does anyone else do this?

[aroraborealis]

I've noticed something that I do, or lean towards doing (and have for as long as I can remember) that I'm curious to know if other people do.

Say you've screwed up in some way that impacts a friend or family member. It's not a life-or-death screwup, but it's a real disappointment or sadness for them, say, forgetting a dinner date, or failing to recognize some effort that they've made for you. You feel terrible, and so, naturally, you apologize profusely, expressing all the relevant sorrow for having misstepped and your hopes that the apology, while not as good as doing the right thing to start with, will stand in for having done so.

You friend or family member accepts your apology in a genuine way, and you move on.

Only... you're stuck on it. You really feel awful, and you think that your apology didn't actually manage to convey the full impact of how terrible you feel. You want to apologize again and again, perhaps falling to your knees in front of them and begging their forgiveness.

Except, of course, that they've already accepted your apology, and by making a big deal out of it, you're making them responsible for your problem. You've already bummed them out with the original "oops", so it's obviously not fair to make them also soothe you until you feel better about standing them up or what have you.

Does this happen to anyone else? And is there a way of finding a balance -- say a follow-up, "I just wanted to express again my apology," without it becoming a burden, or is it one of those things that you just have to work out on your own?

Comments

[mizarchivist]

I've been on both sides of it and both are uncomfortable. I think it's mostly "just your problem" you need to deal with.
The only thing I can think of is getting a bit meta with the injured party and saying something like what you just said. Explain that you feel the apology was insufficient, yet don't want to make your guilt a burdon on them; ask if there's something more you can do, and if not just accept it.
Making an effort not to repeat the offense, being forgiving when it happens to you seems a reasonable path. And if you're a karmic follower, there's always the random good acts to balance things out.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the karmic approach is a good one.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Sure, I beat myself up about stuff like that all the time. :)

I think that I wait until I have a moment of closeness with the person a while down the road, and bring it up as an aside: "you know, I felt awful about that for weeks. I still do, really!" which gives them the chance to say, "oh, it really was okay," or "I got over it eventually" or "yeah, I've been wanting to talk to you about it..."

But mostly, I figure that in any friendship, there will be missteps, and the measure of our grace and adaptibility/compatibility is seen in how we deal with them from both sides. I guess I figure that I'll probably be forgiving the person I offended in some way or another somewhere down the line, when it's their turn to offend, anyway; my responsibility is to be sincere about my apologies and also easy-going about my acceptance of apologies. If I try to be gracious about everything, then things tend to work out in the end.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

That's a nice way to look at it.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I'll make myself miserable over things like this. Kitsune has gotten to the point that he'll flat-out tell me to stop apologizing.

I find that it makes me feel better to bake bread for him or buy him a small present.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

I've gotten to the point where I can stop apologizing, but I'm not yet at the point where I can stop WANTING to -- for a while, at least.

Bread, though. There's an idea.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. There are cultures (such as Japanese) that have whole elaborate rules and rituals about this.

Pragmatically, what I try to do in order to propitiate my internal demons is to do something nice or good for the person. It should be commensurate with the offense so as not to burden them unduly but it should be something that resets the relationship on a positive tone. So if I missed a dinner date I might pick up the check at our next meeting or might offer to have the person over for a dinner I made.

--wex

[points.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of with wex here. When I'm having an issue like this, I try and schedule a new event that I can use to 'atone' for the one I screwed up.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

As others have said, I think doing something nice is the way to go, and if you can come up with something in-kind, all the better!

[beah.livejournal.com]

I'll agree with the crew here. I tend to be of the "I'll make it up to you" school.