Dr. Tracy DalgleishClinical Psychologist, Relationship Expert, Author

This Apology Makes Things Worse

Name: This Apology Makes Things Worse
Uploaded: 2026-09-01T12:23:00+00:00
Duration: 1 min 6 s
Channel: Dr. Tracy Dalgleish
Description: In this brief talk, Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, a psychologist and couples therapist with two decades of experience, explains why many people lack the ability…

1 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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1:06

In this brief talk, Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, a psychologist and couples therapist with two decades of experience, explains why many people lack the ability to repair relational ruptures. She argues that repair is a learned skill that requires temporarily inhabiting the other person's experience, acknowledging the impact of one's actions, and resisting the urge to defend one's intent. Dalgleish illustrates the problem with a common, ineffective apology—“I’m sorry, but there are two perspectives”—showing how such statements shift focus to winning an argument rather than restoring connection, ultimately worsening the relational damage.

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I keep thinking about this really bad apology, and it just really shows us how we don't know how to repair. I'm a psychologist and couples therapist, and working with people for 20 years has shown me that repair is a skill that so many of us never had modeled to us. When we repair, something that is so important for us to understand is that we need to live in the other person's experience for a moment. We need to be able to say, I understand the impact that I had on you, and to not then flip it around about your intention and what you meant by the thing that you did. You have to sit in discomfort of not instantly proving your goodness and the intent that you had. Repair can't happen unless you understand and see the other person. Okay, here's the worst apology. I'm sorry, but there are 2 perspectives. Ugh. Listen, when you go to that apology, you are now busy trying to prove whose perspective is right. And in that, you win the argument, but you end up completely losing the connection.