Why is it so hard to say:"I'm sorry"?

After the emotional fall-out,....the silence. The withdrawal into ones corners. Each waiting for the other to break the silence, the stalemate, and to say: "I'm sorry". But nobody takes the first step, says the first word, and so the feet grow roots and the lips remain zipped. The positions become fixed. So the next is to pretend; pretend were not hurting, disappointed, devastated, broken, feel betrayed, and so we begin the waiting...waiting....for the other to realise how they upset us, how the words they said cut us, the action they took shamed us, ...how they were wrong and we were right. Sometime we even play the "if" game: "If..he/she apologises, I will xyz..........."if" he/she shows signs of remorse...."if" he/she treats me better.....and so on. (Always mindful of not in any way conceding to "us" having been wrong.) In a stalemate situation, fraught with lots of emotions, does it enter our minds that maybe the other person/persons are thinking exactly the same way about us? That maybe they are waiting for us to apologise, or is our desire to be

"right" so overwhelming that we become blind to the other as a person and it becomes just a matter of winning or losing a battle?

We may even have "blueprint" for how an apology should be delivered in order for us to take it seriously. Remember as a kid how you would mutter under your breath: "soorrry" after being too rough with a sibling and your mother/father saying: "Not like that, do it properly!"? So for an apology to be acceptable, it has to be done according to our "blueprints". Our own need for validation may be so paramount that we may find it hard to even entertain a notion that we may have played a part in the breakdown of communications. In a "fall-out" situation, are there really only two positions; wrong or right, guilty or innocent, victim or perpetrator? Could there be more possibilities ? Maybe we misunderstood some parts, maybe our definition of some words are different, maybe we misheard, and is it possible that our recollection of the event is coloured by previous experiences? Emotions, whether we want them to or not, have a way of inserting themselves into our communication and to remain rational and objective in the middle of a difficult situation/event can be very challenging. For some of us, apologising is no big deal, even if in our minds we did/said nothing wrong, yet for some of us the objective is to keep the communication going,

for some the issue of right or wrong is not an issue because its all about perceptions, and for some apologising offers an opportunity for a deeper bond. "Well, what about me?" you may say, "I am not going to apologise when I know I'm in the right". "If I'm wrong, then I'll apologise, but not otherwise".

If this is how you view it, rest assured that there are many who share this view, and if this view works for you, I am genuinely happy for you.

I used to hold this view myself, but recently I have come to question my ability to be so certain of my skill in being able to really know what "right" and "wrong" is. According to recent neuro-scientific research, every time we recall a memory, we alter it, so unless there is some kind of recording/record of the conversation/event/incident, how can one be absolutely sure that what one remembers is actually correct?

This is good news, for this offers the opportunity for new perspectives.

Is it possible that I misunderstood? Is it possible that I could have used different words? Is it possible that I didn't have all the facts?  Is it possible that I jumped to conclusions? and so forth...

Saying "I'm sorry" regardless of who is to blame, has the potential to help us move forward because we show others that they are important to us.

When we apologise, we help repair relationships, we keep talking and this in turn helps us feel comfortable with each other again.