People who cannot admit they are wrong even when they are clearly wrong
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Anonymous
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This is mostly just a complaint, not really looking for advice, though if someone has figured out how to deal with people like this, do share!
I've encountered a few people like this and increasingly I just don't get it because it causes so much conflict and most of it would just go away if they would just learn to say things like "oh, I didn't realize, I'm sorry" or "ok, next time I'll ask" or "thanks for letting me know." Is this bad parenting? A personality disorder? A belief that admitting fault (even when CLEARLY at fault) will somehow snowball into something else? I don't get it. I've found "I'm sorry" or "I appreciate you telling me this bothers you" to be incredibly useful statement that have helped make my life immeasurably better and more pleasant. Some people are just allergic to them, though. Just... why. |
Anonymous
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Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder.
More common than narcissism. People with personality disorders don't change, |
Anonymous
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My parents. I think they believed that any admission of fault would diminish their authority, and they parented authoritatively.
I say sorry whenever warranted, to my toddlers and everyone else. Wrong is wrong. |
Anonymous
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^ Even when presented with irrefutable evidence of their mistake, a person with OCPD will come up with many excuses as to why it occurred and will gaslight you.
They rarely, if ever, make mistakes, period. It's hell in the workplace. Even worse in the home. |
Anonymous
| Often kids in dysfunctional families where shaming played a big part have issues when they’re adults admitting when wrong or saying theyre sorry. It brings forward those same feelings of shame like they’ve done something wrong. |
Anonymous
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I think it’s narcissism.
I just quit my job because my boss fired a co-worker in an unbelievably cruel way. I complained to higher ups, who said her performance wasn’t adequate based on my boss’s completely unfair assessment. So I quit. I could not work with a person who treats another person so reprehensible. I asked her to apologize. Ha. She said she had acted appropriately in firing my co-worker. I am taking a break, and will look for a job in the new year. Headhunters call me often, so I’m not worried. I do not understand people who behave this way. They must have a completely invisible personality disorder that appears only in certain situations. I think my boss enjoyed hurting my co-worker, a vulnerable, eager to please but not super reliable nice person. My boss never treated me that way because I don’t have that personality. It’s outside my understanding of normal human intereaction to behave the way my non apologetic boss did. I think my boss found a victim and took pleasure in causing her pain. Really sick, IMHO. I thick inability to apologize is a sign of a really weak person as well as a personality disorder. |
Anonymous
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Sorry for typos. Phone is quirky
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Anonymous
I've heard this before and I'm sure it must be true for some people, but I grew up in a family like this and am big on apologizing. For me, apologizing relieves me of shame I feel for having done something that hurt someone -- if I don't apologize, it eats away at me. I don't understand how refusing to admit you are wrong helps with shame because don't you know you've done something wrong? If I accidentally run over my neighbors flowerbeds with my car, refusing to admit that I did it, or refusing to admit it was bad, doesn't change the fact that I KNOW I did it and that of course it was bad. I feel like most people who refuse to apology are very convinced of their own goodness/correctness. It's like they can't admit fault because they can't accept a scenario where they could be at fault. Which seems like the opposite of shame. |
Anonymous
I totally agree with you. It is incredibly useful to just say sorry and move on. Helpful in work and personal life. I think it’s actually rare. Most people won’t apologize for things. The only downside to this is someone who acts badly then apologizes but keeps doing the behavior. My husband used to do this—get mad, then apologize, but I wanted him to not lash out. I learned to say sorry when I went to 12-Step meetings in my 20s. It is part of the 10th step, I think—“when we were wrong promptly admitted it” and I have incorporated that into my life. People are disarmed when you apologize and it opens communication. My parents didn’t apologize for things so I just didn’t learn it. I think it’s pride and embarrassment for people that causes them not to, and some people think it makes them look weak, but the surprise is that if you apologize, it usually works in your favor. Some people say women apologize too much, but not the ones I’ve known. |
Anonymous
OP here and totally agree. I hadn't heard that phrasing from the 12-step program about promptly admitting it -- I think that's actually key. The longer you wait, the harder it is for people to forgive and come together. To me, the ability to apologize is a sign of strength. It means the person has a handle on their own ego and knows that they can apologize for a specific act or behavior without admitting they are just a crap person. It's strength of character to me. I think when people talk about apologizing too much, it refers to people who apologize for things they didn't do. Like I think women are sometimes expected to be responsible for everyone's happiness, so some women will apologize for things like showing up on time if it seems like their hosts are put off by it. Obviously no one should have to apologize for something like that. But I agree with you that it's not common anymore. I think in my mom's generation a lot of women were conditioned to do that, but Gen X/Millenial/Gen Z women have been told the opposite -- they were taught to behave like men if they wanted to be respected like men. Maybe that's why it feels like no one knows how to apologize anymore -- women used to apologize for themselves and men and everyone else, but then they stopped so no one apologizes for anything anymore. Ideally everyone would be accountable for their own behavior. |
Anonymous
| I have a coworker like this and the behavior would almost be funny if it weren’t so harmful. She will keep backing up her weird, wrong decisions/assertions until people just start avoiding her. |
Anonymous
That sucks but at least people recognize the wrong-headedness of her behavior. I worked in a place once where there was a manager who did/said very inappropriate and offensive things (including touching people inappropriately, gossiping about colleagues' personal lives, inserting herself into people's personal lives at work) but when people would object, the rest of management would close ranks around this woman and protect her. It becomes this weird institutional gaslighting. If anyone else in the organization had done similar things, they would have been roundly, and correctly, reprimanded and maybe fired. But if this one woman did it, people would protect her and defend her. It was bizarre. But I guess in retrospect, it's not that crazy. She was in a managerial position. Probably other people in management felt that if they condemned her, they might open themselves up to criticism as well. By protecting her, they were protecting their future ability to do sketchy things. So I guess when you are in a position of authority, there is often a real benefit to not apologizing or admitting fault, because your position of power might be enough to insulate you from consequences. That was a really dysfunctional workplace though. A shame, because I really liked the actual job, but I couldn't stick around due to the culture. |
Anonymous
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As others have said, it's a personality thing and won't change. The best way to deal with it, is avoid the people who do it.
If you don't care about maintaining a relationship, it can be satisfying to say "Sure, Jan." |
Anonymous
| If they’re “clearly wrong,” why do they need to admit anything. Grow up, and move on. If confessions matter that much to you, then don’t talk to them. |
Anonymous
Often this becomes a problem because a person is unavoidable -- a coworker, family member, or immediate neighbor. Accepting responsibility for ones own actions helps to make these relationships possible. People who refuse to apologize become a black hole within communities, creating conflict and perpetuating disagreements that everyone else would rather move on from. It's an anti-social behavior. It can impact you even if you are not the person who deserves an apology. |