How To Apologize To A Woman

Welcome to the mantalks show. I'm Connor Beaton, and as you may have seen the title of this one, we're going to talk about how to apologize to a woman. Now, guys, fear not. I am going to record how to apologize to a man for you so that for all of the men that received this podcast episode from their partners who are like, you need to go listen to this. Just know that yours is coming. You're going to get one that's going to say how to apologize to a man, and you can send it straight back to your partner.

It might be a little bit more vulgar. It might be a little bit more.

I don't. Yeah, we'll just leave that. We'll just leave that. It'll be good. Don't worry. It'll be good. But for today, we're going to talk about how to apologize to a woman. And. And I just wanted to start off with a great quote by Mr. Benjamin Franklin, a very, very, incredibly wise man with an incredible past who said, never ruin an apology with an excuse. And this is one of the most foundational and fundamental things that we need to know when apologizing to a woman and apologizing to men, just apologizing to anyone in general. I'm going to give some more specifics about how to apologize to women later, but what I do want to say up front is that our apologies, when coupled with an excuse, will almost always fall on deaf ears. And they will seem insincere because what it is saying to the other person, unintentionally or not, and often it's not intentional, but what it's saying to the other person is, I apologize, but here's the reason why I did that. And for the other person, what they hear is, you are saying you're sorry, but your excuse matters more than that. And to take that one final step further, if we distill that down to its simplest form, when we apologize with an excuse, what we are saying to people is, I'm sorry I hurt you, but my excuse is more important than my apology to you. Okay, so that's often, like, pretty much never. That's not ever what people are intending when they apologize with the excuse. But unfortunately, that's how it lands. That's just the way that language is designed, and it's the way that it lands for the human brain. And so when we apologize with an excuse, no matter how great the excuse, no matter how good the excuse, if the apology is done with an excuse, it's going to be too challenging for the other person to hear. So next, let's talk about how to apologize to a woman. The first thing that we need to know, guys, is that how we apologize to our buddies and to our male friends is fundamentally different than how we apologize to the women in our life. I see this all the time. Guys will try and apologize to their wife, to their girlfriend, to their sisters or their mom in the same way that they would apologize to their dad or their buddies. You know, there's a conflict, and that conflict gets brought up. And how guys would normally apologize is they would just say, oh, yeah, that happened. I'm really sorry. You know, that's it. Like, I'm really sorry. And the other guy will say, okay, thanks. And, you know, they'll hug, shake hands, you know, pat on the back, whatever it is, and they'll move on. And it's a pretty quick way of doing it. And the reason why it's so much faster for men specifically is that men have a different form of trust with one another than men and women have with each other. So trust is built differently systemically and conceptually within our psyche between men and men and between men and women. Okay? Between men, trust is built on the honor foundation. What I mean by that is that honor is a really important piece of building trust between men. So if that honor is already there, if a friend comes to me, and we've been friends for years, there is an honor and a respect that has been established over time. And because of that honor and respect, there's leeway, okay? There's leeway for that friend to fuck up. There's leeway for him to fail. There's leeway for him to get things wrong. And. And when he does, as long as he can come to me, as long as man to man, he can say, hey, I messed up, sorry, that's all that is really needed most of the time. Now, there's obviously situations that are much more impactful, that are much deeper, that actually need to be unpacked and talked about and dug into, right? Like if your best friend slept with your wife, that's probably a conversation for therapy. It's not going to require just a hey, sorry, I did that, and you move on. There's going to be quite a bit more depth to that. But as long as the fracture or the tear or the failure doesn't really crush the foundation of the honor and the respect that those two men have or break it apart in a really fractured way, those two men can repair quite quickly. They'll just go to each other and say, hey, I apologize or I'm sorry for doing that. And the other guy will say, okay, I forgive you, no worries, let's move on. And unless there's any sort of resentment that needs to be cleared or anger that needs to be cleared, usually they're pretty good, right? Usually they can move on from there. But that requires two men that are in integrity, that have honor, that respect each other and that aren't going to, after that, go behind one another's back and talk shit about each other. But generally that's how it works for men. For women, it's quite a bit different. Trust is built on a foundation of ownership. Now what I mean by that is that for a woman to trust a man, she requires a few things, but most of them revolve around a man's capacity to take ownership. So honor doesn't really matter at all as much respect does matter. But that respect is built again on the foundation of can this man take ownership over his failures, over his indiscretions, over himself, over the relationships that he has, over his inabilities to move forward with things that he said that he's going to move forward with? So for a woman, what she's really looking for in a man is ownership. And this is why the apology is fundamentally different. Because when you have, as a man done something, quote unquote wrong, or you failed in some way, or you said that you were going to do something and you didn't, for a woman, how that lands to her is you haven't taken ownership over something that you said you were going to. And because of that I feel threatened, or the relationship feels like it's in jeopardy, or, or my emotional safety or my security within this marriage is now under assault or attack. And not maybe in such a dramatic way, but definitely in a foundational way, because your ownership as a man is now coming into question. So this is what's really important in apologizing to a woman. Specifically, I'm going to give you a few simple steps that you might want to write down. Number one, acknowledge the wrongful act. Acknowledge the wrongful act. This will reestablish ownership, right? This will re establish ownership in the first place and say, yeah, you know what? I did agree to take the garbage out after I got home and I didn't do that. I apologize. I said I was going to do that. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man that takes ownership over what he said he's going to do and I didn't do that. So I'm sorry, we need to start by saying I was wrong. Or.

