Acceptance and Closure: The Last Phase of an Apology

Learn what to do if someone won’t accept your apology, how to accept an apology, and finally, how to give yourself closure when that apology you dream of is just not forthcoming.

This is a huge topic for those of us living with codependent, perfectionist, and people-pleasing thought habits because our egos and our sense of self can get so wrapped up in those two little words, “I’m sorry.” 

What to do when the person to whom you are apologizing is not having it: 

So you’ve gone through all the steps of apologizing. You have:

1. Expressed your intent to apologize and started with a thank you. 
2. Explained briefly what went wrong. 
3. Taken responsibility. 
4. Expressed your sorrow, apology, regret. 
5. Offered a way to repair the harm. 
6. Have asked if the person is ready to forgive you.

Now is when we usually hold our breath and hope that the other person will say, “Of course, it’s all good, no worries.” But in reality, that doesn’t always happen. When the person we’ve apologized to is not ready to accept the apology, we get to be the ones who go into acceptance mode.

When we have done our work to clean up our side of the street and make amends and for whatever reason, the other person can’t meet us where we are, our first job is to remember it’s not about you. The other person, the person who has experienced harm has their own set of thoughts, beliefs, values, and experiences. Their own thought protocols going through their mind.

And if the apology isn’t sitting right with them, that’s their prerogative. You have done your job and if you can, with confidence, know that you have done your best and the ball is no longer in your court. You get to accept that the other person isn’t where you are and you get to give them space and to honor their need for that, their boundary.

I’ll say it again. Give them space, my love. You can be sad or hurt or frustrated, but that isn’t the other person’s problem to deal with. It’s not theirs to manage. When they have been harmed and not ready to accept the apology, they get the gift of space.

You have no idea what’s going through their minds, bodies, spirit, heart, and it’s really none of your business anyway. So when we apologize and that apology isn’t accepted, we start by giving the other person the time and space to process in their own way.

Since part of giving a true and sincere apology involves offering ways to repair the harm, we get to follow through on that. There can be a temptation to say, “You won’t accept my apology? Well, then forget you, I take it back.” And this is such a classic move for codependent thinkers.

So what happens is we get super vulnerable and then we get scared when we’re not received exactly how we wanted to be, however we expect it to be, and so we react from that scared inner child place. Baby, it makes perfect sense. And I get it, and I’ve totally been there.

And my sweet love, the only person you are hurting with words like that is yourself. 

You have done the hard work in making that apology, so do not take it back out loud or in your own heart. 

Your apology is a symbol, a symbol of your care, of your hope to make things right, a symbol of your desire to grow and to grow together in relationship.

A symbol of how much you value your connection with this other mammal. Just because the other person needs more time to take that in, needs more words, needs the apology repeated, my beauty, that doesn’t take anything away from you. Does it feel icky, uncomfortable? Sure, of course it does.

But when we can start to work on our thought patterns and here, we’re seeing thought patterns, thought habits around wanting other people to be happy for us to be happy, you see how that’s what’s happening?

When you can see that, you can shift how you experience reality. You can feel better, stronger, and more confident in who you are and the choices you make.

When someone isn’t ready to accept your apology, you get to give them space. 

And you then get to work to make the changes that you said you would. Maybe it means you do more to help around the house or maybe you’re more mindful of your colleagues’ pronouns, or maybe you ask before dispensing advice.

Baby, you get to do whatever you said you were going to do to repair that harm, and you get to get to work on it. Once you’ve done that, you can circle back to either check in or to apologize again. No author publishes their first draft. If your apology didn’t sit right with the other person, again, for whatever the reason, you get to accept that and to do your work to show that you are putting the effort in to make amends, to make that change.

And you can then circle back to see if the other person is ready to accept your apology. And I recommend this as a thoughtful step, even when the person immediately says, “That’s cool, I accept your apology.” It never hurts to check in the next day to see if they want to talk more.

Asking other people to forgive us is asking them to put in the effort. 

It’s asking for their labor and their absolution. We ask instead for them to accept our apology as a way of saying that they see that we’re working hard to make things right and are ready to enter back into a relationship with us with more trust.

Let’s say you’ve done all that and the other person still isn’t having it. Well, there’s no right answer here because every situation is different and every relationship has its own quirks. But I like the rule of threes. You’ve apologized once and it didn’t go how you’d hoped. Okay, accept it, give space, make the changes you committed to, and try for apology number two.

Still a no go? Deep breath, acceptance, space, more time, and then you can try for apology number three. If that one also goes nowhere, I would suggest that you let it go. But like, really in your heart let it go. Assuming you have made three sincere, honest, wholehearted efforts to apologize and if the other person can’t accept the apology, that is what it is, my beauty.

You can know that you’ve done your best from a loving place. The closure in this situation needs to come from within. 

