People who say “I’m sorry” ten or twenty times a day are using apology as a strategy to prevent others from getting upset. Paradoxically, this increases conflict. When someone is visibly scared of another person’s anger, the angry person feels more alone in their anger — and is more likely to escalate.
The habitual apology drains the power from the words entirely. It becomes a platitude — like “I’m so sorry” repeated at a funeral — that doesn’t create connection or the feeling of being seen. It’s oriented toward an outcome (preventing upset) rather than being a genuine acknowledgment.
This pattern often originates in childhood, where apologies were extracted as a tool of control: “Say you’re sorry.” The child learns that making themselves small is how to navigate danger. As adults, they carry this forward — apologizing reflexively to manage others’ emotions, which guarantees that the apology never functions as a real tool for connection or transformation.
Related Concepts
- Approval seeking pushes people away
- An empowered apology is one of the most powerful tools for self-transformation
- Apologies in power struggles are surrogates for being seen