Who Wants To Apologize? How Simple Words Can Heal Your Life and Relationship? I was recently approached by a young lady in an airport, after she'd given birth to her second child. She was looking for an apology for her husband, who'd taken off with another woman and was now coming back to live with her. The lady was adamant that she didn't want an apology from me, as she felt that I didn't know her husband and didn't care about what he'd done. She wanted me to tell her husband that he was a sick, horrible man who should be ashamed of himself and return to his wife, whom he loved more than anything in the world.
So, how would I approach such a request? Honestly, from a logical point of view, I would simply tell her that her husband was not only hurting her deeply, but that he needed to take responsibility for his actions, and that if he didn't, then he should leave her in peace, because she loved him more than anything in this life, and would do anything for him. She would be relieved that I was speaking so truthfully, and that I was speaking from experience, since she'd been married to this man for twenty-nine years. Besides, if I was to apologize for something I hadn't done, then by claiming that I wasn't actually hurt by what had happened, I was guilty of precisely what she'd been accusing me of - expressing blame when it was not my fault!
Of course, there would be those who would not believe me. They would insist that if I'd offered an apology, then somehow it wouldn't have been effective in repairing the damage to their marriage. This is a common argument, which has no merit in logic. You see, by offering an apology, I'd be affording my spouse a way out from the marriage, which he desperately needed at this point.
Who Wants to Apologize? Then, there are the women who've been burned. I can remember my own mother being burned by her husband when she took the stand against him in court and explaining how she never wanted a divorce, and how she respected her man. To this day, I still hear her voice, reminding me of that moment in time. I still hear the anger and the pain she felt toward her husband, a lack of respect on his part for her, and her need for him to just leave her. I've heard these stories thousands of times.
So who wades into these waters? I'd say that anyone who wants to apologize for something in his life has already walked the path towards healing; whether it's an act of forgiveness, or an admission of wrongdoing. It's either coming to terms with what happened, or taking full responsibility for it. And I don't think either of those is negotiable.
In saying all of this, I want to make sure everyone knows that forgiveness is not a right or a light switch that turns everything around. Forgiveness is a process that never ends, and it involves each and every person in the process. Each and every one of us must come to the realization that we are all responsible for our behavior, and that we all want to apologize. When we forgive, we remove the label and turn the situation back around to find out who w wants to apologize? Sometimes, it's not so much who w wants to apologize, but who is actually needing the apology.