Do you apologize?

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

SamBee wrote:

There are times when we shouldn’t apologise. Good judgement is knowing when that isn’t appropriate.

Do you care to elaborate?

It’s a controversial view nowadays, but one should never apologise for one’s birth characteristics, or for other things you had no say in or choice about. You shouldn’t apologise for going gray, bald or having a stammer etc.

[Anonymous]

Another one I would include is don’t apologize for speaking the truth. NOTE: in the process don’t speak the truth to deliberately hurt someone’s

feelings. This is the example I’m thinking of.

I was married twice. My daughter is from my first marriage. My second wife & I raised my daughter from the age of 13 to 18. When my daughter

graduated High School she moved to Utah to be closer to her birth mother & go to the UofU. About the time she graduated from college, she

called us to say that she was getting married & wanted us to help finance the wedding (non LDS). We were willing to do that & celebrate with

her, the new husband & my ex. (It was not an amical divorce or change in custody.)

Just before we were going to make plans to come out west, my DD called & said that my wife (her step mother) was not invited. I told her that

her decision to exclude my wife didn’t work for me. Anything that we would give her is coming from both of us. And, if she couldn’t appreciate

that we couldn’t come. Our relationship was cold for a number of years after that time. I worried that I made the wrong decision. As time passed,

we started to communicate again. She got a good job as a teacher, gave birth to her son, her mother died & DD got divorced herself. Life

experiences sometimes brings a deeper understanding about what’s important as well as maturity. We talk long distance at least once a week.

I don’t regret being truthful. (At least in this case.)

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

A well meaning SP once apologized to me for something a bishop had done. The bishop never did. From my point of view that apology was worthless. The SP likely did actually feel bad for what happened (I believe he did) but I’m not sure the bishop did (and I believe he did not). It might as well have been you apologizing because it was meaningless – regardless of whether you felt bad or not, you didn’t do anything that harmed me or my family.

I routinely apologize in my professional capacity as a representative of the company. I did not personally cause the problem but I am in a position to begin to make amends and part of that comes from owning the problem. I wonder if some apologies from church officials can serve a similar purpose. They might apologize as a representative of the same organization that caused the problem.

[Anonymous]

MM, I am sorry for your experience. I have heard of several similar situations where there was hurt feelings regarding wedding plans and exclusion. I am glad that your relationship with your daughter has healed eventually. I understand you to be saying that sometimes one should stand on your principles and loyalties and not apologize for that.

I can respect that.

I also could see myself at some point apologizing to my daughter for not attending her wedding and saying that it was something that I still regret to this day. My mindset would be that healing the relationship with my daughter is worth the effort. I would only bring it up if I felt good enough about the situation to not make it worse (for example, I would need to be strong enough to not react badly if DD fails to apologize for her own part in the event etc.).

[Anonymous]

Telling the truth is an interesting one. I suppose I could apologise for the way I express the truth sometimes. Sometimes I’m not as diplomatic as I could be. I had to talk to someone about his deafness once, and it did not go down well. I regretted it greatly, because I never intended to hurt him. But every time we spoke, we ended up having two different conversations.

Could I have put it better? Yes I could. But it was inevitable it would come up eventually. I don’t think my apologies counted for much.

There are of course other scenarios in which the truth shouldn’t be told, because it’s neither kind nor necessary. I would never tell a small child that Santa didn’t exist because that would be hurtful.

[Anonymous]

I like the steps from various recovery programs. For example:

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

I think it is sound advice. Especially #9.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

DarkJedi wrote:

A well meaning SP once apologized to me for something a bishop had done. The bishop never did. From my point of view that apology was worthless. The SP likely did actually feel bad for what happened (I believe he did) but I’m not sure the bishop did (and I believe he did not). It might as well have been you apologizing because it was meaningless – regardless of whether you felt bad or not, you didn’t do anything that harmed me or my family.

I routinely apologize in my professional capacity as a representative of the company. I did not personally cause the problem but I am in a position to begin to make amends and part of that comes from owning the problem. I wonder if some apologies from church officials can serve a similar purpose. They might apologize as a representative of the same organization that caused the problem.

In this case although part of the same “bigger” organization, the organization that really needed to apologize was the smaller part – the ward (specifically the bishop). This SP not only was not part of the stake leadership at the time, he had absolutely nothing to do with it an no knowledge of it until I told him. It’s sort of like me apologizing for slavery – meaningless because I am anti-slavery and had nothing to do with it (and as far as I can tell my ancestors – I am a Mayflower descendant – also didn’t own slaves or support slavery and some of them may have helped the underground railroad). Additionally, other than the apology (which was not of the “I’m sorry that happened variety, which would have been more acceptable) the SP did nothing else to try to make things right and obviously neither did the bishop (or anyone else in the organization for that matter). I get in a business where the a company might make an apology, say for a loss of service for which I paid, and often will try to make some sort of amends such as a billing credit. But with that company I also have the option of saying “screw you, no thanks, I’m taking my business elsewhere.” The church is quite s different story and much more personal. In the end I think that’s what real apologies need to be – personal.

[Anonymous]

I respect that DJ. I especially concur that the apology often needs to be coupled with remediation and some sort of a promise or good faith effort to not reoffend

I think that I still come down on the side that a sincere apology is never wasted or meaningless. Part of my reasoning is that I would never want to discourage people from apologizing for fear that their apology would not be effective. I would always go with the apology as a very low cost method to remedy or recover the relationship. Even if it doesn’t ultimately solve the issue, I cannot imagine that it hurt it any.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I respect that DJ. I especially concur that the apology often needs to be coupled with remediation and some sort of a promise or good faith effort to not reoffend

I think that I still come down on the side that a sincere apology is never wasted or meaningless. Part of my reasoning is that I would never want to discourage people from apologizing for fear that their apology would not be effective. I would always go with the apology as a very low cost method to remedy or recover the relationship. Even if it doesn’t ultimately solve the issue, I cannot imagine that it hurt it any.

