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Supporting people who are overly apologetic 

blackmagicgranddad:

realsocialskills:

Some people apologize all the time, for everything. This can be very annoying.

Here’s a conversation:

• Mary: I like ice cream. I don’t want to order a slice of cake. I’m sorry.
• Darlene: Dude, you don’t have to apologize!
• Mary: Argh, I’m sorry about that.
• Darlene: ::headdesk:::

Telling someone off for that kind of thing doesn’t help. People who do this do it for a reason; they’ve often been taught that they always have to want what other people want. They’ve been taught that it’s rude to ever express a desire. This is not something you can fix by getting annoyed.

In fact, you can’t fix it at all, because you can’t actually fix other people in any case. But getting annoyed makes the problem worse. So does telling someone off for apologizing. Some people need to apologize and adopt a deferential tone in order to feel ok about expressing preferences and boundaries. If you put pressure on people not to apologize, it makes it harder for them to tell you what they want. Don’t take it personally, and don’t take it out on them. It’s not your fault, and it’s not their fault either.

There are things that you can say that sometimes help other people to feel more comfortable expressing desires, if you can say them in a non-annoyed tone of voice:

• “That’s not a problem.”
• “That’s fine.”
• “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

this is very good but there is one thing I want to point out. In addition to the examples you gave, an overly apologetic person will often apologize for things that have nothing to do with them (like the bus being late, you having a bad day, etc). In that context and others, saying “i’m sorry" doesn’t really mean “i am sorry for inconveniencing you" but “i am sorry you are inconvenienced.“ for this reason, a lot of the time I get upset when people say “You didn’t do anything wrong.” I think that phrase needs to be used with care because a lot of the time when people are apologizing a lot, it doesn’t stem from a feeling of guilt, but rather a desire not to come across as agressive. when I apologize and people tell me that I didn’t do anything wrong, it implies a guilt that I didn’t necessarily imply myself and it has the potential to be really upsetting. i have gotten specifically upset about hearing that phrase a number of times. I don’t know if this is universal but it’s certainly my experience. thank you