Why Some People Never Say Sorry: The Psychology of Non-Apologizers
Sunday, June 8, 2025.
You’re not hallucinating. They never say sorry.
Not when they forget your birthday.
Not when they bring up your worst childhood insecurity in front of your in-laws.
Not even when they back into your car and say, “Well, you parked weird.”
They may offer a stiff pat on the shoulder. They may grunt and hand you a cookie.
But “I’m sorry”?
That phrase has apparently been redacted from their emotional vocabulary like it’s a CIA document.
So why do some people treat apologies like uranium—too dangerous to touch?
This post is for anyone who's ever sat across from a loved one waiting for an apology that never arrived, wondering, “Am I asking too much?”
Short answer: No. Long answer: Let’s dive in.
What’s Really Behind the Missing Apology?
Apologizing sounds simple. But neurologically and psychologically, it’s a high-stakes emotional striptease. You have to undress your pride in front of someone who may or may not clap at the end.
Here’s why some folks would rather eat glass than say “I’m sorry” out loud.
The Fragile Self-Concept: The Eggshell Ego
These folks have what psychologists call fragile high self-esteem (Baumeister et al., 2003), which is like wearing a crown made of sugar cubes in the rain. On the outside? Confident. On the inside? A roiling sea of “Please don’t find out I’m a fraud.”
To these people, apologizing doesn’t just feel humbling—it feels existentially annihilating. They can’t separate “I did something bad” from “I am bad,” so they choose door number three: “Nothing happened. You’re dramatic.”
Their defense mechanism is basically this:
If you admit you’re wrong, the earth might open up and swallow you. Safer to accuse others of overreacting and pray the conversation ends before someone asks you to grow as a person.
The Power Preserver: Sorry Is for Serfs
Some people treat apologies like medieval monarchs treated hygiene: unnecessary and beneath them.
These are the folks who believe that admitting fault equals losing leverage. They see relationships as a zero-sum game, where remorse is a liability, like feelings are a currency only fools spend.
They often say:
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” (Translation: Your feelings are the problem.)
“I was just being honest.” (Translation: I weaponized truth like a toddler with a steak knife.)
In their world, “sorry” is the emotional equivalent of waving a white flag. And they’re at war with you, even if you thought you were just in a relationship.
The Emotionally Inarticulate: Raised by Wolves (or perhaps Boomers)
Some people want to apologize but lack the neural firmware. They feel remorse but it comes out in bizarre ways—like a half-hearted fist bump or an unsolicited offer to fix your screen door.
You might hear:
“Wanna go get food?” (Translation: I was wrong but emotionally paralyzed.)
“I brought you a thing.” (Translation: I hope this bagel will repair our spiritual wound.)
To be fair, if you were raised in a household where emotional vulnerability was treated like a bomb threat, this is pretty adaptive.
This category includes a sh*tload of accidental offenders—neurodivergent folks, emotionally neglected adults, and people who learned conflict resolution from watching their parents silently seethe through entire Thanksgiving weekends.
The Personality-Disordered Avoider: Sorry, Who?
Then there’s the rarer, but more intense breed—the person who rewrites reality to avoid ever being wrong.
These may include folks with narcissistic traits, high-conflict personalities, or just those who treat emotional intimacy like it’s covered in bees.
Tell them they hurt you and you’ll get:
“I never said that.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Actually, you owe me an apology.”
If reality is inconvenient, they simply bend it into a shape that doesn’t require guilt. Like emotional origami, but kinda evil.
Why Does It Hurt So Much When They Can’t Say Sorry?
Apologies aren’t just social niceties. They are rituals of repair—neural handshakes that say, “I care about your experience enough to be uncomfortable.”
When that repair doesn’t happen, your brain doesn’t get closure. Instead, your nervous system stays in a holding pattern, circling the airport of unresolved feelings until you run out of fuel and cry in a Trader Joe’s parking lot.
According to Keltner & Haidt (2003), humans evolved to crave moral equilibrium in groups. Without it, our sense of belonging erodes.
And without belonging? You’re just a hairless ape eating feelings and tweeting memes.
What Can You Do If Someone Won’t Apologize?
🔹 Lower Your Expectations—Not Your Standards
You may never get the apology you deserve. But you can stop treating their silence as your fault.
🔹 Look for Other Forms of Repair
Some people show remorse with action, not words. “I mowed the lawn” might be “I love you” in their apology dialect.
🔹 Protect Your Energy
The longer you wait for an apology that never comes, the more power you give to someone who’s clearly on a mute button mission.
🔹 Don’t Bleed to Teach Them Empathy
Self-sacrifice is not a curriculum. You can’t suffer someone into emotional growth. This isn’t a Hallmark movie.
Not Sorry Is Its Own Language
Some people don’t say sorry because they can’t.
Others won’t because they don’t care.
But the longer you wait for them to master the language of remorse, the more fluent you become in self-betrayal.
So here’s your permission slip. If they can’t say sorry, even in their own odd way, you can still say goodbye. Or at least, say:
“I see what’s missing. And I won’t keep bleeding to prove I’m wounded.”
Because you deserve repair, not just a peace offering in the form of choreographed avoidance and a sad bagel.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Baumeister, R. F., Bushman, B. J., & Campbell, W. K. (2003). Self-esteem, narcissism, and aggression: Does violence result from low self-esteem or from threatened egotism? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(1), 26–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.01211
Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297
Ronningstam, E. (2005). Identifying and understanding the narcissistic personality. Oxford University Press.