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Well I said: You can be sorry things didn't turn out right.
When the answer to the questions "What could I have done better in the situation?" or "What did I do wrong in the situation?" is "Nothing."
The scenario that comes to mind is when your parent pays for your college, and you go. You get some awful illness, like mono or similar, and you failed your college semester. You did everything right: got a doctor’s note, medical withdrawal from the semester, etc. Do you need to apologize to your parent?
I think this gets to the point.The scenario that comes to mind is when your parent pays for your college, and you go. You get some awful illness, like mono or similar, and you failed your college semester. You did everything right: got a doctor’s note, medical withdrawal from the semester, etc. Do you need to apologize to your parent?
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What is strange about this scenario is that it doesn’t rule out bad actions by the person you would be apologizing to. That’s the rub for me. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World, but I don’t care what Skillet says, we’re not.
Let’s change up the scenario above. Let’s say my parent has emotionally abused me all my life and given me a case of CPTSD. They pay for my college, and I go. I fail out of college due to CPTSD symptoms. I did everything right: sought psychological help, got a medical withdrawal from the semester, established and used Christian my support network, used tools such as journaling and body exercises and tea to manage the symptoms, and I still failed. Do I need to apologize to my parent?
Answer: No. My parent might be out $13K for that botched semester, but it was their own fault. They deserve what they got.
Let’s take ozso’s scenario. What if the passenger who T-boned your car wasn’t a random bad driver, but the passengers’ crazy mad nephew who is infuriated because your passenger stole 13K from them? Do you really owe your passenger an apology?
Answer: No. Frankly your passenger owes you a new car!
With this in mind, I’m just going with no here. We’re human beings, with finite resources, and we are not responsible for what God does or other people’s sin.
It might very well hurt someone if it makes the wrong person appear to be responsible for the harm done.
A friend has cancer and doesn’t feel good. I go see him and say “I’m sorry you don’t feel good today”. Did I apologize for causing his pain or just to show empathy?
You didn't apologize at all. Not every "I'm sorry" is an apology.
You are taking this way more seriously than it should. In my original post empathy was my motivation but even if we take this further there are still times that apologizing defuses situations. If you’ve been married for any amount of time (41 years for me) you know the value of this.
You do realize, though, than an apology--that is to day, an admission of culpability--opens you up to a legal judgment against you, even if you did everything right.
