I’m pretty sure I’m in the small minority here but I personally feel like apologies are a better fit for accidents and miscommunications. If you steal from someone, cheat on someone, intentionally harm someone, etc. saying sorry doesn’t do much for me because if you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place. I appreciate the apology, but that doesn’t move me. Trust is always regained through actions, not words. Perhaps you could argue that a person has a “change of heart.” Maybe that might make the apology more valid. But idk
My dad told me a story once that I think resonates here. When he was a young man, he stole a bunch of tools from his former employer. He knew it was wrong. Eventually, it began to bother him and he knew that there was no way he could live with what he had done unless he tried to make it right as best he could.
He took all the tools back to his old boss, fully expecting to go to jail, and told him that he was sorry for stealing from him. To my dad’s amazement, his old boss just kind of stared at him in disbelief, accepted his apology, and sent him on his way.
A sincere apology is the first step in taking responsibility for your actions. It takes a dose of humility to go to someone you’ve wronged and tell them, sincerely, that you acknowledge that what you did was wrong and you are sorry for your actions.
The second step is being ready and willing to accept the consequences for your actions. Whatever those may be. The third is to do the right thing next time.
A personal philosophy that I try to live by and one that I try to teach my kids is, “Don’t do anything you’re going to have to lie about. And if you do, don’t lie about it. And if you do, come clean and make it right as soon as possible.” If you’re really a good person with integrity, living with your own lies or misdeeds eventually gets to be a heavy load. Apologies don’t make everything ok and they don’t undo your actions. But, they are an important first step in accepting responsibility for your actions and acknowledging the harm that you’ve caused.