I’ve just read The Five Languages of Apology by Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas. This author is more famous for his book The Five Love Languages (Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch). I’ve read both books and the Love book is a better book, but I found value in the Apology book too. I’m tempted to make fun of Christian self-help books, but apologizing isn’t particularly easy for me, so I decided to read it.
The author says there are five apology languages. His list:
- Express regret – “I’m sorry.”
- Accept responsibility – “I was wrong.”
- Make restitution – “What can I do to make it right?”
- Repent genuinely – “I’ll try not to do that again.”
- Request forgiveness – “Will you please forgive me.”
While reading this book I kept thinking that maybe all five things were needed for an apology to really be absolutely complete. But the author did make a convincing point: If the person who offends me tries to apologize but fails to mention the one thing of the above five that I really want to hear, then the apology doesn’t sound sincere to me.
For instance, I’m a number 2. I don’t think someone has apologized unless they’ve actually said the words, “I was wrong” so that my sense of justice is satisfied. I don’t care if they say “I’m sorry,” just so they admit they were wrong. I don’t need for them to make it up to me, or to ask for forgiveness, because once they admit they were wrong, all is forgiven as far as I’m concerned.
My daughter, on the other hand, is a number 1. She wants the offender to feel regret, and to express regret, because her feelings have been hurt. When I need to apologize to her, it is hard enough for me to tell her “I was wrong,” but that’s not good enough unless I go on to say, “I’m sorry.”
There are two things I would add to his list. The first is something I came up with years ago when someone did something evil to one of my young children. This man tried to apologize to me, but I couldn’t accept his apology because he wouldn’t actually admit the facts of what he did, nor admit they were actually wrong. After that nasty episode in my life, I concluded that the very first step in apologizing is for the two parties to actually agree on the facts of what wrong was committed. That’s not as easy as it sounds.
The second is something I learned from a Peacemakers course I was forced to take once. It is hard to apologize when you feel like the other person is just as much at fault, or more so, than you are. Or that the other person provoked you into sinning by their initial and equally-sinful actions. In cases like that, it helps to think in terms of apologizing for your part in the conflict. That is a way to accept responsibility for the wrong you did without actually accepting responsibility for the entire conflict. Somehow, this concept has been very freeing for me. I can apologize for my portion of the problem and move on without demanding justice in the form of an apology from the other person. I’ve done my part whether or not the other person accepts responsibility for his or her part.
Apologizing is something we all have to do from time to time but most of us probably don’t find it all that easy to do. This book doesn’t deal with the issue of us getting over our pride so we are willing apologize; that would be a different book. This book gives some concrete ways to apologize so that those we’ve offended will hear and accept our apology.
The book doesn’t make as much of a point as I would between moral and non-moral things we apologize for, which is an important distinction for me. Nor does it discuss the fact that we use the words “I’m sorry” to mean “Excuse me” or “I’m sad for your loss.”
That is really interesting. I never thought about it before but this would explain the many times Craig has apologized that never were satisfactory to me. He tends to jump straight to #3 & if I’m still not happy reverts to #1. But all I really want is #4. To me, an “I’m sorry” means nothing unless one is willing to work at preventing such incidents in the future. However, #4 can be fairly dissatisfying, too, if it’s the 2nd, 3rd, etc. such time - because I just can’t believe it anymore.
As for your first step to apologizing; “agree on the facts of what wrong was committed” - I agree that that is critical as well. Any form/language of apology is useless if you don’t feel they are apologizing for what offended you. An “I’m sorry for upsetting you” isn’t the same as “I’m sorry I did/said such and such & upset you.”
I’m a 3 man myself. I wonder if it’s a male thing? Maybe we like to do something to fix the problem. btw, samwise, that means your husband is really sorry if he wan’t to do #3.
I figure apology languages have the same principle the love languages do - that we tend to speak our language to others. So, Hubby’s language is #3 (what I’ll try to learn to speak to him) whereas mine is #4 (once he understands that, he can try to speak it, too). But we can both be a lot more understanding/forgiving when we don’t speak the right apologies because we know where the other person is coming from.
How many language books has Gary Chapman come out with now? There’s quite a handful, isn’t there?
I tend to throw #1 around, because it is personally pretty meaningless and I hope it will get me off the hook with people who care whether I regret that the whole thing happened. #2 is the most meaningful to me, but also the hardest for me to do. I guess I just care more about being right sometimes than any of the other elements.
It’s funny because I had lunch with my friend and she and her husband are reading the love languages book and enjoying it. It’s interesting about what Colin said about “guys liking to do something” about apologizing and I think it is also one of the primary ways they give and recieve love. Which makes me wonder what evidence there is that men and women are hard-wired to prefer certain solutions from the beginning. It seems like it really fits into God’s plan for men and women.
There is one chapter in this book about apologizing in the workplace. The author brings up a very interesting topic about doctors who apologize. He cites a situation at the U of Michigan Health Systems where they have been “encouraging doctors to apologize when they make mistakes of either judgment or action. As a result, the system’s annual attorney fees have since dropped from thee million to one million dollars and malpractice lawsuits and notices of intent to sue have fallen from 262 in 2001 to about 130 per year.”
That is amazing to me, but I can certainly see it. Doctors have a lot of power over our lives, and when we are traumatized either physically or emotionally by their mistakes, it would be nice to hear a real apology. “I was wrong, I”m sorry. I hope I never do that to you again or any other patient of mine. I hope you can forgive me and you don’t have to pay for this visit.”
That’s really interesting. I assumed that if a doctor apologized and admitted mistakes, he would open himself up to malpractice lawsuits. Apparently that’s not the case.
That very point was mentioned in the book. The traditional advice from an attorney is to make no response and for there to be no interaction between the doctor and the hurt patient. But the author gives a number of examples where lawsuits have been dropped because the doctor openly admitted his mistake and clearly communicated his regret. The author mentions the book Healing Words: The Power of Apology in Medicine. Here is a review of that book (taken from the Amazon site).: