A few weeks ago, I called a friend to catch up. When she answered, the first words out of her mouth were an apology. “I’m sorry, I feel like I’ve been so bad at staying in touch,” she said. She hadn’t been. Life has just been full for both of us. I told her as much. “You don’t need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.” There was a pause on the other end. Then, “You’re right. Why did I say that?”
Why, indeed.
I’ve been thinking about apologies a lot lately. They come up in my clinical work, with my kids, and, with surprising regularity, in conversations with my friends. The reminder I keep coming back to is simple: an apology is warranted when we’ve actually done something wrong. We hurt someone. We damaged something. We fell short of who we want to be. When we mess up, our words need to mean something. The only way they can is when we reserve apologies for the moments that call for them.
When my kids are in the wrong, I want them to own it. I coach them to speak words of contrition with sincerity and then, importantly, do something different going forward. An apology that costs nothing, that fires off automatically like a reflex, is empty. When I hear one of my kids offer a “sorry” in a situation that has no business being there, I pose the same question every time: Did you actually do something wrong? This query scaffolds self-reflective space. It’s the beginning of teaching them to take responsibility driven by intention rather than anxiety, all the while holding grace and compassion for their own fallible humanity.
Learning about accurate apologies is a lesson that often doesn’t get fully learned in childhood. I give the same nudge to adults on a remarkably frequent basis in my professional and personal life.
In psychology, we’d call reflexive apologizing a fawn response, a conflict-appeasement behavior rooted in anxiety and, in some cases, trauma. While this interactive pattern acts as a protective mechanism during abuse or danger, long-term, it can wreak havoc on our identity, cause emotional exhaustion, and interfere with our ability to establish healthy, balanced relationships. It communicates, at its core: I am preemptively taking up less space so you hopefully won’t be upset with me. The unspoken hope is: If I take myself down a notch, you can’t do it first. For some people, automatic apologizing is so deeply wired that they don’t even notice it happening. “Sorry” slips out before the brain has had a chance to evaluate whether it actually applies.
For many people, “sorry” is a social habit. A filler word. An awkward-silence patch. A verbal tic picked up somewhere along the way. “Sorry, can I ask a quick question?” “Sorry, this might be a silly idea, but...” “Sorry, I don’t totally understand.” The apology precedes existing. It comes before taking up the floor, sharing a thought, or making an admission.
What is that doing for us? Nothing good.
There’s a particular version of this pattern that is unsettling to me as I think about the relational templates we create. It’s the apology that arrives in response to someone else’s strong emotions. Someone is angry. Disappointed. They raise their voice or shut down or make the air in the room feel heavy. Before anyone has even assessed what happened or who, if anyone, is actually responsible, the apology comes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
This is not accountability. This is a pressure release valve. It’s a way of making the discomfort stop (albeit temporarily). On the surface, it can masquerade as emotional maturity. It might seem like someone is quick to take responsibility. But look closer…the critical question “Did I actually do something wrong?” was never asked. The apology wasn’t the conclusion of any reflection. It was a reaction to someone else’s emotional temperature.
The problem with this pattern is what it teaches us about our own culpability. If we apologize every time someone near us is upset, we begin to internalize a dangerous equation: their pain is my fault. That’s not true. Not even close. Building relationships on that foundation creates a very particular kind of exhaustion, one in which you are perpetually managing others’ emotional states at the expense of your own sanity, peace, and sense of reality. You can hold space for someone’s feelings without accepting blame for them. You can say I can see you’re really upset without saying and therefore I must have done something wrong.
A cost to chronic unnecessary apologies is that they dilute our real ones. Repair is one of the most important, potent relationship skills we have. The apologies that should land get lost in the noise of the ones that didn’t mean anything if we are flippantly saying “I’m sorry” all of the time.
Reflexive apologies also communicate something about your own sense of worth. They broadcast self-doubt. People hear it. Then, they begin to relate to you through that lens.
Knee-jerk apologies are emotionally dishonest. If you did nothing wrong, apologizing implies that you did. You are accepting guilt that isn’t yours to carry. Guilt goes off the rails when the feeling doesn’t fit the situation.
When we apologize for everything, we’re accountable for nothing. If you did something that you need to make right, say so. Speak clearly, with humility. Don’t qualify it to death, and mean it. When you courageously take accurate ownership, it’s a beautiful, relationship-building, character-revealing act. Do it often and do it well.
But if you didn’t err? Pause before the reflex fires. Ask yourself whether you actually did something wrong that requires corrective action. If the answer is no, find another word. “Excuse me” instead of “sorry” when you’re navigating around someone. “I appreciate your patience” instead of “sorry for the wait.” Silence and maybe some curiosity instead of a filler apology when someone near you is upset and you’re reaching for the fastest way to make it stop.
My friend laughed when I called her out on the phone. Why did I say that?
Most of us were taught, somewhere along the way, that keeping the peace mattered more than accurate self-representation. “Sorry” can feel like social glue. It smooths things over and softens edges. While those are not bad instincts, there are better ways to show warmth that don’t require you to offer up a small piece of your dignity.
You do not owe the world an apology for existing in it.
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