You’re probably right and there is no doubt the SP was well meaning. In that particular conversation, which took place while I was still very much in crisis mode and anger phase, he made some other mistakes which I probably would now overlook and let go. While I wasn’t rude to him, he did get to feel the power of the dark side in that conversation yet that was not our last. Were I giving him counsel before talking to someone like me I probably wouldn’t have dissuaded him, although I think the apology part was unexpected for him because he wasn’t aware of some of the the details prior to us meeting. I wasn’t angry without reason and I controlled the anger (now I’m sounding more like Hulk). I won’t say his apology hurt per se, but it didn’t help either and in one way changed our relationship (not necessarily for the better – I respected him less afterwards). This was a specific situation, not necessarily applicable to most situations (perhaps like certain sections of the D&C) and it was several years ago now and the SP doesn’t even live here any more (nor does the bishop). In retrospect I might owe him an apology for the way I treated him in some respects – he was trying and I believe he shared his mistakes with his successor who did not make the same mistakes (and depending on your point of view made more headway than he did).

[Anonymous]

Minyan Man wrote:

I like the steps from various recovery programs. For example:

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

I think it is sound advice. Especially #9.

I have friends in 12 Step Programs who have spoken to me about these.

One of the big problems is that apology is invariably impossible. People have died, can’t be contacted for a hundred reasons, and so on. To be honest, I can’t remember all the people I’ve wronged.

In some cases, people won’t take your apology either (I say that from personal experience). One of my relatives died a few years ago, and while he took my apology to some extent, I think his wife never did, and I think she seemed to have this idea I was only getting in touch for money. (She is a business woman and highly materialistic, and has also very little understanding of me.) I had apologized because it had been nagging at me, and I felt I had to, not because I wanted to go into business with them (although I wouldn’t have said no).

I think the Spirit guided me to apologize. If I hadn’t done so then, I would have never been able to because he died a few years later. (I had no way of knowing this.)… But his wife… All I can say is that I tried. I did write to her when he passed away. I never got an acknowledgement and I took that as a signal not to contact her again. It’s a shame that she only saw cynicism in my efforts.

[Anonymous]

As a recovering person, I did & continue to do the steps 8 thru 10. The key for me is:

8. “became willing to make amends…” (apologize)

9. “made direct amends” when possible, except when it causes further pain to the other person.

10. tried to recognize early & apologize when needed on a regular basis.

There are many ways to apologize depending on the situation & person or persons involved.

– In person is best because you get feed back & personal interaction. Some of the “personal interaction” may not be easy to hear.

– Write a letter. Within the letter you can say “I don’t want or expect a reply”

– Spend more time & do fun things with the person you hurt. (children, wife or partner)

There has to be other ways too. I would like to hear what other people have done.

In my opinion, we do it for ourselves more than for the other person. We do what we can & leave the rest to God.

[Anonymous]

I really like those examples MM.

[Anonymous]

Growing up, my parents NEVER apologized when they were in the wrong (though to be fair, it didn’t happen that often). So I was dumbfounded when one evening when I was 14, my father apologized to me after we had an altercation. He never really apologized again but I was so struck that when I had children of my own, my wife and I committed to apologizing to them when we had done the wrong thing. It just felt appropriate. I didn’t realize how important that was until two of my now adult children mentioned to me how much they appreciated our willingness to apologize to them when they were children. I think they were motivated when they mentioned this practice to some friends and those friends were amazed saying that their parents never apologized to them.

Now I don’t want to make it sound like we’re Parents of the Decade by any stretch. Both my wife and I made plenty of mistakes and still have things we need to work on. And it was always uncomfortable to apologize to our kids as it felt like we were confessing our imperfections and failings. But I think now, in hindsight, that those apologies strengthened the relationship we had with our children and I don’t regret a single one.

[Anonymous]

I suppose that’s because a parent feels they must exert authority for the child’s good or to keep it out of trouble. My parents did apologize sometimes, but I also realize that if they had done it on other occasions, it would have undermined that.

Maybe not the right answer, but I understand why.

[Anonymous]

Gerald wrote:

Growing up, my parents NEVER apologized when they were in the wrong (though to be fair, it didn’t happen that often). So I was dumbfounded when one evening when I was 14, my father apologized to me after we had an altercation. He never really apologized again but I was so struck that when I had children of my own, my wife and I committed to apologizing to them when we had done the wrong thing. It just felt appropriate. I didn’t realize how important that was until two of my now adult children mentioned to me how much they appreciated our willingness to apologize to them when they were children. I think they were motivated when they mentioned this practice to some friends and those friends were amazed saying that their parents never apologized to them.

Now I don’t want to make it sound like we’re Parents of the Decade by any stretch. Both my wife and I made plenty of mistakes and still have things we need to work on. And it was always uncomfortable to apologize to our kids as it felt like we were confessing our imperfections and failings. But I think now, in hindsight, that those apologies strengthened the relationship we had with our children and I don’t regret a single one.

I have tried to do this with my children. I have apologized to them and apologized to their mother in front of them (for raising my voice). I have reasoned that I am modeling the type of behavior that I would want my children to emulate and giving sincere apologies for mistakes is part of that modeling.

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