When you hurt someone, do you pretend like you never did it?

[Anonymous]

I'd like to hear from the people who do this. When you hurt someone emotionally, are you one of those people who pretend like it never happened and try to pick up in your relationship with that person where you left off? I am not one of those people and I find it hard to understand how a person can act like their bad behavior never took place and expect other people to go along. What is going through your mind when you decide to do this? Why can't you apologize and own up to what you did? Is it because you don't care how the other person feels or because you are incapable of apologizing? Or both? Is there more to this behavior?

[Anonymous]

Google psychopaths. It’s a brain wiring problem present from birth in some of them. Connected to deficiencies in memory that includes the powerful ability to forget selectively, at will. There are more of them in society than most people realize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd like to hear from the people who do this. When you hurt someone emotionally, are you one of those people who pretend like it never happened and try to pick up in your relationship with that person where you left off? I am not one of those people and I find it hard to understand how a person can act like their bad behavior never took place and expect other people to go along. What is going through your mind when you decide to do this? Why can't you apologize and own up to what you did? Is it because you don't care how the other person feels or because you are incapable of apologizing? Or both? Is there more to this behavior?

What did the person do?

[Anonymous]

Also some people don't know they are actively hurting others by their behavior. They could well spend hours worrying about one thing being a problem for someone when that someone is unaffected, but not be aware of the thing they did to truly hurt them.

You know this, right? That the world doesn't see everything from your perspective alone?

[Anonymous]

I accidentally hurt a friend and I felt awful, apologized, and moved on.

I also have a former friend who is hyper sensitive, holds grudges, and is easily offended. I know many people who would just act like they didn't hurt her because she got hurt over everything and nothing, and people didn't feel like they had to cater towards that.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you continue to have a relationship with whomever, and you don't bring it "the hurt", why should the other person think it's as important to you as you say?

Btw, I'm hurt very rarely. To my knowledge I hurt people very rarely. Where is all this hurting coming from?

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who treated me like crap, then got mad when I put her in her place. She later came to me to tell me it was her anxiety that made her treat me poorly, never apologized, and basically made it seem like she deserved a pass to treat people like shit because of anxiety, and though I should be more understanding and accepting.

[Anonymous]

I’m not like this and I don’t know why people are but my brother is like this. He’ll do something to me or our other family members and then everyone will be upset with him and he won’t apologize, he’ll just stop talking to us. Then a couple months later he’ll call acting like nothing ever happened. None of us really have a relationship with him anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd like to hear from the people who do this. When you hurt someone emotionally, are you one of those people who pretend like it never happened and try to pick up in your relationship with that person where you left off? I am not one of those people and I find it hard to understand how a person can act like their bad behavior never took place and expect other people to go along. What is going through your mind when you decide to do this? Why can't you apologize and own up to what you did? Is it because you don't care how the other person feels or because you are incapable of apologizing? Or both? Is there more to this behavior?

But what do you do to move past this situation? Do you just glare at the person when you see them? Be cold and polite or ignore them thinking they know what they did and you aren't going to be nice to them until they apologize? Because this is what I see happen the most and the fact is people can't read your mind. You are no more willing to put yourself in the awkward situation of saying to someone "you really hurt my feelings when you said/did x, y, z" then the other person wants to put themselves in the awkward situation of apologizing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not like this and I don’t know why people are but my brother is like this. He’ll do something to me or our other family members and then everyone will be upset with him and he won’t apologize, he’ll just stop talking to us. Then a couple months later he’ll call acting like nothing ever happened. None of us really have a relationship with him anymore.

Omg my family member does this too! What’s up with that!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd like to hear from the people who do this. When you hurt someone emotionally, are you one of those people who pretend like it never happened and try to pick up in your relationship with that person where you left off? I am not one of those people and I find it hard to understand how a person can act like their bad behavior never took place and expect other people to go along. What is going through your mind when you decide to do this? Why can't you apologize and own up to what you did? Is it because you don't care how the other person feels or because you are incapable of apologizing? Or both? Is there more to this behavior?

Insecure or sociopath.

[Anonymous]

I think I'd need more specifics about exactly what happened before I'd label the person a psycopath/sociopath or even insecure.

Triangulating NPD can also become aggrieved when another person isn't playing along like they're supposed to even if it isn't in the person's own best interests to "play along" with whatever the narcissist wants.

Psycopath/sociopath/NPD would be extreme reasons. But usually it's more along the lines of there are two sides to every story, both people have a reason for what they said/how they reacted and sometimes it's better to turn the other cheek when something unpleasant is said/done. Again, knowing the specifics of what happened would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

I hate when people act like that. Their egos are such fragile shells that apologizing will make them feel like a huge loser and they will do anything to avoid feeling bad about themselves. Forget how you feel. They only care about how they feel. They are also in denial. If you point out their problem behavior, they will turn the tables to make you the problem for pointing out their behavior. They want to be in denial about their own issues. They will do nothing to repair your relationship and just brush all problems under the rug.

[Anonymous]

Snowflakes gonna snowflake.

[Anonymous]

I think it's how people are raised.
Some folks avoid emotionally sensitive discussions.
Maybe they see your hurt as overdramatic and they don't want to get bogged down in it. They'd rather you shake it off.