132: Sorry Not Sorry: The Truth About Wrong Apologies

Rosie (00:00)

Stop getting distracted.

Roula (00:00)

Okay.

Rosie (00:03)

I have a question for you.

Roula (00:05)

Shoot.

Rosie (00:08)

my fan's not working properly.

Roula (00:10)

Okay, I'll shake my coffee.

Rosie (00:25)

Ruler.

Roula (00:26)

Rosie.

Rosie (00:28)

I have a juicy question for you, and I think it's juicy because I know you are going to have strong opinions about it. What is the right way to apologize to someone?

Roula (00:44)

Don't. No, I'm kidding.

Rosie (00:46)

WHAAHAHAHA I was like wow, okay.

Roula (00:49)

That's the easiest way. That's why most of the people don't apologize, because it's easy.

Rosie (00:55)

Mm-hmm.

Should I give you some more context or are you ready? Okay. So I'm thinking of an example. As a child, I might do something that mum or dad didn't like. And I would have to go to my room and I wouldn't be allowed to do anything until I apologized. And I gave so many apologies that were disingenuous. I just wanted to get on and do something else.

Roula (00:57)

Look.

Go ahead. Yes, I love that.

Rosie (01:25)

Now their rule was I can't just say sorry, I have to say why I'm sorry. So I would have to tell them what they wanted to hear. And then, okay, yep, you can go now. But that to me is not, what's the point in apologizing if you don't mean it? But the expectation, if for it to be a real apology, you had to acknowledge why you were apologizing, what you did wrong. That was the so-called etiquette.

Roula (01:56)

And that's a beautiful thing actually, because apologizing has no value if we don't name the wrong thing with it. Yeah.

Rosie (02:04)

Yeah, sorry about that. Sorry. Yeah, I agree. I

quite like that. What I didn't like is what was it teaching me? It taught me that, which I think is very valuable lesson and I carry to this day. But what was it teaching me about placating other people? When I was apologizing, placating, like just pleasing them, doing it so they'd move on.

Roula (02:26)

About what?

Mmm. Mmm.

Rosie (02:32)

So many apologies where I didn't mean it.

Roula (02:33)

I love how in

one thing you say you tackle so many points that are true. Yes, yes, I'm very careful now, of course, with my third child, because I learned so much with the other two. ⁓ I don't ask her to say sorry. I don't ever. Because it means nothing. I asked him to tell me what happened.

Rosie (02:38)

Mm.

Yeah.

Mm. Wow.

Okay.

Roula (03:02)

Because I

want to evaluate if his reaction to the friend was justified, legit, or totally not just not good. He should have not behaved like that or said the words he said. Why I'm taking you into these four things, because the perspective we have of what we did wrong, of what the other person think we did wrong, might not always be in the right context.

Rosie (03:15)

Mm-hmm.

Roula (03:30)

And parents, if you want to talk about parents, given your example, parents want their child to be polite all the time and apologize, even if they were in the right of being rude or protecting themselves or whatever. And as a parent, you have to be critical on this matter. We don't want our children to apologize to become a people pleaser because we don't want the other person to feel bad. What happened? Each one has is responsible for an action.

Rosie (03:33)

Mmm.

⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Roula (04:00)

that triggered a reaction.

Rosie (04:00)

Yep,

true.

Roula (04:04)

And the right way to apologize is never to say, I'm sorry.

Rosie (04:10)

Unless you want to.

Roula (04:12)

unless you want to. But saying sorry means nothing. I don't say sorry.

When I know I did something that hurt the other and I have to apologize and I'm talking about deep stuff. I'm not talking about bumping into someone because even when we do that, we should not say sorry. should say, say, are you all right? These are nothing we should be apologizing for. Yes. Please go back to that. We don't want to apologize. Deeper shit. Yes. I recognize my action. I name my action. You know,

Rosie (04:33)

Yeah, and we've got a whole episode on that, right? Stop apologizing about that stuff. Go listen to that. For the deepest shit, listen to this one. Yeah.

Okay.

Roula (04:48)

When you talked to me this morning, I answered in a brutal way that was not nice. And I don't want to talk to you like this. You don't deserve that. I will do better next time. Because I'm holding myself accountable, accountable to my words, because next time I said I'm going to do better. And if I still don't do better than the person who's hurt will tell me, but you know, you said you're going to do better.

I have to hold myself accountable. So I do not apologize. And in situations where we should apologize, I cannot really think of, can you help me, of a moment where we can't recognize our behavior to name it rather than to apologize.

Rosie (05:18)

Mmm.

