It's hard to say sorry for the trouble that you caused to another person. But at the end of the day, it's better to be the bigger person, even if you aren't certain that it was just you who was in the wrong.
Responsible For Her Aunt’s Death?
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“My aunt killed herself in 2015.
Many months prior to her death, I blocked her number on my mom’s phone because my Aunt was so toxic and horrible and was really impacting my Mom negatively. Mom’s not tech savvy and it wouldn’t have been unlike my aunt to go months without contact when her life was going okay, so mom had no clue anything was wrong.
In my efforts to keep the cat in the bag, I unblocked my aunt’s number on my Mom’s phone on our way to the scene in case she checked…I had no idea iPhones deliver previously blocked texts and voicemails after unblocking.
My Aunt had reached out to mom the day before she killed herself and many times in the months preceding. Clearly, mom knew something was up and that I was probably responsible, and I didn’t want to lie to her further so I came clean. That was definitely the most difficult admission of guilt and apology I’ve ever given.
That said, I do not regret what I did.
My Aunt was a terrible person with a lifetime of mental health issues that she absolutely refused to treat properly. She was also a hard drug user, often a thief, and the guilt-tripping-most person I’ve ever met. Her presence was poisonous.”
Realizing All That She Had Done To Her Dying Father…
“I was an emotional teenage girl that was rude and violent and had no respect for my parents how hard they worked to keep me fed and to put clothes on my back and live in a nice neighborhood. And to top it off, I had parents who put me above them with unlimited love and affection.
My dad had Parkinson’s and was close to dying. I was mean to him for years. I ignored him. I called him names, he still loved me.
I turned 20 years old when I realized all the trouble that I’ve done to them. I tried my best to make up for all the years I’ve been mean. All the time giving my dad the love he deserved. I went out of my way to do anything I could for him.
I apologized to my dad and my mom every single day. They said they loved me and forgave me. But I couldn’t forgive myself.
My dad passed away 8 months later due to Parkinson’s. He told me he loved me when he was dying. I said it back and that I’m sorry I’ve done all that to you. He told me: ‘Loving your child is more love than you’ll ever feel from anyone else.’
I can never forgive myself for what I’ve done.
I’m 21 now, almost 22. Right now I’m trying to be the best person I can to every single person I meet. I can’t go through that sadness again.”
Stealing A Yu Gi Oh Card?
“I stole from a close friend. This happened back in elementary school, fourth grade, and it was a field day. During that time period, Yu Gi Oh was the popular card game and my good friend had a vast collection. On that day I had recently finished the field run and was resting in the shade of one of the great trees that grew on school grounds.
The tables were all piled with backpacks due to the morning rain. One of the backpacks was open and I knew who it belonged to from the gaudy stickers and pins. Out of curiosity, I peered into the backpack to see it was filled with Yu Gi Oh cards and there face up in the center of the pile was the Blue Eyes White Dragon. This card is an extremely valuable card sought after by many collectors.
My eyes widened and my heart started to race. I looked around to check if anyone was nearby. I hesitated for a bit because I knew the only person who had this card was my friend. After what felt like an eternity I quickly reached in and grabbed the card. I quickly tucked the card into a plastic bag I had in reserve for any snacks the teachers might hand out. I grabbed my backpack and ran to the nurse’s office feigning illness.
The nurse called my parents and I was picked up and taken home. I ran into my home and slowly withdrew the plastic bag that held the card. It was there, in mint condition, staring at me. In my excitement, I tucked it into the folder that held my other cards and tried going to sleep to no avail.
Years later I pulled out the folder of cards I had out of nostalgia and saw that card. The guilt and pain struck me hard like someone had kicked me in the stomach. I stared at it in disgust, anger, and frustration. I decided to ask him to grab some lunch with me and would apologize at his house.
The next day, after having eaten our fill I asked if he remembered that day his card went missing. He laughed it off and said it was juvenile for him to be upset about a card. I choked but I cleared my throat and reached into my pocket. I grabbed the card, placed it in his hand, knelt down and put my head to the floor. I apologized to him and apologized for any anger he felt during that time. I apologized for lying about whether I knew where his card went. I apologized for betraying the trust he had in me.
He was silent. His face was unreadable. I don’t know if he accepted my apology or not. I don’t know if I can even remotely be called a friend. I understand now that trust is hard to come by and that the trust of someone that calls someone else a friend is invaluable. To betray that trust is nigh unforgivable.”
Being The Selfish Exchange Student
“This was pretty recent.
So I’m an exchange student and am staying with a host family for one year. My intention for this exchange was to learn the language and nothing more. During the entire year, as long as I learned as much about the language as I could, I’d be content.
Now, nearing the end of my exchange I realized that I haven’t done anything with my host family that is worth remembering. Just last week, when this cooped up feeling reached its peak I felt like I had some things to talk about with my hosts.
I wanted to talk about it calmly, but as the first word came out, I burst into tears. Now I’m not one to show this side of me often. I was basically apologizing for being selfish this entire year and only thinking of myself and my own growth, not together with the host family that kindly took me in for an entire year. I felt like I was using my host family to my own advantage.
Now the hard part about this apology was that I needed to, for the first time, admit that I was the bad one. I’ve always thought that I was in the right in any arguments before. So the process of coming to realize that something was off with my exchange, to realize that I was the bad one, to actually apologizing for it destroyed my pride.”
