Healthy Relationships, Managing emotions

How to Fix a Bad Apology

Written by Here Counseling

The bad apology: We’ve all heard one. We’ve all used one. And when we do it feels so gross.

“God, I’m SORRY!”
“I don’t know what I did but whatever it is I apologize.”
“I guess I’m sorry that you think I wasn’t listening.”
“Look, I said I’m sorry. Why’re you still angry?

No. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t help. Actually, a bad apology usually makes the person we’re apologizing to even more upset. Because it isn’t really an apology.

How to Tell When an Apology Isn’t Sincere

It can be hard to know when someone really means “I’m sorry” — especially when you’re emotionally raw. But learning to spot the signs of a hollow apology can protect your peace, and help you decide how (or whether) to move forward with someone.

Here are a few signals that the apology you’re hearing might not be coming from a place of true remorse:

1. “If” and “but” apologies
 “If you felt that way” or “I’m sorry, but I was stressed” aren’t real apologies. They dodge responsibility and put the burden on you for having feelings. That’s not repair — that’s evasion.

2. Blame gets redirected
 When an apology slips in a line like “You made me do it,” it’s not about healing — it’s about shifting guilt. Real apologies stay with the impact, not the excuse.

3. It’s vague
 A half-apology might say “I messed up” but skip what exactly was done wrong. If someone can’t name their behavior, it’s hard to believe they really understand it.

4. The focus is on their intentions, not your hurt
 “I didn’t mean to” might be true — but it doesn’t make the hurt go away. If someone is more focused on how misunderstood they feel than how you feel, the apology isn’t landing.5. The pattern repeats
 If you keep hearing “I’m sorry” but nothing ever changes, that’s not growth — that’s a loop. A meaningful apology includes effort. Without that, the words start to feel empty.

A bad apology is a demand. It’s a shield. It’s selfish.

A bad apology translates to:
“Stop feeling angry. Stop being sad. You being upset means I’m a bad person. I don’t wanna hear that. I said I’m sorry so I can be done with this.”

A bad apology takes care of ourselves. It denies responsibility because acknowledging we did something wrong is uncomfortable.

But all of this misses the whole point of an apology.

A good apology is supposed to take care of the person who’s hurt. It’s a gift of your empathy and understanding.

A good apology requires you to sit for a moment in the head of the person across from you and set aside your own discomfort to take care of them.

A good apology provides resolution so that both of you get to feel genuinely better at the end.

The Cost of a Bad Apology

It’s not just that a bad apology doesn’t help — it actually makes things worse. It creates distance instead of closeness. It turns vulnerability into frustration. And over time, it teaches the other person that bringing up hurt feelings isn’t safe or worth it.

When that happens often enough, people stop sharing what they feel. The relationship moves into quiet resentment, emotional shutdown, or blowups that seem to come out of nowhere.

Learning how to apologize well isn’t about being perfect. It’s about keeping the connection open, even in moments of conflict. And that’s what makes a relationship stronger.

Why Are Bad Apologies So Common?

We don’t learn how to apologize well. Most of us grow up seeing apologies used as damage control — a way to end the conversation, not repair the relationship. We see apologies as a transaction: “Say the words, and let’s move on.”

But real apologies require emotional presence, not just polite language. They ask us to sit in discomfort for a minute and consider someone else’s pain without immediately managing our own. That’s a skill many people never learned.

Understanding why bad apologies happen doesn’t excuse them. But it helps us shift from shame to responsibility. And it opens the door to doing things differently.

So if you want to practice a good apology, here are the steps:

Calm yourself.

Criticism often feels deeply personal and emotionally charged. When someone tells you that you did something that hurt or offends them, you’re likely going to feel a sharp pang of adrenaline. Don’t counterattack. Hold back your defensiveness. Don’t argue. Don’t explain why you did what you did. In a good apology, those are inside thoughts. Breathe. Remind yourself that you aren’t being attacked, so you don’t need to defend.

Listen.

You have to listen carefully to what the person is upset about. Maybe even repeat back to them what you hear them saying. Then with genuine curiosity and without anger, ask them if you understood. Allow them to correct you and repeat this until you understand clearly.
“Oh, you’re saying that being on the phone when I got home today felt like I was ignoring you. Is that right?”
“…and I wasn’t paying attention to the questions you were asking me. Ok.”