You get to do the work on yourself to make sure that you have acknowledged your part and the other person’s harm without harming yourself.

You get to adjust your words or behaviors going forward to ensure stronger relationships. You get to grow and change, which is what this whole being a human thing is all about. What is so important right now is to remember that when we are in this apologies world, we get to tune into our spidey senses.

We get to be on guard for manipulation and codependency. If we’re in relationships where those two things are the norm, the story may change. That is, we get to be super aware of how we are relating to others and any manipulation they may be attempting to engage in so we can stay firmly grounded in our sense of self.

When the words we have said or the actions we have taken harm others, yes, we get to apologize, regardless of what we believe for ourselves.

Codependent thinking is real and while we need to apologize for true harms, for real harms, not those that are setups, to make other people feel better by putting you down. 

What to do when we are the ones on the receiving end of an apology or we aren’t, but we think that we should be.

When you are feeling uneasy, upset, hurt, offended, you get to check in with yourself about what you’re thinking that’s creating those feelings for yourself.

You get to do the work to see what your own mind is doing and saying, what old stories about yourself, your place in the world, your relationship to other people, your worth, your value you may have on repeat. And then you get to decide what you need. Maybe you need an apology or you want that, or maybe you really need to pause to step away and to do some thought work on your own, to manage your mind around whatever happened, whatever manual or expectations you may have for that other person in that moment.

If what someone said or did to you hurt you and then they come to you to apologize, you get to decide whether or not you are ready to accept that apology.

You get to decide if you say, “It’s okay,” or if you say, “Thank you for apologizing.” 

And there’s a big difference between those two statements. Feel into them. Oh, it’s okay, or thank you for apologizing. It’s good to remember that when someone is apologizing, their nervous system is working overtime.

While yes, we get to and really need to be honest about our relationships and what we need and where our boundaries are, when we’re talking to someone else who’s trying to come to correct to us, another human just human-ing along and trying to do their best, we can also extend some grace and some love.

So in receiving an apology, it can be tempting to go in one of two directions. One, the cousin of false apologizing, is false forgiveness, which is a classic move in codependency and people pleasing because we want people to like us and to not feel anything negative in our general vicinity, even and sometimes especially when we feel they F-ed up.

Two, another option is to globalize, to make it all so big, to bring in all the hurts from the last 20 years to bear on this one moment, which may sound like, “Sure, you’re sorry for that, but what about all the other times? What about three weeks ago? What about that time in Vegas?” Et cetera.

The remedies to both of these thought habits are to stay present in the moment and to tune into your body and your true needs. 

You can always go with, “Thank you for apologizing,” while you’re working on not betraying your own needs or sort of ignoring what you really want by false forgiveness.

You can tell the other person, “I accept your apology and I want to talk about how we can prevent this from happening again,” and then you get to speak your piece and to tell that other person what you need or where your boundaries are.

Stick to the issue at hand and pull your brain back from its attempts to globalize or to make one thing about all the things. While also noticing patterns of behavior which are super important to acknowledge and address, like if someone gets chronically offensive, defensive, insults you, or whatever behavior pattern doesn’t work for you.

Here is another opportunity to stay in your own space. Just like sometimes the other person isn’t ready to accept our apologies and we need to give them space and time, sometimes the person whose words or actions caused us harm aren’t ready to hear our feedback and suggestions.

Keep breathing my love, you’re doing great. Most folks are doing their best, including you. So on the topic of closure, let’s check out another scenario. The oh so common the bastard’s done me wrong, where is my apology? 

All of us, if we wanted to, can list the oh so many times we’re owed an apology and didn’t get it.

When our brains were telling that story, “You have done me wrong and I deserve words.” So what do we do with that? Well, we do our thought work about it. We take a look at this story to see if we like the reason why we feel we are owed an apology, to see if it’s really what we want or if we actually want some self-love and self-care.

I don’t know the answer for you, and for me, sometimes it’s one and sometimes it’s another. Sometimes I’m projecting my own insecurity or worry onto someone else, and feel I am owed an apology, when I really just need to back up and look at my own thoughts and where I’m rolling around in my misery.

And sometimes I do my thought work and I say, “Yes, there was a harm here, let’s discuss.” So we can go to the person who we feel harmed us and we can demand that apology. Sometimes it works, often it doesn’t. Or we can do the thought work to find our way towards closure without the apology at all.

Yup, I said it. You can find closure within yourself without getting an apology at all. 

Is this concept new to you? Maybe. Is it challenging? You bet. But most things worth doing are challenging and stretch us to see ourselves in the world differently.

On some level, the healthiest thing to do may be to accept that in all likelihood, you’re never going to get the apology you want from them and living in the hopes of them apologizing, carrying around the raw wound that is resentment is unlikely to get you the peace of mind or heart that you want.

