My gf \[28F\] and me \[31M\] had an argument about apologies.
She was upset and I said something like, “Thanks for telling me how you’re feeling. I’m sorry what I did made you feel that way. I will change that going forward”. She is insisting that this is the same thing as saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way” which is a terrible apology.
The former, to me, accepts responsibility and acknowledges that the speaker’s actions caused the outcome. The latter is widely accepted as a disingenuous apology.
Am I right that these are different? Or is the latter apology the same as the former?
TL;DR Gf says I’m apologizing poorly based on equating my carefully chosen words with a commonly accepted poor response.
5 comments
The first apology specifically states that the problem with the action was that the way the other person reacted to it, and that you did not want that reaction, and so you will try to avoid it in the future. This is a correct apology if and only if you feel the action itself was generally right and that the other person was hurt by it was not something one could predict. It is a cop out if the action itself was wrong.
So, I might use that apology if I hit a sensitive spot for my partner without knowing, and to be clear that I will make effort to avoid it going forward. I would never use that apology if I thought I actually did something inherently wrong, as it takes no responsibility for the action itself being wrong.
I agree with you
But I also think that, while trying to apologize isn’t a good time to double down with semantics. She doesn’t *feel* apologized to and you *are* willing to accept responsibility for whatever the initial mistake was so I’d just word my apology differently and move on
Even though yes, you are right. But the best relationship advice I ever got was, would you rather be right or married? (I get you aren’t actually married)
While you’re technically correct, you’re also carefully and precisely avoiding saying “I’m sorry I did [whatever you did]”, and that feels weaselly. There might be a good reason you don’t want to say that, but there are probably more bad ones.
Saying I’m sorry you feel that way is not admiting fault. While those two appoligizes are not the same they both convey that you don’t think what you did is wrong. If that is the case then the discussion should revolve around why you are not at fault and why you feel that way and not making an appoligize that invalidates how your partner feels.
The first one is good but it falls short. You should say specifically what you plan to change and only respond with what you will actually do.