So my girlfriend apologises compulsively. I find it easy to talk to her about the reasons why she may do that; however, she posed to me a question today which I found a little more tricky to answer:
How do I feel when I tell her to stop apologising, and why do I feel the need to tell her to stop apologising?
It’s honestly something I never gave thought to before. It is a very, very minor annoyance - to the point where I feel calling it an ‘annoyance’ is too harsh - but I don’t actually know why I feel the need to tell her stop doing it all the time.
I’m hoping someone can help me put it into words. So I ask you, Lemmy: how does it feel when someone apologises too much, and why do you feel the need to tell them to stop apologising?
For me when somebody apologizes a lot it feels as though there is a subtle belief that I am the type of person who would be annoyed by the things being apologized for. As though their apology implies that I am an impatient or otherwise short fused person.
It’s important to me that I am patient and forgiving so excessive apologies subtly make me feel like I may be projecting some impatience. Ironically the very activity of constant apologies does lead me to be slightly impatient, quite the conundrum.
I do experience a bit of the paradox of impatience:
“Sorry”
“Don’t be sorry”
“Are you angry?”
“I’m not angry”
“Did I do something wrong?”
"NO YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG FFS!!* 😂
Yeah, I know the struggle 😂