Relationships: Making Amends

A few years back I bumped into someone at the grocery store, a guy I had dated over five years earlier. We chatted for a minute, and before I walked away I told him I was sorry. The reason is simple enough. When I was younger I treated him badly. He was a genuinely nice person who liked me, and I was mean to him because I was busy trying to play the field, dating two guys at once and ignoring what that did to either of them. You cannot do better until you understand that you did something wrong in the first place. Refusing to make amends to someone you have hurt is about the worst response available. You apologize partly because the other person deserves it, and partly because it changes who you are.

So why bother? Start with maturity. Figuring out how to apologize is part of growing up. Over time you come to see that conflicts rarely sit on one person's shoulders. If you walk away from an argument convinced none of it was your doing, stop and remember that it takes two people to argue, and you were one of them. In the middle of a heated exchange, with your thoughts racing, you say things you don't mean. Later, once the temperature drops, you can usually spot the lines you should have kept to yourself.

People who never feel that pull of regret concern me. That total absence of second thoughts can point to something like a narcissistic personality or a streak of sociopathy, a sign of someone deeply self-absorbed. I know how harsh that sounds. I am telling you plainly. This is the person who assumes everything revolves around them and that the rest of the world is scheming against them. I run into them often. When you clash with someone like that, the move is to apologize for your part and keep walking, even if they keep stirring up trouble behind you.

Making amends is also a step toward healing, and the twelve step program for alcoholics shows why. One of those steps asks a person to make amends, often by writing a letter or picking up the phone to reach people they harmed while they were sick. The point is not to patch the relationship back together. The point is to recognize that the addiction warped their thinking and damaged the people near them, and that saying so out loud is where recovery starts.

The same idea holds for anyone, substance problem or not. You dig into why you said or did something cruel, and more often than not the answer traces back to problems of your own that you still need to work through. Learn to keep your personal baggage out of the situation in front of you. Show some compassion. Try not to take everything personally or let small things cut too deep. Even if the person accepts your apology and still has no interest in rebuilding anything with you, they will notice that you are trying to become someone better. And if you cannot sort through your own problems alone, see a counselor. Asking for that kind of help is not weakness; it means you have named the problem and decided to fix it.

There is also knowing when to be the bigger person. Some people never let anything go, and some go looking for fights on purpose. Not everyone reacts the way you do, and you have to account for that. Anyone who knows me knows I can have a temper, but as I got older I learned to say what I mean without the heat. Speak well, and speak when it actually matters. Some cruelty does not earn a reply at all.

My father used to say a person cannot argue with themselves, so stay quiet and let it fall flat. People will pick a fight just to pull a bad reaction out of you, sometimes hoping to get you in trouble. That is really how some minds work. When you recognize that pattern in someone, walk off; there is nothing to reason with. Still, if you were the one in the wrong, apologize anyway, even when you would rather not. You will feel better for it, and you will know you did your part to repair things. Hold out the chance for reconciliation whether or not the other person acts like an adult about it. Just never let anyone walk over you, and if someone mistreats you, leave.

- Heather Browning, MBA, BA