Reflect.

Pause and take a moment to think about how they felt. Really consider the situation from their perspective; then express why their reaction makes sense to you. If it still doesn’t make sense, go back to asking questions (with curiosity and without anger) until it does.
“That makes sense. I can see why if I’m literally not responding it feels like I was ignoring you.”

Take Responsibility.

Accept that you did something wrong. Say this clearly to the other person without trying to soften the “wrongness” of what you did or shift the blame. They will see right through that.
“You’re right. I wasn’t really paying attention today. It was inconsiderate and thoughtless, and I know you like for us to talk when I get home.”

Apologize Directly.

Say the damn words.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry I made you feel ignored. I don’t ever want you to think I don’t care about you.”

Take Action.

Identify what you would like to do differently and then do it. And if in the moment, you’re not sure how to fix the problem, you can say that too, as long as you also verbally take the responsibility to think about it and come up with something later.
“Tomorrow I’ll make sure to set down my phone when I come in.”

Check-in.

The point of a good apology is to take care of the person you love. Circle back to how they feel. Gently ask them if they feel better. Keep in mind that they might not feel better, but even if it’s not in this moment, a good apology can lead to emotional resolution.
“I love you. How’re you feeling? ”

When You’re Not Ready to Apologize

Sometimes you’re still hurt, confused, or overwhelmed yourself. And trying to force out an apology when you’re not ready can feel fake — or worse, resentful.

If you’re not ready, it’s okay to say that. But don’t leave the other person hanging. You can say something like:

“I know this mattered to you, and I want to talk about it. I just need a little time to sort through my own feelings so I can be present with you.”

A good apology doesn’t have to be immediate. It has to be sincere. Take the time you need, but stay connected. Let them know you’re coming back to the conversation.

What to Do When the Apology Doesn’t Feel Genuine

You’ve heard the words, but something still feels… off. The apology doesn’t sit right, and you’re left wondering what to do with that discomfort.

You’re not overreacting. And you don’t have to ignore it.

Here’s what you can try:

Speak honestly about how it landed
 Use “I” statements to reflect how you feel without escalating things. Try:

“I appreciate you trying to make things right, but the apology didn’t feel like it addressed what happened.”

Ask for clarity
 Sometimes, people are well-meaning but unskilled. You can invite them to go deeper:

“Can you help me understand exactly what you’re apologizing for?”

Name what you need
 If you’re ready to move forward but need something specific, say so. Maybe it’s space. Maybe it’s a change in behavior. Either way, you deserve to name your boundaries.

Protect your emotional space
 You don’t owe continued access to someone who consistently disregards your feelings — even if they say “sorry.” You can love someone and still choose distance when needed.

Decide what repair looks like for you
 Genuine repair takes time, effort, and mutual investment. You get to choose what’s best for your well-being, whether that’s reconnection or release.

Calm yourself. Listen. Reflect. Take Responsibility. Apologize Directly. Take Action. Check-in.

A good apology helps. It does what apologies are supposed to do. It takes care of someone who’s hurt.

It’s important to remember that good apologies are necessary but they’re not a silver bullet. All of the above assumes that the person you’re apologizing to is emotionally aware and is acting in good faith. It assumes that they know their needs and are being direct. Without those conditions met, even the best apology might go south.

There are so many things that get in the way of peace in our relationships. If you find yourself stuck, that even your good apologies don’t seem to be moving you toward a place of resolution, please reach out. That’s where therapy can help.

But to start with it’s important to step back from the bad apologies, step back from defending yourself, and in a moment of vulnerability choose to be loving instead.

Therapy Can Help You Practice Apologizing Differently

Apologizing isn’t just about words — it’s about emotional regulation, vulnerability, empathy, and communication patterns. These are deep skills, and if you didn’t grow up learning them, it’s not your fault. But you can learn them now.

In therapy, we help you slow down the moment, notice what’s happening underneath your reactions, and build a new way of responding — one that helps both people feel seen and safe.

If conflict keeps repeating itself in your relationships — even when you’re trying to do the right thing — we’re here to help you break that pattern and build connection instead.

