The Art of the Real Apology (And Why Most of Us Are Doing It Wrong)

For me, apologizing has always felt "easy."

I could generate a heartfelt I'm sorry faster than most people could register they were upset. I said it often, and I meant it every time.

Something I came to see through my coaching training, though, was that I was apologizing at people rather than to them. I felt bad for hurting their feelings, truly, and my apology was meant as much to make me feel better. I mean, if I'm sorry, I'm still a good person, right?

Apology is an integral part to a more general relationship skill, which is “repair.”

According to John Gottman, who has spent decades studying couples in his famous "Love Lab," repair attempts - the moments when one partner tries to de-escalate conflict - are one of the strongest predictors of relationship health. Not whether couples fight, not how often, but whether they can find their way back to each other after.

Dr. Becky Kennedy, a parenting expert and author of Good Inside, says "There's almost nothing within our interpersonal relationships that can have as much impact as repair.”

Esther Perel puts it plainly: "Arguments don't break couples - the lack of repair does."

In an ENM relationship, where you're navigating multiple connections, scheduling logistics, and the occasional unexpected emotional curveball, your ability to repair is doing heavy lifting. You need it to work.

So let's talk about what actually works.

The apology we sometimes get:

"I'm sorry you felt that way.""I'm sorry, but you have to understand…""I said I was sorry. What more do you want?"

These aren't apologies. They're apology-shaped deflections. Our nervous systems know the difference even when our brains don't.

Harriet Lerner, author and psychologist, has written beautifully about why bad apologies actually make things worse. They can signal to the other person that their experience isn't safe with you. That you'll defend yourself over attending to them. That your comfort matters more than their truth.

What a real apology actually contains:

It doesn't need to be long or theatrical, but it does need a few specific ingredients.

Acknowledgment without deflection. Name what you did, not what they did that "made" you do it. "I’m sorry that I snapped at you when you brought that up" hits differently than "I got defensive because you keep bringing that up." One is an apology. One is a deposition.

Some evidence that you get it. You don't have to agree that what you did was catastrophic. Showing that you understand why it landed the way it did, however, is meaningful. That requires actually putting yourself in their experience for a moment. "I can see why that felt dismissive to you" is a small sentence that does enormous work.

No "but." The word "but" erases everything before it. Your partner's nervous system will not hear a single word that came before the but. End your apology before you get there.

A gesture toward the future. Not a promise you can't keep. Just a signal that you're thinking about how to show up differently. "I'm going to try to catch myself next time" is enough.

Here's the other side of this that doesn't get talked about enough: receiving a real apology is its own skill.

When someone offers you a genuine one, resist the reflex to say it's okay, especially if it wasn't okay. That little phrase, meant to smooth things over, actually short-circuits the repair. It lets the air out before anything real can happen.

Try something like I accept your apology instead. It acknowledges what was offered without pretending nothing happened. Or, if you're not quite there yet: I hear your apology, and I need a little more time before I can fully accept it. That's not withholding - that is honesty with yourself and your partner.

ENM asks a lot of us. It asks us to be honest when honesty is uncomfortable. To hold our partners' experiences alongside our own without losing ourselves. To be secure enough in our own worth that we can take accountability without it threatening who we are.

A real apology is actually a form of that same security. It says: I can look at my own behavior without collapsing. I can see you without disappearing.

That's exactly what a healthy relationship - any and all relationships (not just romantic ones) - is built on.

Want to learn more? There are many resources on managing conflict and the art of apology (referenced earlier in this post). This is an investment that can provide many returns on your relationship.

Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection, By John Gottman PhD, Julie Schwartz Gottman PhD, John M. Gottman, et al.

Why Won’t You Apologize, Harriet Lerner (referenced within)