When you wrong someone, of course you should apologize. Own your behavior, take responsibility for the consequences, and take steps to improve. There's even a specific way to apologize when you've really messed up.
Everyone on the planet has been on both sides (hurting and being hurt) and isn't it healing when you can tell someone really cared that they hurt you? Apologies can be wonderful, as is embracing our humanity and accepting that we all make missteps.
But there are cases when apologizing can contribute to an unhealthy power dynamic, such as regretfully explaining a hard-wired character feature or fundamental personality trait.
Apologizing for being a certain way, because that "way" made your partner upset can be a sign that the wrongdoing is more about not meeting the other person's needs than actually doing something wrong. This can shift the dynamic from a mature, peer-to-peer dialogue to one of victim and appeaser.
For example, a friend once apologized for being emotionally closed. "I'm sorry I'm this way," he expressed woefully.
His partner, who had been in the relationship a long time without getting her emotional needs met, was impatient. She thought, well if you KNOW you're that way and you know I need it to be different, and you want to KEEP me, then don't be that way.
But he couldn't be open, it wasn't part of his nature. Trauma and all that, but it doesn't even matter why, it's just the way he was.
A healthy partner might recognize these limitations and either accept them or realize that the connection is unsustainable over the long-term.
No blame, but an acknowledgment of a mismatch between her needs and his ability to consistently meet them.
But in the victim/appeaser dynamic, the one who sees themselves as wronged can view the apology as an admission of fault, and, even worse, it can set the expectation that their partner must now fix what's wrong.
This is why it's important to be self-aware and understand what you need and where (and where not) to get it. Emotional health isn't about not needing things, it's about knowing what you need and taking care of yourself so you're not waiting for someone else to take care of you--especially when they have demonstrated that they cannot.
You wouldn't go to Home Depot for milk and you wouldn't go to Wegman's for a hammer & nails. Similarly, we need to learn which people in our lives we can go to; who can meet our needs and who cannot. You can keep going to Home Depot for milk, but you're going to keep being disappointed.
If someone is frustrated by a personality trait and hasn't accepted it, instead of apologizing, you can try helping them understand what they can expect from you.
This letter to Dear Amy illustrates the victim stance; they are stuck in thinking Home Depot should have milk despite many demonstrations that it does not:
DEAR AMY: When my mother was dying, she asked a lifelong family friend to be like a sister to me because my own two siblings were always mean to me, and my mother knew they would continue to be after she was gone. The friend, an only child, was great for about four years, but then she stopped returning my calls and once went several months without contacting me. Every time I want to go home, she is conveniently unable to see me and she tells me whoppers about her guest room being unavailable. I have known her since I was a baby and have listened to petty criticisms of people we both know without comment. When I told her I really wanted to come home after many years away and said I needed a connection because I am totally alone, her response was, “Get used to it.” I live in another state and have friends but wanted to maintain a hometown connection. How should I handle this? Why did she make the promise to my mother if she was not going to keep it? It is heartbreaking because I have no family ties left. Heartbroken
DEAR HEARTBROKEN: It is a tough truth to impart, but I have to tell you now that nobody owes you anything. People make promises and break them. You may feel wounded, hurt, upset and depleted, but you simply cannot make someone give you what she doesn’t want to give. Your job in life is to look after yourself and to find ways to get what you need — emotionally and otherwise — so that you live your best possible life, without being mired in anger and hurt over the past. And so now you need to let it go. Find a way to move on. If you don’t have any family members to rely on, you’ll have to create your own family from healthy relationships with friends.
Here, the writer feels she is owed something she's not getting, despite repeated attempts. We don't know the reasons for the relationship shift but she's not accepting her reality and so she's stuck. As long as she continues to believe that this person should meet her needs for friendship, she won't be able to step out of the passive role and start taking her next steps. It can be very difficult for us to give up our vision of how a partner or friend should behave. Often, others who are close to us will see the incompatibility before we do.
It would have been kind for the family friend to explain that circumstances have changed -- maybe they're sick and hesitant to say so, who knows (they may have a good reason for all we know, although even if they didn't, it wouldn't matter -- the end result is still the same). All the letter writer has are her observations. But that is enough.