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Healthy Relationships, Managing emotions

One Reason a Break-up Hurts More than it Needs to

Written by Jeff Creely

Of course it hurts to lose someone you love. Loving and being loved is at the center of being human. Whether a loss is a a break-up or a death, loss is loss. And we feel pain in the center of ourselves when someone we love is gone forever.

But there is a story we tell ourselves that makes the end so much worse.
Something that haunts us. One belief that leads to months, or years, of agony.

“I can make you stay….I can make you love me.”

Most of us live with the fiction that we can earn someones love. That if we just work hard, if we mold ourselves to their desires, we can keep them. 

It’s so seductive. That we have the power to get what we want. That we have the power to keep who we want close to us.

The idea that we could be safe from loss if we just do everything right is comforting.

But it’s a lie. And at the end of a relationship that comfort turns to anguish.

“What did I do wrong? Why don’t they love me anymore? Why did they leave me?”

We pour over our memories…trying to find the thing that went awry. What misstep, what mistake we made that turned them from us. Was there something we could’ve done? Could we have been easier to get along with? Lost weight? Made more money?

Our thoughts are consumed by trying to find what we did, what we said.

Because if we have the power to make them stay, then it’s our fault when they leave.

But we don’t have that power. We never did.

And that hurts in its own way. To accept that we can’t earn someones love is to accept that there are times when we won’t feel loved. We can’t make love happen. When love feels far from us that truth is so heavy.

But there is freedom in accepting that sadness. Because if being loved by others is a gift we can’t blame ourselves when it’s is gone.

So when your mind turns to the false promise of deserving someone’s love…
Of scrutinizing, criticizing, and judging yourself for it’s absence…
Guide yourself away from that struggle.

Allow yourself to just accept the loss. Feel sad. Grieve with yourself.
And then remind yourself of what you can control.
Even in this pain, you can love others. To ask yourselves to be loving.

But not as a bargain, not in the expectation of love in kind.
Love comes to us as a gift until it doesn’t.

And that’s ok. Because it will come again.

Jeff Creely, PhD
Jeff Creely, PhD

I help people who struggle with anxiety and sexuality issues gain peace and freedom in their lives.

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Anxiety

Why we worry and how to make it stop

Written by Jeff Creely

For so many of us worry is a way of life. We worry about money. We worry about what people think. We worry about our health. We even worry about our past. And so often these worries attack us without warning. How often have you been going about your day, feeling fine, but suddenly find yourself obsessing over something completely random…like the wording of an email you wrote two hours ago?

  • “Why didn’t he respond yet?
  • Did I say something stupid?
  • Did I make a mistake?
  • Did I offend him?
  • What if I get fired?”


Your heart races. You feel that pit in the center of your chest. Then you spend a half hour reading and re-reading your message. 

But even when everything turns out fine, It’s still unfair, because you just lived half a day with this terror gnawing at the back of your mind. 

But the strange truth is you’re built for this fear. Your worry is a survival instinct honed over millions of years. 

You’re made to be afraid. 

10,000 years ago that fear was vitally important. Back then, a threat meant life or death. It was evolutionarily adaptive if every time you heard the grasses rustling you assumed it was a lion. 

You’d better be prepared because it only had to be a lion once for you to get eaten. 


Those people who were prepared for the lion, those who assumed the worst, they lived. And now their fear lives on in you. 

But this process that was so helpful to our ancestors; looking for threats, assuming danger, preparing for the worst at all times…it drags you down.

The threats we face are no longer life or death.

There are no lions waiting to pounce in our email. In our world this instinct distracts us from what’s important by focusing our attention on the unlikely negative. It paralyzes us from taking action because we severely overestimate the chance that bad things will happen. 

Your fear no longer serves you. 

But there is hope.

Your instinct isn’t all powerful. 

You can talk back to your fear. 

There are lots of ways to do this. And sometimes it takes a while to figure out what’s most effective. But right now, I’ll tell you the three questions I’ve found most powerful in helping people talk back to their fear. 

When you find yourself with that pit in your chest, your thoughts racing, your heart pounding…

Stop. Be gentle, ask yourself,

“What is it you’re afraid of right now?”

Then ask yourself this,

“What is the most likely to occur?” 

Don’t lie. Don’t try to be positive. Just answer honestly. Because the truth is always less scary than what we are afraid of. 

