277: Apology
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My mom was a therapist and she saw hundreds of couples where somebody in the couple had cheated and then the couple tried to stay together and work it out and that's how they ended up in couples counseling. And my mom said this thing nearly always happens in this situation. This thing happens where the person who cheated confesses, right, tells a spouse as many details as a spouse wants to hear which usually is a lot and in fact you kind of have to tell them everything they want if there's going to be any kind of forgiveness, right? And so it's just all this painful detail. What happened this particular day when you said you were here and did you say I love you to the other person? You know, just like the incredibly painful, incredibly hard stuff. And the person who cheated says that they know they were in the wrong and they want to work it out and they're sorry, they're so, so sorry. And then weeks pass, okay, and everybody tries to get along. And at some point the person who cheated starts to feel a little better. You know, they confess, they cleared the air, it's a new beginning. But their spouse is living still in a world of pain. The spouse doesn't trust them. The betrayal was so huge. You know, the lies were so big, right? The spouse is still wary. It's still a little burst of anger, right? They're not over it. And here's where it gets complicated. The person who cheated starts to get impatient. They feel like, come on, I confessed. I said, I'm sorry. I've done everything I can do to make this right. But you just won't let it go. Any other person can let it go. A very hard thing for both of them. A very hard thing for any couple to get through. And it almost always happens. The apology wasn't enough. And really, there are so many situations where apologizing doesn't do the trick, where it doesn't satisfy both parties. And not just big situations. These can be the tiniest situations in the world. Sarah Vout, one of our contributing editors on the radio show, said that she was running late on a way to meet a friend for breakfast. I was on the subway and I realized I didn't know where breakfast was. So I was, I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes late, which was just the most agonized 15 minutes of my life of me running up and down 9th Avenue, trying to remember where I was supposed to meet him. And you know, he got, I got there and he had wondered where I was, he brought the paper and he was fine. So I spent the entire breakfast apologizing. Then when I got home, I sent him an email apologizing. Then before I went to bed, I sent another apology email. Then the next time we had breakfast, I was 15 minutes early and then had to talk about how I was early this time. And it's just so stupid. And I realized at that point, the apology sickness becomes a kind of narcissism. Like, all you think about is yourself and you feel like, oh, my actions affected this other person so much. I need to just constantly apologize when really, it wasn't that big of a deal. This happens all the time. The apology can go wrong for either person in transaction, even the apologizer. I feel like he totally accepted my apology. It's more like, I didn't accept my apology. Those moments where you apologize to somebody and you're not doing it for selfish reasons, but because you really want them to know you're sorry and where they really hear what you're saying and your eyes lock and everybody knows that it happened. The apology happened. Those moments are pretty rare, I think. Today on our radio show, we have three stories of people groping the way toward, I'm sorry, through this moment of apology. From W.B.E.C. Chicago, it's "This American Life, Distributed by Public Radio International." I'm Eric Glass. Our program today in three acts, and let me just say right here, it's a politics-free program. Let's have a little break. Act one, repeat after me. In that story, give it to Deres, his sister, and a talking bird. Act two, dial S for sorry, in which we have a little visit, Mr. Apology, and his wife. Act three, two words you never want to hear from your doctor. In that act, a movement to try to get people who do not like to say they're wrong, to say they're wrong. Stay with us. Act one, repeat after me. This story was recorded in front of a live audience. Here's David Sedaris. "Although we discussed my upcoming visit to Winston-Salem, my sister and I didn't make
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