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?
I have a colleague who actually behaves in a way that I recognized right away. It is something I used to do a lot; talking like I was a burden on others, like the time people spent with me was time lost for them.
It takes finding out a root cause to stop this. Me, I’m a perfectionist. This manifests through me being a people pleaser: I hold myself to really high social standards and expect others to also set the bar high for me. I really don’t like it when people are disappointed by my actions, so that causes me to apologize more than necessary.
I’ve taken stock of my life the last six months and made a lot of progress on this front.
The best thing she can do to change her behavior is acknowledging she has an issue to begin with. As long is she is happy with her current behavior and you are not, the only thing you can do is explore why she feels the need to be like this and see if she can alter her behavior without distancing herself from who she is.
We’ve both been working on ourselves emotionally for a long time, so we spend a lot of time and energy trying to explore why we feel certain ways about different things, and then working together to try and help each other get to where we want to be.
I obviously have behaviours which I don’t like about myself which I’m working on, and she also has behaviours which she’s trying to work on. This is one of those areas where we’re trying to figure out together “how much apologising is too much?” as a general curiosity, rather than it being an actual problem.
Neither of us feel like we apologise enough, but I don’t get called out on how much I apologise, but she does. A lot of our friends and family often tell her she doesn’t need to apologise, or that she apologises too much! 😂
I understand why I don’t want her to do it, and it’s for many of the reasons you stated: perfectionism, people-pleasing, high social standards, fear of disappointment, etc. all of which can lead to her feeling sad, anxious, and over thinking every tiny detail which obviously isn’t good for mental health.
But to try and figure out how I physically and emotionally feel when I hear her say “sorry” is tricky. Do I get frustrated? Do I feel pity? Am I annoyed? Am I annoyed at her? (Obviously I’m not, but she often assumes I am)
I guess we’re just finding it interesting to work through that childish curiosity of answering the question “…but why?” from a perspective which isn’t as often looked through.
And thank you for the response! ❤️
I mean, it’s not really obvious. Instant feelings don’t always make rational sense.
It’s obvious to me. I get that it’s not obvious to her 😂
How did you change?
It’s difficult to say, really. It’s a form of acceptance. Accepting that you are who you are, taking things at face value rather than second-guessing everything you hear. I’ve got a decent head on my shoulders and feel more confident in my own abilities.
It wasn’t until I decided to call in sick from work last September. It was not a great winter to get through and taking a long, hard look at myself, my environment and my past was a very painful process.
I’ve been pretty aware of the fact that I was in need of psychological help since somewhere around 2018. Since then I’ve taken one step, in 2018, but didn’t follow through. I muddled my way through my last year of college, graduated, worked at a small publisher for about 3 years before moving to my current employer, moved, had a lot of personal stuff going on…
The step I took last September, to basically hit the brakes, was a turning point for me. But it took until the end of February to actually feel like I was on my way back up.
So in short: it’s pretty much all about confidence. Once you’ve accepted yourself for who you are, you’ll no longer feel like a burden to others. You’ll most likely also realize that people don’t often judge you without telling you stuff. After you’ve had an interaction, there is no need to wonder ‘oh I wonder what they’ll think of me, what will they think of me saying this or that’. Your overthinking will slow down a bit.
Couple of caveats: