Looking back over my life, it occured to me that I don’t recall ever hearing my dad apologize for much. Sure, a screwup on his part that caused you an obvious physical injury (e.g. dropping a 2x4 on your foot) might score a “sorry about that,” but I don’t think he ever apologized when he lost his temper or got impatient or been party to any sort of internpersonal misunderstanding.
My sister recalls with some bitterness an incident from when she was a teenager. My dad was calling through the house for her, and grew angry when she didn’t respond, believing that she was ignoring him. She said she hadn’t heard him; rather than apologizing and admitting his assumption (of being heard and ignored) was wrong, he seethed, “LIKE HELL YOU DIDN’T!” There are any number of similar incidents that I can recall.
OTOH, my mom has gone out of her way to apologize to me on a few occasions. Once at the dinner table she compared my intelligence unfavorably to a neighbor’s kid, who had some kind of mental disability. It was a reflexive comment, and I don’t remember the exact context, but she felt bad enough about it that later on she came to me and apologized. Another time she complained about me to some friends of hers when she thought I had screwed up recording a TV program for her. Later she found out that I had actually recorded her program as requested, and she came to me and told me what she had done and apologized.
I’m a married human being, which means I step on my wife’s toes (emotionally and physically) from time to time. (just so we’re clear, the physical toe-stepping is not abuse; I’m just a klutz sometimes, ya know?) I apologize on these occasions because I know I’ve damaged the relationship, and I want to repair it; a good repair involves acknowledging the damage, expressing regret, and pledging to try to do better in the future.
I apologized to one of my coworkers a couple of weeks ago when a screwup on my part created more work for him. He said “don’t apologize; it’s a sign of weakness.” It’s not clear to me whether he was kidding or not.
So how about you? Do you apologize easily? Do you acknowledge your role in misunderstandings? Do you see an easily-given apology as a sign of weakness? Do you apologize too much?
Sorry, TL;DR.
I apologize when called for.
I don’t see apologizing as a sign of weakness, quite the opposite as a matter of fact. I will say this though, people who are OVERLY apologetic tend to annoy me. I have one coworker who calls me about five times a day, and every time he calls he opens with: “Sorry to bother you but…”
It drives me bonkers! Just tell me what you want! That’s what they’re paying me for! No need to apologize.
I tend to become over enthusiastic durring conversations and will sometimes ignore a less aggressive contributor. When I catch myself doing this I apologise, I hate when it is done to me. The older I get the less need I find for apologising because each apology I have made in the past has taught me to avoid that same behavior in the future. I don’t like feeling the need to apologise.
Of course I apologize. My parents never apologized to me for anything. Ever. I find that a simple apology, even if it’s just “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound that way” can smooth over so many arguments. And when you are genuinely wrong, apologize! A sign of weakness - it is a sign of stupidity and hubris when you can’t even apologize when you are in fact, wrong.
I apologize from time to time, whenever it seems appropriate.
I just realized though that growing up, I don’t think we ever apologized to each other for anything in my family. I guess we just assumed the offending party was sorry without them having to say so. It seems like any apologies would have been very awkward and weird for everyone involved.
Actually I’m trying to apologise less as I notice others will grab onto it as if I’m apologising because something is my fault, where I might well be saying - sorry things didn’t go as planned, or how you wanted it, or because you didn’t explain properly.
Yes, I apologize. Because that’s what mature adults do when they have been in error, or behaved badly.
When you know you’ve been in error, or misspoken, or misjudged, etc, apologizing is a way of saying, “I regret my behaviour, it’s not representative of who I really am as a person.”
When you skip the apology, you leave that behaviour out there for people to assume IS really who you are as a person!
Much better to just profer an apology. It has the added bonus of being sufficiently uncomfortable, for the one apologizing, to help insure they will not soon make the same error again!
Just apologize.
(And, “Sorry to bother you!”, is really just a shortened version of, “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something important, but…”. You should let that one go, I think!)
My Dad was the same as the OP’s, if not worse. The SOB would start a screaming argument accusing my mother of throwing something away, then he’d find it later. No apology.
I do apologize for things where inattention, incomplete information, poor execution on my part, or random misfortune cause me to injure or inconvenience someone- stepping on their toes by accident, etc…
But if there’s some considered action that I’ve intentionally taken, I usually don’t apologize for it. I did it because I meant to, with the consequences considered, so I have nothing to apologize for. That’s what I think the co-worker was getting at; if you do something intentionally, and then turn around and apologize for it, it does make you look like you don’t believe in what you did, or don’t have the spine to stand up for it.
Sure, when necessary. What really bugs me is when people keep angling for you to keep on apologizing. When that’s happened to me I’ve said, bluntly, “I’ve already apologized to you and won’t do so again.” I don’t care if it pisses them off.
I apologize when I’ve messed up. In the end, manning up is going to garner you a lot more respect than insisting you were right or not even acknowledging you messed up. But you don’t have to keep re-apologizing. Once, maybe twice if you really screwed up, should cover it.
Some years ago, my father accused me of coming into his house and stealing money he had hidden away and then forgotten the location of. Oh, he claims he didn’t actually accuse me, but repeatedly asking me if I’d stolen money from him and giving him the chance to come clean is an accusation in my book. Eventually he found the money but refused to apologize, so I gave him my copy of the key to his house. A few weeks later he went through the exact same thing–hiding away money, forgetting where it was, and accusing me (his only non-“saved” child–of stealing it; again, when he tore apart his house and found it, he refused to apologize.
I’ve learned from this. If I’m shown to be wrong, I apologize, particularly to my kids. Dad’d made it impossible for me to trust him or be his friend by his refusal to ever admit being wrong.
I probably apologize way too much - when I accidentally brush past someone on the street, when I walk into a room where a few people are talking, when I mispronounce a word or bungle a phrase . . . It’s sort of a reflexive word for me, which tends to dilute those times when I’m actually sorry. IME, women seem to apologize far more frequently than men.
There are any number of similar incidents that I can recall.