For some cases, maybe you've gotten into a conflict with your partner, and maybe you've gotten into an argument and you've known internally that what she's saying is right. Acknowledging the wrongful act might be saying, you know what? You're right. You're actually, you're entirely right. I didn't do what I said I was going to do. Or you're right.

I have been wrong. Right? Sometimes just acknowledging that simple phrase can create a relaxation on your partner's side, on the woman's front, because what she'll hear is, okay, he's taking ownership. He's reestablishing ownership on his side. He's like, repairing that foundation. The second piece is being able to acknowledge the impact on her. Acknowledge the impact on her. You need to validate that the lack of ownership on your side, whether it was in a conflict, whether it was, you said you were going to do something, you know, like you're going to pick up the kids or you're going to take care of something for the kids, you're going to book flights for the family vacation, and you didn't do it. You need to take ownership that what you did had an impact on her. So that's understanding that your wrongful act has maybe hurt her feelings in some way or made her feel disconnected from you, or maybe she doesn't feel understood by you, or maybe she feels like, hey, you continue to do this and it makes it hard for me to trust you and your foundation because it doesn't seem like you're taking ownership over the things that you say you're going to do. So you need to be able to express to her. And here's the thing, you cannot reconnect with her without attending to this part, without attending to the feelings, without attending to the impact that your lapse had on her specifically. So this is where it's a little bit different for some guys. They won't need the impact, right? You can go to one of your buddies and just say, I'm sorry, you won't need to talk about the impact. He'll say, yeah, no problem. I forgive you. It's all good. Let's move on. But with most women, not all, but with most women, you will need to do this part so you can say things like, you know what? I'm wrong, I'm sorry. And how did that impact you? Right? How did that make you feel? And she'll say, you know what? I felt disconnected. I felt like you didn't love me. I felt like you didn't hear me or you didn't want to listen to what I had to say. I felt undervalued. Whatever might come up. This is a hard part for a man because for most of us guys, we don't wanna hurt our partners, right? We don't wanna do that. But this is where the growth and the strength and the creating the relational container comes from. This is the really powerful part when you can own that you have been at fault for something and then you can say, what was the impact on you? Not to assume, not to know, not to jump right to it, but to actually create the space and the container. To say, yeah, I was wrong. What was the impact on you? And to allow her to bring those parts forward and to say, okay, you know, not only am I sorry that you know that, that I didn't do that I said I was going to do, but I can hear that the impact that that's had on you is that it's caused you to feel insecure or it's caused you to feel disconnected or whatever the case may be. Once you've done that and not until you've done that, because that's a very, very important second step. And if you haven't done that part, you won't be able to move forward. She will not be able to hear anything else that you say, period, full stop, Unless you have acknowledged the impact on her emotionally or physically or mentally or spiritually. It will usually fall in one of those four categories.