I haven't got to your level where I don't apologize because I'm just so, I guess it's so ingrained that when you really hurt somebody, yeah, then an apology is involved. But what you're saying really makes sense. Total accountability. You're saying, we say sorry all the time. That means jack shit. I'm acknowledging I was an asshole to you. I really hurt you. And not only that, I'm saying what I'm going to do in the future so it doesn't happen again.

Roula (06:04)

But this also, and not but, and this doesn't mean that recognizing how we hurt the other, that we're giving them all the rights or, let's say we had a conversation, we had a disagreement, this doesn't mean they are right. Because this is a different conversation. It only means I should have behaved better. And my behavior was wrong. It's not about the disagreement.

Rosie (06:06)

You

Oooooh! Mmmmm!

Okay.

out of order.

Here's my next question.

when we apologize or when we, whatever you want to call what you're talking about, you own what you did, you're gonna do better. Do we justify why we did it? Do we explain or do we just acknowledge, move on?

Roula (06:53)

If we explain, it's gonna come into another hurtful point and it's gonna go into another discussion and then we're going to give an excuse for what we're doing. Why the fuck are we going through into this rabbit hole? Because when we explain, then our apology is not genuine.

Rosie (07:09)

⁓ what? my God. Okay, I want to give you an example. So again, this is when I was younger, isn't it interesting? These are the examples I'm coming up with. I was a teenager and there was a family friend and I think they'd given me a birthday present. It might've been posted to me and I hadn't called to say thank you. And next time we went to visit,

they were upset with me and said that and I apologized. When we went home, I said to my mom, I feel so bad. Like I was waiting until I saw them in person to say thank you. And she said, why didn't you tell them that? And I said, well, it doesn't matter. did the wrong, like I hurt them by not acknowledging the present, but it's always stuck with me. She was like, well, why didn't you say that? And

I kind of get where she was coming from because maybe it would have helped them understand, it from my point of view, not for me to go, well, I'm not sorry, I was going to do this. It's just, man, I'm so sorry. I was waiting to come here and say thank you. thought it would be more personal to say it in person. And they might go, ⁓ you know, she's not a total asshole. What are your thoughts?

Roula (08:33)

Wow, that's a really difficult example you're giving me. I have to think about it because I still think, yeah, telling them I was waiting to come and see it will make it, maybe now you're saying it. Because you feel yourself on the spot. You're making it up. So it doesn't feel genuine for them.

Rosie (08:35)

Mmm!

Yeah, you could be making it up.

Hmm

Mmm. I'm so conflicted on it.

Roula (08:57)

And why

would you want to justify it anyway? Why? To make you feel better? To make them feel better? What's done is done.

Rosie (09:09)

True. Yeah.

Roula (09:11)

And they, yeah, just if I say and I was waiting to see you to apologize, what is it gonna solve? Yeah.

Rosie (09:22)

coming up with an excuse. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Roula (09:28)

validating their feeling. OK, you were a teenager. So this conversation, if you're now in your if you're 18 plus and I see because a lot of 18 plus are following us. If you're in that range and listening to this, it's never too late to start building this this apology scale. Instead of thinking, OK, it's giving an excuse for my behavior. What is it going to solve?

Rosie (09:55)

Yeah, you're right. I think you are right. But then I always have this niggly feeling like sometimes when a person gives me some context, it kind of helps me understand. ⁓ I'm trying to think of a real life example and one's not coming to mind. it could be something like that person just received a really traumatic

phone call, a family member sick or something really bad happened and I happened to confront them about something at the same time and they reacted in an absolutely awful way. I would still want them to apologize, right? What they did was wrong. But if they said, oh shit, I'm so sorry, that's like bang out of order, I just received this phone call, I wasn't thinking, I might go, oh shit, yeah.

Yeah, wow, you had a lot going on. Doesn't make it okay. But kind of makes a little bit more sense why you were such a fricking asshole.

Roula (10:58)

Look, look, this is this is a difficult one for me because I'm not saying my method is right. What I say to myself is that we all have things going on in our lives.

Rosie (11:05)

Mm.

Yeah.

Roula (11:14)

Whatever the load you're having in your life is big enough for you. So giving it and giving me and one upper of what's going on in your life to justify it doesn't help. You can tell me about the difficulties you're going through later or when we finish the apology. Don't make it. Don't let it relate to the apology. And when you talk about it later, it's separate. Then I will. It will.

Rosie (11:26)

Yeah.

I think you pr-

Right, it's separate.

Roula (11:42)

make sense to me and I will appreciate you and it's over. But it doesn't have to be related to the apology.

Rosie (11:43)

Mmm.

that makes sense.

Makes sense. Yeah. And I think what you said earlier... Yeah.

Roula (11:53)

It's so tell me,

I have a question for you. What have you learned from this example you gave me? How can you do it differently next time?