My beauty, my sweet tender kitten, the closure you’re looking for lives within you. And yes again, that is super challenging, and yes, I want everyone in the world to own their F-ups and to apologize and to be responsible emotional adults, but it’s just not always the case.

So you get to take back your life. Not to sit around waiting for someone else to make it better. You get to make it better for you in your own mind. 

And does that mean that the other person isn’t responsible for what they did? Are they off the proverbial hook and are declared blameless? Do you have to ever trust them again?

No, no, and no. Absolutely not. But you do get to stop wishing and dreaming and hoping that the person who did you harm will come correct you because that keeps you stuck in thinking and feeling that you’ll only feel right in the world once they utter the magical words, “I’m sorry, I apologize,” and that just isn’t so.

The fundamental truth that underlies this idea that you do not in fact need an apology for closure is that you create your own thoughts. Not anyone else. When we feel hurt or slighted, it’s because of what someone said or did intersected in a not so awesome way with our thoughts, with our feelings, our morals, our ethics, our emotional landscape, our inner children.

And that in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. There’s nothing pathological about being a person whose feelings get hurt. I have feelings and they get hurt all the time, especially when something touches a tender old wound. That’s just human.

What I hope to help you understand is that when we are harmed and we wait on someone else to apologize, we are giving our power away. 

Let’s say someone calls you a racist or xenophobic name. That bumps up against your ideas of racial equality, how we treat other people, humanity, your moral compass around identity-based discrimination, and it hurts.

It hurts a lot because those words are enough no matter how you understand your reality. Those words hurt and for a good reason. And sure, I mean, you could say if only I weren’t allergic to racism, that wouldn’t have hurt. But like, baby, that’s not a helpful use of thought work in my book.

Our morality, our sense of justice, let’s not be so quick to give those up. 

You can change your thoughts if you want to, but when it comes to this kind of discrimination, these are not thoughts that I’m interested in changing because I don’t ever think they’re okay on any grounds and I’m going to hold onto that T, those thoughts.

And so what I suggest here is that we can hold onto our beliefs and thoughts and do the work of finding closure for ourselves. 

And in the aftermath of any hurt, you get to choose. 

You get to give yourself the closure you want and need with your own thoughts, especially when it’s evident that the other person doesn’t realize they did harm or you tell them, but they’re just not seeing it or getting it, which is what happened in this situation.

You get to choose to speak up, to say that you’re upset or hurt in moments particularly of prejudice or discrimination, especially as a white or white-passing person, I do believe you have a responsibility to speak up and you get to do so, knowing that an apology, especially not a loving six-part one like we discussed and practiced here together may not be forthcoming.

You don’t have to agree with or condone or approve of what someone, anyone did or said to accept that that’s what they do and say. And to give yourself the gift of closure again for you, not for them. Whether they apologize or not, your thoughts, your closure has nothing to do with them and you don’t even have to tell them. It’s yours. For you. For your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Not about them in the least.

Because they’re often in their own world, and you live in yours, where you get to hold onto hurts and yes, I am talking about the big hurts as well as the little. Or you get to give yourself the closure. They did a thing, it’s about them, not about me. 

I can forgive or not. I can trust them again or not, but I don’t have to hold onto this hurt in my tender heart where it multiplies.

And yes, my beauty, it would be optimal if all the people, everyone, whoever hurt any other human or animal or the earth were to apologize and take ownership, but we can’t rest our happiness and our sense of self on someone else. We don’t have to forgive them. That’s not what I’m talking about.

Instead, we can make choices for ourselves with full recognition of the reality of what we experienced, how painful it was, how F-ed up, how wrong. And we can learn the lesson about how that person shows up and we can show ourselves how we will show up to take care of us.

We learn from it, we grow from it, we establish new boundaries, we develop new relationships, we realize how we want to be treated in the future, what’s acceptable in our lives. But we don’t have to hold onto the story that anyone else saying I apologize is something we need because that’s just keeping you hurting, my tender kitten.

You don’t ever have to choose to give yourself closure and move on. 

And I say this with full sincerity and total loving energy. You can choose to stay angry forever. And I really do mean it. It’s totally yours to choose.

Choosing to shift the story needs to come from that empowerment place, that place of really feeling like I am choosing my own adventure in this life and no one gets to choose it for me.

I want to send you and the parts of you that are hurting, your sweet tender little parts so much love. And I want to say it right to your little inner children that as children, it may have served you so well to attempt to prove your own rightness to yourself because you may be hurt all the time that you were wrong.

No one has to be wrong for you to be worthy of love and care. 

And you get to listen in to your body, your spirit, to do your thought work and to remind yourself that you are so perfect and amazing, that you’re growing and learning. Whatever apology is asked of you, whatever someone else does from their own wounding or their own thinking that you don’t agree with, you are perfect and amazing.

Thank you for taking the time to read Feminist Wellness. I’m excited to be here and to help you take back your health!

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