Number Four

What does it mean, exactly, to be 'sorry'? Is it just an apolgy for a behavior? Is it a way of getting out of an unpleasant situation? Is it just something to say because you think the other person wants to hear it even though you have no idea what you did wrong?


Or do you actually have to be expressing remorse?


To me, the words "I'm sorry" should only be used when you are genuinely remorseful about something you've done. Not sorry that the other person got upset about it; not sorry that you got caught. We really need to find other words to use in any situation other than your own genuine remorse over your own actions.


"I'm sorry" is supposed to be an apology. Most psychologists will tell you that an apology has three parts.


1. Being remorseful about your own actions.
2. Understanding and acknowledging aloud - to the person(s) in question - that those actions have hurt someone either physically or emotionally.
3. Trying your best, if at all possible, to rectify or fix the situation - to put things back to the way they were before.


And here's where I differ from the articles I've read. There is a fourth element to being 'sorry', in my opinion.


4. Not doing it again.


And number four is the kicker. You have to have number four. Without number four, you're just spewing words that are polluting the world with their insincerity, adding to the filth that already makes our air unbreathable.


I realise that sometimes number four is hard. Damned hard. For instance, I had unconsciously learned a behaviour from my mother while I was growing up. I didn't consciously do it, my sister didn't consciously do it - we didn't even realise that we had learned to do it until someone pointed it out to me. That behaviour was to, in small, almost insignificant ways, demean men - most especially our husbands.


I know this seems like something that you couldn't possibly do without meaning to, but trust me, you can. Remarks, gestures, a roll of the eyes - there are hundreds of things we learned without knowing we were learning them.


When a friend pointed it out to me, I was flabbergasted. I remembered my mother doing it. I remembered my siblings and I commenting to each other that we wished our father would say something back (he never did). And once it was pointed out to me, I was mortified. I did not want to be that way.


I had a talk with my husband about it where I whole-heartedly apologised to him. I asked him why he had never said anything about it. He explained that he knew I had learned it from my mother, knew that I didn't do it consciously, and knew that I loved him; that he knew I didn't really mean the things I said.


There was nothing I could do to fix the sitaution at that moment, but I was determined to stop doing it.


Stopping doing something you don't know you're doing is damn near impossible. I am sarcastic by nature and that made it extra hard. Most of the things that come out of my mouth are sarcastic, but I have always tried very hard not to be demeaning. Except with my husband, apparently. The husband-filter had never been implanted in me or taken out by some means. I was determined to put it back in.


I started by trying very hard to think about every word that came out of my mouth before I said it. Being as sarcastic as I am, that was tough, but I tried. During this phase, which took literally a couple of years, I would be having a conversation with someone and if I found myself saying something that was in any way insulting to my husband, I would just stop talking, mid-word. My friends thought I was insane(r). They would ask me to finish what I was saying and I would change the subject completely, never explaining why I had stopped. I didn't want to admit, to anyone other than my husband, that I had ever done it or why. And exlaining why I had stopped talking would mean admitting the behaviour.


It took a long time. But I did it. Again, it took years to unlearn something I didn't even realised I had learned. So it can be done, if you want to badly enough.


Not that I am never sarcastic to him now, or never insult him. But now I only do it when he does something stupid - and never, ever in front of other people.


So I practice what I preach. You must include number four, or your apologies are just words that dirty up the air and add further insult to injury.


Number four. Memorise it. Learn it. Practice it. Do it.