Rosie (11:57)

Okay, hit me.

⁓ No, I think I did great. I apologize and that was it. There was no excuse. I think...

Roula (12:12)

But

how can you do it differently to next time you don't feel like you wanted to explain and you're confused?

Rosie (12:19)

⁓ don't know if I

can ever, I don't think I can ever get rid of that feeling. But you're right, me wanting to explain it is helping me feel better. It's telling myself, you were having a tough day, that's why you were an asshole. You're right, I think it is for me. But I still, it's still something I think about. Because it's hard to just own it. Fuck, I'm sorry. Really sorry.

And in my head I've got all these justifications going around and I want to tell them and maybe it would help them receive the apology better. But at the end of the day, I did something wrong and I need to own that. I want to own that. But it's hard.

Roula (12:56)

Of course, it requires practice and putting our guards down sometimes.

Rosie (12:59)

yeah.

Hmm.

Roula (13:06)

It's all about making the other understand why we did what we did. Instead of making the other, making us understand why the other is feeling the way they feel.

Rosie (13:21)

hang on, say that again.

Roula (13:22)

this is very common in relationship. We want the other to understand our behavior, but we don't spend enough time understanding how we made them feel with our behavior. So it's like a power struggle, you know. They should have understand me. They should have felt me. They should know what's in my mind. Yes. So it's their responsibility.

Rosie (13:35)

Yeah.

And that's why we want to explain it. Right.

Roula (13:49)

to feel me, to know me. No one will know us, no one. They only know how we made them feel and that's okay.

Rosie (13:58)

Right. Let's say reality.

Roula (14:00)

And there is nothing wrong

in going to someone and telling them, you know, you made me feel this and so, or your behavior or whatever. And that's hurt me.

Do you see it this way? Can we talk about it? And it's good to ask them to see it this way because maybe before explaining and demanding an apology, for me, asking them to explain it might even help me more to understand and I might not need an apology, need them to apologize anymore.

Rosie (14:37)

feel like we've weaved in many different opinions in this episode without even realising it. Because what you've just said there is the person who's hurt trying to understand the other person's actions. But then a moment ago we were just saying, well, that's not what we're meant to be doing. But yeah, I don't... ⁓

Roula (14:44)

true.

Yeah.

It's different when

demanding an apology is different than asking for an explanation.

Rosie (15:03)

Yeah, why do we demand an apology? What's that apology gonna mean? They're only giving it to, to, you know, obey our command, obey our, like, yeah, what's, what's that? Ew. Yeah, if you, if you have hurt me, Rula, of course I'd love an apology, if it's genuine. But what I would say is, it really hurt me when you did that. It made me feel like you're taking me for granted, for example. I'm not gonna say I want you to apologize now.

Roula (15:13)

Yes!

Rosie (15:34)

It's a power trip. What the hell? Who might have said that? You're your own person.

Roula (15:37)

Yeah.

The thing when we ask for explanation or when we are specific, like you said, okay, you made me feel, can you repeat? have a blackout.

Rosie (15:53)

⁓ you made me feel like what? Yes, yes, that's right, yes.

Roula (15:58)

You're taking me for granted.

This spark conversation, growth, understanding, apology doesn't spark anything.

Rosie (16:10)

Mmm.

Roula (16:12)

apology. One telling the other what they want to hear, the other is still wondering is it genuine, is it going to happen again, or whatever. But a conversation makes both parties feel satisfied, clear, even if the conversation will result in an argument or a conflict. At least they know where they stand. Because apologizing and repeating it again another time, this is bullshit.

Rosie (16:29)

right.

Yeah.

It is bullshit. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But it happens all the time.

Roula (16:41)

Who are you? Stop doing this. But sparking

conversation, yeah, instead of apologizing, it's much nicer, much nicer.

Rosie (16:51)

Yeah,

I agree. I liked this episode. ⁓

Roula (16:56)

At all, we are kind, calm, respectful, conversations can happen. When we put our anger, defensiveness, and stubbornness, conversations will go difficult. We're not there to prove a point. We're there to build a relationship.

Rosie (17:08)

god, yeah.

yeah. We're not there to prove a point. We're there to build a relationship. Wow. And if you're not interested in building a relationship with this person, then what's the point? Why do you have them in your life? Unless it's a situation where they're at your work and that's a bit different. But outside of that, what's the point? If you're not interested in building a relationship, bye. See ya. Wouldn't wanna be ya.

Roula (17:45)

Stop.

Yeah.

All right, so don't ask for an apology. Don't give an apology. Open a conversation.

Rosie (17:54)

Lead with curiosity.

Mmm.

Roula (17:57)

Thank you for listening.