Why some people are unable to say sorry

Some people find it challenging to say sorry even when they know they have made a mistake. Why is that?

If we accept the fact that no one is perfect, we must also accept that in everyday life no one lacks reasons to apologize. Whether it is for making the wrong decisions, for inability or for acting badly, it is very common that what we do causes discomfort to someone else, or has the capacity to harm them.

Normally, everything is solved by asking for forgiveness, and most of the time everything is solved in this simple way. However, there is a small portion of humanity that is apparently unaware of this possibility. Some people are totally incapable of saying "I'm sorry".Why does this happen?

The inability to ask for forgiveness when it is time

Language is a wonderful thing: thanks to it, conflicts that could become entrenched and cause discomfort and fights for years are resolved with a brief exchange of sentences. This happens because through words we reduce the margin of uncertainty about what the other person thinks, something very important in the management of this kind of problems.

Saying "I'm sorry", for example, is a big step: someone acknowledges that he or she has acted badly, to the detriment of another person's (or a group's) well-being, thus opening up the possibility of making amends in some way. Regardless of whether that opportunity to be compensated is taken, a minimum of justice has been done.

However, in order that every time someone does something wrong and is aware of it, an apology should be madeHowever, a condition should be fulfilled that is almost never met: rationality should prevail over feelings. In practice, there are people who, even knowing that they should ask for forgiveness, are unable to do so... without themselves knowing why.

So... why do some people find it so hard to admit to others that they have made a mistake, that they are sorry, when they know it is so and feel bad about it? There are different reasons, but all of them are related, and they have to do with poor have to do with a bad self-image management..

The need to preserve self-esteem

All people structure their own identity on the basis of a series of ideas and beliefs about oneself. This set of descriptions of "self" is called self-concept, or self-image. This self-image allows us not to go blindly when relating to others and to the surrounding environment, having a certain idea of what our characteristics, weaknesses and strengths are.

However, self-image is not a set of coldly and objectively compiled information, however.. On the contrary. Since what is spoken of in the self-image is oneself, all these beliefs have an evident emotional impact on the person.

Thus, everything that indicates weakness, inability or unreliability when making decisions, has an impact on self-esteem, which is the evaluative aspect of self-image, that which speaks about the value of oneself in comparison to some standards that we set for ourselves (and which may be more or less accurate). There are many situations that can compromise self-esteem.and many times, asking for forgiveness is one of them.

A delicate self-concept

Some people have such a delicate self-image that the simple fact of recognizing a mistake can shake their self-esteem, no matter how insignificant the mistake may have been. In a sense, if a part of us knows that we have made a mistake and acted inappropriately, the self-image can remain protected as long as we do not acknowledge the mistake out loud. We can play at disguising the mistake as something else, attribute the blame to someone else, or simply not name it. or simply do not name the guilt we feel.

But if we ask for forgiveness, all those thoughts and feelings caused by the mistake are automatically labeled as what they are: our responsibility. And, in a matter of a second, we have to deal with the fact that our self-concept can no longer exist as it did.

If the mistake for which we ask forgiveness is small, this may mean that we are capable of making small mistakes for which we do not give importance and for which we do not apologize. If it is a serious mistake, it can mean a radical change in the way we see ourselves. Of course, most of us don't have too much difficulty realizing that apologizing is something that speaks well of us and, in part, mitigates the mistake. But But there are those who cannot afford to put their self-concept in the spotlight, to expose it to the slightest scratch.to expose it to the slightest scratch.

Humiliation or cognitive dissonance.

It is clear that there are those who do not apologize simply because they do not think about the welfare of others or because they consider that, from an instrumental logic, saying "I'm sorry" does not bring them any benefit: think, for example, of someone with a certain tendency to psychopathy who, when getting off the bus, pushes someone whom he will never see again.

However, among those who are not able to apologize despite feeling bad about itIn this case, one of two options is most common: either they associate the apology with humiliation, so that their self-esteem could not support doing something like that but they have no way of expressing their repentance, or they have a certain delusion of grandeur.

In the latter case, acknowledging the mistake conflicts so much with their self-image that asking for forgiveness would imply rethinking from scratch many aspects of their own life and relationships with others: this is a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance.

In any case, it is clear that knowing how to ask for forgiveness in an honest way is a card played by people with a high EQ. One should not do it if one has no reason to do so, but when one knows that it is the right thing to do, expressing it becomes a simple matter of knowing how to manage one's feelings well (and knowing how to communicate that ability to others).