Number three is that you can express your remorse and that and talk about your intention not to repeat. So this is about changed behavior. So depending on what's happened again, if it's a simple thing like you forgot to take the garbage out or you didn't book flights for the family vacation, you can say, you know what? I'm sorry that this happened. I feel terrible and I want to be better. I want to be better than that, and I'm going to ensure that and do my very best to put better systems in place so that I don't do this. Now, most guys, this is kind of like the quote, unquote, fixing stage, right? Most guys will say, I'm sorry, and then they'll move into fixing. So they'll say, I'm sorry, and here's how I'm going to make sure that it never happens again. And the argument will continue for sometimes hours or days or weeks simply because they've skipped over the second step of acknowledging the impact on their partner and they'll move right into, I feel bad about it and I won't let it happen again. And sometimes this is how they'll make their case, like a lawyer, right? Sometimes. And I've done this before in the past, I'm like, no, but you don't understand, I'll never do it again. And I feel like shit for having done it. And, and that doesn't matter to the woman because she hasn't had the impact on her. Validated. Lastly, this is really important. You can look to make amends depending on what the situation is. But I don't really. The amends isn't necessarily a big one for some women. They will want some form of amends. But what most women are looking for is changed behavior. Because changed behavior shows internal ownership on your side. You have to remember that women are always looking for men to be self reliant. They don't want to have to mother you. They don't want to have to smother you or nurture you or hold your hand. They always are looking to a man to really be self reliant, self led, self actualized, self accountable. And that in her eyes, that's what builds trust. Remember, trust between a man and a woman is built on the foundation of ownership of your ownership as a man. So the last part is you might want to seek forgiveness. So something that you can say if you've really gone through these steps is, will you forgive me? Do you forgive me? Have we reached that point and find a sense of closure and completeness? Because, and this is the important part for the ladies, sometimes women have a tendency to dredge these things back up over and over and over again when and if it happens again or a similar thing happens again in the future. And for a man, this can be incredibly frustrating because he's like, I thought we had closure on that thing that happened two years ago or 10 years ago or two months ago. I thought we were past that. Like, why does this continue to come up? So what we can do at the end of the apology is say, do you forgive me? And she'll tell you, right, and ladies, you have to. Your job is to really find a sense of completion and to not hold this failure or this tear over a man for however many years, letting these things pile up and pile up and pile up and pile up. You have to do the work of truly forgiving him once you've gone, once the two of you have gone through this process. So if she says, yes, I absolutely forgive you, thank you so much for apologizing and for really owning it, then make sure that that boundary is in place. Make sure that you two reconnect on an emotional intimacy level, but also on maybe on a physical intimacy level. You know, not to use arguments or conflicts for physical intimacy, but to make sure that after a. My wife, Vienna, calls them a rip or a tear, a relational tear, after a relational tear happens, that you both connect emotionally and physically. And that might be as simple as, like, you know, an embrace, a kiss. It might mean that later on that day or the next day that there's physical intimacy, that you have sex and you make sure that you reconnect. But you want to do your best to repair the relationship after these types of disconnections so that the relationship can continue to be strengthened and evolve and grow without that part, without the emotional connection repair and the physical connection and repair. It can build resentment and animosity between the two people because one person might reconnect with an emotional repair and the other person might reconnect with a physical one. And so we have to be able to honor both sides of the relationship and realize that both of them have equal value. Emotional and physical reconnection after apologies are incredibly important. So thank you so much for tuning in today to this mini episode. Make sure you share it with a friend. This is a big, big, big one. This has a huge impact on relationships. This is how most relationships break down is because of faulty mechanics within apologies. So I hope that you found value in this. And stay tuned for how to Apologize to a Man. Awesome. Thank you so much. And we'll connect with you next week.