Sometimes you need to apologise to keep the relationship, the myth goes. It shows you value your relationship more than your ego, they said. And it’s been done, over and over in relationships of all sort, friendship, kinship, marriage.
Here’s where I tell you: I think something is wrong there. So I’d like to write about why.
1. In your mind, you’re still right
Saying sorry is not equivalent to being sorry. When you apologise because you want the argument to end, the relationship to continue, you are not really sorry; you’re just using apology as a tool.
Apology might placate the conflict, get your life back to normal. But what happens when you have to apologise a lot when you think you’re right? You start asking yourself questions.
This is where you start your collection of resentment.
By saying sorry, you’re just bypassing the steps of understanding the issue, rehabilitation, and actually solving it, by shoving it under the rug.
2. You’ll keep doing it
One of the signs I notice when people give void apologies is that: they keep doing it.
This is even worse than staying in the conflict in a long run; you apologise to let it slide, then proceed to commit the same thing like you’re announcing your contempt in the words you have spoken.
Everybody hates that.
Now in addition to building your own resentment, you are building it for the others too. Is resentful the kind of relationship you value and want to keep?
3. You’ll be missing out on a healthy way to resolve the problem
The thing about quarrels in relationships is, sometimes it is not a battle between right and wrong.
You could have about a million arguments about differences, for instance. The clash of personalities, the difference in attitude, the contrasting background, issues spring from these all the time.
True that relationship is about compromising, but I don’t think the compromise should happen without a well-thought process.
Apologising to discard the problem will not strengthen the relationship. Effective and throughout communication will. And if you apologise before you need to in hope of ending the trauma of fighting, you are ending it before any constructive discussion on the issue could happen.
Fights will make or break the relationship. And sometimes while saying sorry may not break it, it would not make it either.
I’m not saying apologising is evil. It is good, actually. It humbles you down from your ego. What I am saying is that it should not be thrown out so casually, or be use as an easy pacifier, especially when you feel strongly towards your opinion, granting it is in the sane and rational domain.
