is no longer an apology. Granted, they may also have some role in what happened. That's a separate issue. This is your apology. Keep the focus on your behavior. Step two, I see that I hurt you. Let them know that you see that your actions hurt them and that you don't blame from them for being upset. That's really important. You see that what you did hurt them. And naturally they're upset by what you did and that, that you understand that. So how do people undermine this step? It's very painful when you hurt your partner. So people naturally try to minimize the impact of what they've done. People say things like you're overreacting or it wasn't that bad or you're too sensitive. These are just ways that people try and shift some of the blame, a onto the partner.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It's essentially saying it's your own fault for feeling hurt. You have to recognize that they, that what you did hurt them and that it's you understand that why they're hurt Step three. I understand how you feel Showing empathy for your partner is an important part of an apology. You show empathy by demonstrating that you can see things through their eyes and connect with how they feel. It's really important that you can see things the way they, they see it. It doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but you have to be able to understand the way they see what happened and why they're reacting that way. How do people under mind this step? Well, they argue with how their partner is interpreting what happened instead of trying to see it through their eyes, they try to convince their partner that they're wrong. They sing. They say things like you shouldn't feel that way or I wasn't trying to hurt you. Or you always twist the, And this is just another way of telling them that they're wrong to be upset. Step four. I feel Fill in the blank Along with showing that you understand how they feel. You need to communicate pain, that you feel that you experience when you see how you've hurt them.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
For example, you might say, I feel horrible when I see the pain that I've caused you. So you have to communicate to them. Not just that you're saying, you're sorry, but that you feel hurt that see their pain and it has hurt you. So that, that way they don't feel like they're in this all by themselves, that you're in this together. How do people undermine this step? Well, three things. One, they make it about their pain and take the focus of off the injured partner. So they really focus on how terrible they feel. Oh, I feel terrible. I feel like a piece of trash. That's all about them and not about the partner. They turn it into a play for sympathy for their partner. So they try to get their partner to be sympathetic for their pain. And lastly, they blame partner for making them feel bad. The partner's not making them feel bad. They are feeling bad because they've hurt their partner. And here's the last one. Step five. I won't do it again. That's so clear. So easy, but something that people forget, Make it clear that you've learned from experience and that you are making a committed effort to not repeat your behavior. You don't have to be perfect, but you have to make it clear that you're really trying to change that you're really trying to not make this happen again. That is so important and so meaningful to know that you're to change.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And how do people undermine this step? People make empty promises just as a way of appeasing their partner, but they don't really make a sincere effort to change. Then if you repeat the same action, the damage is even worse because now the partner is dealing with the pain from the first time and the second time and feels that you don't think they're important. If you wont don't even bother to try to change. And that is the damage. The fact that they then feel so unimportant to you, that you're not even trying to mend your ways and that is a killer.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
So those are the five steps. And I wanna remind you two things. One that the goal of the apology is not to get you out of trouble or get them to stop being mad. It's not a get out of jail free card. It's a sincere attempt to work with your partner to mend the rift that you've caused in the relationship. And it's important to remember that your apology is an effort to restore your partner's feeling of safety and trust in the relationship. When you hurt your partner, it makes him or her feel like it's not safe to be with you. The apology is your effort to prove that you can and will take care of them. You are telling them that it's important to you, that they feel safe. I hope that was useful and comes in handy. The next time as we all do, we make a mistake with our partners. Give it a thought. Think about that. You might even share this before. There's a need with your partner and talk about what this means and how you guys might make better apologies with each other. Well, that's our episode for today. I hope we found it interesting and useful, but most of all, I'd like to thank you for listening. If you have a minute, please hit the subscribe button and give us a rating. And I hope to see you again soon on another episode of sex, love and couples therapy.