Spotting A Narcissist's Fake Apologies

We all make mistakes, and we all occasionally make mistakes that hurt other people. When we own those mistakes and offer genuine apologies, we can work to soothe hurt feelings, heal relationships, and rebuild trust.

Narcissists rarely, if ever, offer authentic apologies. Building trust and respecting others’ feelings does not matter to a narcissist, even with their own kids. Narcissists are focused on preserving their own image, avoiding accountability, and avoiding discomfort, even when they cause pain to others.

Typically, if a narcissist offers a form of apology, it is generally phrased in a way to mislead, confuse, defer blame, invalidate, and minimize. Narcissistic apologies are not genuine and often leave the recipient feeling even worse.

My daughter and I recently had a great conversation about real and fake apologies. Apologies that begin with “I’m sorry if” and “I’m sorry but” are usually inauthentic. She added that “I’m sorry that you” apologies were also probably fake because they were more like blaming.

Other narcissist favorites are “I’m sorry that I may have done” and “I’m sorry for whatever you think.” They also tend to use statements like “I probably shouldn’t have” and “maybe I should have.” Narcissists will turn apologies into deals with “I’ll apologize if you...” and then all you get is a fake apology.

Narcissistic parents will talk to their kids like “You seem very upset. I’m sorry that you feel hurt”...which are fake apologies and are part of a narcissist’s getting off on the pain they caused. With kids, narcissists get to cause the hurt, pretend to support the hurt, and then defer blame to the kid for feeling hurt, and never apologize. Classic narcissist parenting.

We can help our kids deal with a narcissistic parent by teaching them to clearly see the differences between real and fake apologies. It’s a good lesson for everyone to learn, regardless, but teaching our kids to be aware of real and fake apologies helps them increase their critical awareness and helps them see the games. If they can see the games, they can then learn to disengage and depersonalize, which increases their chances of healthy freedom from the narcissist.

Transcript

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This is unapologetic parenting podcast dedicated to candidly and unapologetically discussing parenting, divorce and co parenting. We take on the topics most people don't want to talk about and offer support and solutions to help you be a better parent, co parent and human being. Now without further ado, let's get right to it. Welcome back to unapologetic parenting. I am your host Carl Knickerbocker. And today we are talking about apologies or more specifically with the narcissistic exes, the narcissistic other parents, the lack thereof, or the lack of genuine apologies thereof. So we all make mistakes, we all screw things up. We all occasionally hurt people, we all do stupid things. Normal people are able to say you know what? I'm going to own my mistakes. I'm going to offer a genuine apology, I'm going to work to change I'm going to work to try to make things better, to try to soothe the hurt feelings. I want to rebuild trust, I want to heal the relationship. Normal people operate in that way. narcissists narcissistic people, narcissistic exes, narcissistic other parents. They rarely, if ever, offer an apology that qualifies as anything resembling an authentic apology. What they do not do is offer any sort of apology to repair the foundation of any relationship, they will offer either a veiled fake apology, a misleading apology, or they will make something sound like a real apology, but then not follow it with any kind of genuine significant or consistent change in order to lay the foundation for future offenses future ways to continue exploiting the other person. So what are some of these fake apologies, a lot of people have been asking what are what are these false ones? What are these fake or misleading ones? Well, typically, you start hearing fake apologies in terms of I'm sorry, that you feel or I'm sorry, that you felt I'm sorry, if you thought I'm sorry, if you those sort of constructions are a deferral of accountability back onto the person who has hurt. So it's basically Yeah, I'm sorry that there's something wrong with you that you felt that way. I'm sorry that you feel that not I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry that you have some sort of imbalance in your emotions, I'm not going to actually take accountability or responsibility. I'm going to dump it all back onto you. It comes across more like blaming than anything else, but we're trained to just kind of hear apologies like that and think, oh, the person's apologizing. They're actually saying I'm sorry, but anything after the I'm sorry, if we don't pay close attention to what's actually being said, then we're going to miss that most of the time, if not all of the time. with people like this, we are not actually getting any kind of genuine remorse, we're not getting any kind of genuine apology. Other things that they may say is, I'm sorry, that I may have done, I'm sorry, that I might have done. or other classic ones. I'm sorry for what you think I did. I'm sorry for whatever you think, I probably shouldn't have. Or maybe I should have done something different. All of these hedging languages are always of not taking any actual accountability. So on the surface, it may sound like they're saying something like an apology. But when you actually analyze what's being said, it's all avoidance. It's either blaming, it's avoidance. It's deferring accountability. It's not an actual apology. Sometimes these narcissistic folks will turn apologies into deals as in our apologize. Sure, I'll apologize if you do this. I'll sure I'll apologize. I'll do that if you apologize First, if you admit how wrong you were. And then typically what follows that is when you give some form of genuine apology or actually own something for your your side or you get manipulated and gaslighted into taking responsibility for things you never did wrong in the first place, then usually they reward you with a fake apology. narcissistic parents will often talk to their kids like you seem so upset. I'm sorry that you feel hurt. And these are all extensions of the fake apologies and are part of a narcissist essentially getting off on whatever pain they cause to the kids. So when you watch when they do things to the children when they are mistreating them, if they're neglecting them, if they are gaslighting them, if they're doing all number of things that they do in order to cause the children harm, they will then kind of swoop in, and they're going to be now the empathetic parent and oh, you seem so upset, you seem so hurt. I'm so sorry that you feel that. But of course, the whole time, they're just feeding off of it. That is classic classic narcissistic parenting, they cause the hurt and then they pretend to provide support for the hurt, but they never actually take accountability for causing it they cause it then swoop in, pretend to be the caretaker and healer, and then they really end up deferring blame onto the kid for feeling hurt. Oh, I'm sorry that you feel that I'm sorry that you have chosen to feel that way or that you are having big feelings. And all the time they're just over there. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, eating up all of this attention and eating up all of this emotional drama. We can help our kids we can help ourselves deal with these narcissistic parents, we can help ourselves deal with a narcissistic ex. By getting into the clear definitions of what apologies are and what they aren't. We can teach our kids to clearly see the differences between real and fake apologies. It's a great lesson for everyone to learn. by teaching our kids to be aware of what's real and what's fake what's a genuine apology and what is a misleading or blaming apology. It helps them increase their critical awareness and down the road it will help them see the narcissists games. And once people are able to see the games, even kids once they can see the games being played, then they can learn how to disengage, they can learn how to depersonalize and that increases their chances of moving on to a healthy freedom, a healthy life ahead of them that is going to be free from the influences of the narcissist.