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Dear Heather,
How do you handle it when you’ve apologized but your apology isn’t accepted? Also, what happens when you have apologized but you keep hearing about your screw-ups for years later?
It seems like people are so scared of being hurt again, that they aren’t willing to forgive and forget. It’s starting to feel like I have a rap sheet where my mistakes can be brought up any time I make a mistake.
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Sometimes, it really can feel like by apologizing and doing the right thing, you have put a target on your own back to never be trusted going forward. Couples tell me this all the time…that they are still hearing about the screw-up they did two, four, or even ten years ago. Hurts have happened and they have never healed.
Get really honest with yourself.
I wrote about this in Why Your Apology Wasn’t Accepted and How to Really Fix Things. If you just have apologized too often, too insincerely, or were defensive, you have your answer there.
However, sitting with couples, I know that this issue rarely comes down to apologies that were given poorly. More often than not, it comes down to the couple’s inability to be vulnerable with one another. The betrayed may be struggling with trusting you, but they are also struggling with trusting themselves. They create stories that their judgment was off—they never imagined that you’d do something like that so when you do, they think the problem might be with them.
They use your failing as a defense mechanism. If they never allow themselves to forget that you’ve hurt them, they won’t be caught off guard should you fail again. They can say they saw it coming.
It’s not just the betrayed that’s vulnerable.
That guilty, crappy feeling of having hurt someone is the natural consequence of our actions. That feeling is our conscience and we need it to it guide us toward right and wrong. However, after we’ve screwed up and acknowledged our failing, we too, are vulnerable. We’re questioning whether or not we’ll be accepted again and whether or not the relationship will truly recover from our failures.
In that vulnerability, the betrayer can sometimes be tempted to rush the healing process…to want to just be forgiven and have everything quickly forgotten. That never works, though. The betrayed partner ends up feeling like their experience has been minimized.
Healing requires two.
It’s easy and tempting to think that the responsibility of healing just falls on the person who screwed up but once an apology has been made, the couple has to come together to heal.
- Apologies have to be said out loud. Forgiveness does, too. It has to be clearly said and stated “I forgive you.” If there hasn’t been sincere, stated forgiveness, the two of you can’t move forward.
- The two of you have to acknowledge that things feel sensitive and tenuous because of the crack in your relationship. Your relationship has to be carefully kept for a while until your reconnection strengthens.
- Both of you should acknowledge what you need going forward. You might need space or time alone or you might need extra time together.
- Acknowledge out loud the strengths you have as a couple and what each brings to the relationship.
- Decide together when this failing has an expiration date, and when it can’t be brought up again. It’s going to be a point of reference for a while but every failing has a shelf life, and you need to decide together when it really will be a part of your past.
If you’re going to love, you’re going to get hurt.
This is an undeniable truth in relationships that some people want to forget. If we are going to be in long-term, committed relationships, we are not going to be perfect 24/7. We’re going to fail. Our partners are going to fail. It sucks to be betrayed and it sucks to be the one doing the damage but everyone will have a turn at both if they stay in a relationship long enough.
If you’ve apologized, shown remorse, and have demonstrated a willingness to make amends and your apology isn’t forgiven, I would accept that and move on.
It’s not about the hurts. It’s about the recovery. Couples who come together to heal after heartbreak are the couples who last. When one partner holds on to the hurt more than they hold on to the love, the relationship never fully recovers, and there’s really nothing you can do other than move on, heal your own heart, and find a love that is more forgiving and accepting.
This story has been republished to Medium.
Photo credit: unsplash
“It’s starting to feel like I have a rap sheet where my mistakes can be brought up any time I make a mistake.”
Good indicator that you are in an abusive relationship.
It’s fucking bullshit to say that if you love you will be hurt.
There are some people who hold grudges forever, and no matter what you do, relationships with those people will never get better. As you say, move on. But in some cases I think people expect forgiveness too soon, especially if the injury is a huge one, or if they haven’t really made amends. Buying the wrong brand of shampoo is a tiny injury (unless you do it passive-aggressively every time you shop) and should be forgiven immediately. At the other extreme, adultery is a major injury, and most experts say it takes at least two years to get past it… Read more »