Dr. Tracy Dalgleish explains common reasons apologies fail to "land"—they can feel performative, center on intent/blame, or skip the essential repair work of acknowledging impact and co-creating how to move forward. She emphasizes repairing (talking about impact and next steps), sitting with discomfort rather than rushing to forgiveness, and revisiting conversations to rebuild connection in relationships.
Have you ever had that experience where someone apologizes but something just feels off about it? It doesn't quite land for you. Or maybe it's been in the reverse. Or you apologize to someone you love but then feel like that didn't land for them. So many people that I work with wonder what's going on in these moments. I said sorry, I apologize. So why aren't we moving forward? So today I'm going to talk about why apologies aren't landing and what you can do moving forward with the focus on connection. So here are some common reasons why apologies don't they don't land because the accountability that you provided the other person or they provided you felt performative, meaning they didn't really talk about what happened and what happened for you as the other person. And so when it comes to true accountability, we do want to talk about impact. And impact is really about understanding what it must be like to be the other person in the moment that they were injured. And for so many people, we rush moving through understanding and acknowledging the impact. It almost sounds like the I'm sorry I hurt you, but that's not a real apology. It's about moving on so quickly that someone doesn't end up feeling seen, understood, or heard. And when we are looking to repair and to really move forward in a relationship, that is a foundational piece that we all need. Oftentimes apologies come with the I'm sorry or okay, let's move forward or I see how I hurt you now, let's just move on. And when we say sorry without actually taking that time to repair and talk about how you're going to move forward together, it can feel abrupt. It can feel like your feelings and needs are minimized. And it feels like it's just going to happen again. There's no discussion about what you're going to do next time. So that repair is so important in relationships. It is one of my four A's I talk about in my after the Fight workshop. It's one of my favorite workshops that I give because here's what I know to be true, is that we aren't modeled the true repair from our parents. So many of my clients I sit with, I ask, did you ever see your parents repair or model the story piece or how to actually move forward? And so many of my clients say they've never seen that before. So that workshop teaches you how to actually feel close again after those hard moments. And it is possible to not have to go four days without talking to each other. So remember that Repairing is actually talking about how you can move forward. Now, the other reason why apologies don't land is that they're often centered around the person who was apologizing, but it lands in this sense of blame. So this is around, around focusing on intent. So it sounds like I didn't mean to do that or if you weren't so sensitive. Or maybe it's the I'm sorry, but you came to me at the wrong time and that's why I was looking at my phone when you were telling me this important thing. When a sorry and an apology is wrapped into blame, it feels like you are being dismissed and put down. And it's not really a true way of moving forward. So here's what I think is so important. When it comes to apologies, there's two pieces. One, a real apology is not about being forgiven. So if you're going to someone and you're saying sorry and you're acknowledging that, I want you to instead focus on how you got there and what happened together so you both understand this process. Not about forgiveness, not about rushing through those uncomfortable feelings, but instead, how did we get here and what can we do differently next time to maintain our connection? And I want you to remember this other piece is that when someone comes to you with their hurt feelings, you're allowed to have your own experience. But when we rush to share our own experience, we downplay the other person's feelings. And if they've come to you, then they're inviting you to enter into their world and that's the first thing you can do. It doesn't mean you don't get to have your experience or you don't get to talk about how you've been heard in this process. But you have to first hang out in the other person's experience and do the repair over there before they can come back to you. I also remind couples that when it comes to repairing and forgiveness is that we can't rush this. And it is not a one time conversation, which I think for most of us can feel really uncomfortable because we just want to rush through these hard, uncomfortable moments. But I know this to be true. If you can sit in that discomfort with your partner and risk hearing those hard feelings that have showed up, you will come through that feeling closer and connected. So if you received an apology that didn't land for you, ask yourself what was missing? Was it that it was performative? Did they not talk about moving forward? Is it that you ended up feeling blamed for what was happening? Or if you're the one who gave an apology and it didn't land. Ask yourself what you failed to offer them in that process of repairing. And I want you to know this. It's okay to revisit conversations. It's okay to bring things up. Because the goal in our partnerships and all relationships is not to sweep things under the rug and hope they go away, and just to allow them to do all these things. But instead, it's to process experiences. It's to build curiosity and a deeper understanding of each other, and to understand how you can co create and move forward together. And that's what builds really great connections. All right, thank you for clicking Play today. I will see you next time.
