5 Honest Reasons Your Apology Didn’t Work Even Though You Said All The Right Things
Toa Heftiba | Unsplash After a three-week stint of tension and arguments, a client's husband finally apologized for racking up credit card debt without telling her. She promptly told him where to go and how to get there. When talking about her reaction, she explained:
"I just couldn’t be bothered. He was so monotone and flat. Sure, he said the words, but there was no emotion behind his words, no sense of any real remorse. He didn’t seem to get that I felt tricked, betrayed, and lied to. He just thought it was the same old argument about money."
As toddlers, the repeated message is to say “I'm sorry.” As kids, we learn to parrot this phrase whenever we make a mistake. We’re led to believe that if we say we’re sorry, everything will be okay in the end. As adults, we learn quickly that just isn’t true.
Studies have shown that apologizing and making amends are not as simple as just saying the words. If you’ve ever apologized and then found yourself trying to figure out why you are still in conflict, chances are that your apology missed the mark.
Here are 5 honest reasons your apology didn’t work, even though you said all the right things:
1. Your apology wasn't followed by a change in behavior
Apologies quickly lose their worth when they aren’t quickly followed by a change in behavior. If you’re apologizing for the same thing over and over, it doesn’t matter how thoughtfully you are. No one is going to believe you until they see a change in you.
Thoughtful apologies should include a statement of intent: “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I spoke too quickly, and my sarcasm ran away with me. I want to be more careful about what I joke about.”
Your apologies will have more credibility when you acknowledge and say out loud that you recognize what needs to change.
2. The intensity of your apology didn’t match the intensity of your actions
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The moment you realize you messed up can be awful, especially when it wasn’t your intent to be hurtful or disrespectful. It’s tempting to rush the whole thing and offer a speedy apology.
However, the size of your apology should match or exceed the size of your mistake. You can’t apologize for yelling and swearing with the same casual air you offer when you bump into someone. If you really hurt someone, you have to really apologize.
- Be mindful of your body language, posture, word choice, and word tone. You want to express empathy and concern.
- State clearly what you know your mistake to be
- Offer some understanding as to why you know it was hurtful or how the other person must have felt or been affected
- Without blaming the injured party, offer some explanation or insight about what was going on for you when the mistake happened. What went wrong? What had you been thinking or feeling at the time?
- Offer the person an opportunity to share how they were affected by what happened.
Career consultant Susan Kulakowski pointed out, "To state the impact your error had on another, you have to put yourself into the other’s position, to imagine the world from their point of view. This requires empathy — your recognition of another’s discomfort or suffering. You’ll need to discount your point of view and instead take on the other’s point of view as your central focus when you apologize."
3. You apologized too soon
I struggle the most with this one. If I’ve acted out, been impulsive, or said something hurtful, I typically want to take it back and swallow my words immediately. I’ve been known to trip over myself offering hurried apologies in an effort to fix the damage as soon as possible. Although well-intentioned on my part, that’s really more about me soothing myself from my guilt than taking care of the other person.
Sometimes people need to stay mad for a while. They can’t downshift from hurt to forgiveness in 60 seconds. Try checking in with the person before launching into your apology.“I feel pretty lousy about what I just said. Can we talk about it?”
If the other person sees you are respecting their experience by allowing them to have their reaction, they’re more likely to listen more openly when they’re ready.
4. You came to the conversation with armor on
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It’s so hard not to enter these tough talks defensively. You’re really putting yourself out there by apologizing, and it’s not unheard of that an injured party will try to make themselves feel better by making you feel worse. Of course, you want to protect yourself from the sting if your apology were rejected or from another round of conflict.
However, the only way apologies work to clear the air is if they are done openly. It’s vulnerable to apologize, but if you try to avoid vulnerability, the other person will sense it and interpret you as caring more about yourself than them.
"Effective apologies feel uncomfortable and require practice," explained psychologist Guy Winch. "They’re especially tricky because they require empathy, and empathy requires taking time to think through what happened from the other person’s perspective — getting a sense of the context and circumstances of their life at that moment and how those impacted that person’s experience, as well as the fall-out from what happened — and that takes practice."
5. It's too little, too late
Sometimes, you just don’t show up on time. Research has helped show the importance of timing the apology as not being too early or too late. If you’re going around and around on the same issue or are always fighting about the same thing, the other person gets to the point where they are just done.
If you’re managing a chronic problem with someone, it helps to acknowledge that you know it’s chronic and how frustrating it must be to have the same conversation over and over again. Sometimes, there isn't anything you can do. But by staying open, you keep the door open for improved communication and connection.
Heather Gray is a clinically trained Mindset and Performance coach. Heather uses her twenty years of clinical experience to teach business owners and leaders the necessary skills for combating fear, managing self-doubt, and shutting down the inner critic we sometimes hear in our heads.