“What is most likely to occur?“

Hold onto that in the face of your fear. Hand it back to your fear when it comes up again. The truth is the most powerful weapon we have.

But if the fear persists. Ask this,

“What is the worst that could happen? Will I be ok?” 

Again, answer honestly. If you do, if you really dig down for what is true, I imagine you’ll find that whatever you fear, the absolute worst, the thing unlikely to occur, it is survivable. 

You have felt this way before. You have survived before.

You are a survivor. 

And whatever the thing you fear, it is smaller than what you can do in the face of its challenge. 

Recognize your instinct to fear. Remember your fear no longer serves you. Remind yourself of what is likely to occur. Remind yourself that you can survive the worst. 

Arm yourself with the truth. There are no lions here. 

If this video helped you in some way and you want more help talking back to your fear, I look forward to talking with you. 

Jeff Creely, PhD
Jeff Creely, PhD

I help people who struggle with anxiety and sexuality issues gain peace and freedom in their lives.

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Managing emotions

“Am I too emotional?”: Do this one thing today to manage difficult emotions

Written by Jeff Creely

People tend to see emotions like anger, sadness, or fear as bad things; at best they’re a distraction, at worst a weakness. There’s a perception that these feelings disrupt logical thinking and lead to bad decisions—that negative emotions simply get in our way. 

You can even hear it in how we often use emotions as insults:

  • “God, you’re so emotional,” 
  • “Quit being such a drama queen.”
  • “Don’t be a crybaby.”

We think our emotions betray us. So it makes sense that sometimes we even get emotional at our own emotions: we get pissed at our sadness, afraid of our anger, or made hopeless by our anxiety. Then down the rabbit hole of negative feelings we go, round and round as we lose sight of what upset us in the first place. 

So it’s no wonder that we’ll try anything to hide our feelings. We fear negative emotions as evidence of our own failure.

This way of hiding our emotions is dangerous.

This is why people start to eat to soothe worries. It’s the reason we’ll watch TV when we’re feeling lonely or drink to numb ourselves. But this doesn’t solve anything. This doesn’t make the feelings go away, just hides them from view.

But if our goal is to simply get rid of the evidence, get rid of these feeling as quickly as possible, hiding them is the logical shortcut we take to get there.

There’s something important you should know: a way to break this cycle.

Negative emotions aren’t a distraction or a weakness, they’re communication.

They’re our bodies ways of telling us that something important is going on. Before we can put something into words, emotions are a red alert that we need to pay attention.


And just like ignoring someone shouting for help, when we try to avoid our feelings they are going to get louder. Our feelings want to help us understand something important and they won’t go away until the message is delivered.

So instead of trying to shut out your negative emotions, instead of fearing them as evidence of your failure, what if you did something radically different? 

What if you turn toward your emotions, look them right in the eyes, and ask “What’s wrong?” 

Negative emotions are communication and by listening to your emotions you give yourself the power to help them. Next time you notice yourself feelings something powerful, slow down and be curious. Ask yourself some questions.

  1. First pay attention to the physical experience. What sensations are you having? 
  2. Then, if you know, what’s the name of the feeling?
  3. Then gently ask yourself what happened that led to this feeling? 
  4. Does something in the world feel wrong? 
  5. Does something in the world remind of something wrong that happened in the past? 
  6. Do you feel like you did something wrong? 
  7. Are you thinking about something wrong happening in the future? 

Then ask yourself a very loving question. With all the same gentleness and compassion you would offer to a scared child,

“What can I do to help?”

Perhaps helping is simple. 

In which case, great! Go do it. Feel better. 

But perhaps the feeling doesn’t know how you can help it, or helping seems too intimidating to even begin to try. Maybe the answer you get confuses you or you’re embarrassed by what the feeling wants. In which case, it’s helpful to talk with a therapist about what your next steps might be. 

But even if you never speak to someone else about it, asking these questions can be extremely helpful. Because even if you don’t know what to do with what you find, there is something powerfully healing in simply being listened to by someone who loves you. 

What a wonderful gift to offer yourself when that loving person is you. 

Managing Difficult Emotions Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

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Jeff Creely, PhD
Jeff Creely, PhD

I help people who struggle with anxiety and sexuality issues gain peace and freedom in their lives.

More about Jeff
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