Re-connecting With His Step-Father!
“My dad left my Mom before I was born. Mom met another guy when I was like 2, and they lived together for about 8 years, had my brother. They ultimately split. They shared care of me and my brother 50/50 until at about age 14 I just stopped visiting my step-dad. My brother would go off and see him, I’d just stay at my Mom’s house.
Honestly, I think at that age, I just hated that my friends all had stable families, and a real dad, and I had 2 step dads and didn’t even know my real dad’s name. I hated that I lived in 2 houses, couldn’t see my friends after school half the time because dad lived a few miles away. And, painfully, my Mom had a games console and step-dad didn’t.
Only realized at about 20 how my stepdad is the closest thing to a dad I had, and he freaking raised me for just about my entire childhood, and how much that meant. He was the one who told me he wasn’t my real dad when I was old enough to be told – mom didn’t want me to know. I never even went to his wedding 2 years ago out of shame.
Bumped into him a few weeks ago after 7 years of no contact. Managed to apologize for everything, and profusely for not going to his wedding. He just smiled and accepted the apology and we chatted for ages. Felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.”
His First Apology!
“It was the first real apology I ever had to make.
As a kid, I would hang out at my parents business all the time. I got to know all of the employees, and they all got to know me. One guy that I’d always hang around with for a few minutes whenever I saw him, Don, was in my dad’s office. I was just outside my dad’s office door and waved for him to come over. He saw me and then looked back up at my dad to wrap up their conversation. While he looked away, I closed the sliding glass door. I thought he would have heard me close it, but he did not. It was also glass so he didn’t see it immediately. He started to walk over to me and went straight into the glass and was stunned. I laughed so much, and so did everyone that saw it.
My mom later explained to me that while it was a fun and innocent prank, it was still hurtful and an apology was needed. Through a lot of tears, I told Don I was sorry and that I wouldn’t do it again.
There is still a piece of paper taped to that glass door so you can tell if it is closed.”
She Left Early On Christmas?
“When I was a child, my family was quite poor. We ate regularly from the food bank. My mother had a decent job but my dad is bipolar and lives on disability. He also wasn’t properly medicated so he relied on drugs and booze (spent all of our money on it).
One Christmas was especially tough, and I was in grade 8. I wanted an MP3 cause everyone else had one. My mom couldn’t afford it, and she ended up getting me like 5 boxes of craft things (make your own necklace, etc). I was SO hurt I left right after opening the gifts and went to my friend’s house. I never talked about this with my mother.
2 years ago I was at my parent’s house, and we were talking about the older days. I choked up when I thought about the memory and started to cry. I apologized to her for being angry about the gifts, because I know she tried so dang hard to make me happy. I know her and I know she loves making us happy. I can only imagine how much it killed her to not be able to give us the things we wanted. She cried and said it was okay, I was young and she understood I didn’t have a lot when I was growing up. She also felt bad that my dad had spent most of our money.
My dad has since been properly medicated, does not smoke or drink, and I now have a well-paying job that I am able to spoil my mom with since lord knows she wasn’t able to do it when she was raising us.”
A Father’s Letter To His Daughter
“A couple of years back I made a really big mistake just as my dad was going in for surgery on his spine. After he came out I came clean and apologized and I was a bit of a mess.
The most gut-wrenching thing for me was when I finished, I just asked him how we could possibly forgive me and still love me (My mistake wasn’t actually that bad but I felt seriously guilty and stupid). Instead of giving me an answer, he pulled out his phone and showed me a letter that he’d written. He didn’t tell my sister and I that the surgery had a 10% fatality risk so he had written a letter for each of us in the case that he passed away.
To this day that single letter is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to read, but it was exactly what I needed to forgive myself and trust that my dad would always love me no matter what mistakes I make.”
Caught Cheating On A Test?
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“In grade 4, I was seated beside my best friend for English class. The teacher gave us this test about commas where we were given a sentence and we had to put the comma in the right place. On one question, the sentence ran over two lines and the comma needed to be placed at the end of the first line.
Being as yet unversed in the subtleties of comma placement, my friend and I both put the comma at the start of the second line.
Well, later that day, Ms. Teacher took us both into the hall and accused me of cheating off my friend’s page. I told her I didn’t but she wasn’t buying it. After some prodding and a handful of unconvinced glances, I finally caved and said that I cheated. I can still picture the smug look on her face when she got me to give in.
The catch? At no point did I ever even think of glancing at my friend’s page. She made me apologize to my friend for cheating from his page, in front of the whole class.
19 years later, it still bugs me. So if you’re out there Ms. Park, I didn’t cheat off that test.”
Abusive Boyfriend Manipulated Her Into Fighting Her Best Friend
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“About two years ago I was in a SUPER abusive relationship with a guy who just absolutely ended up destroying my entire personality and life.
When I started dating him, my best friend made an honest effort to get to know him better because she wanted to support me. Unfortunately for her, he was a freaking lunatic who developed an obsession with her and was cheating on me anyway (with some other person I didn’t know), so I flipped out and, instead of dumping his jerk self, I screamed at her and kicked her out of my life.
A year ago, long after my breakup with this guy and when I was finally in a good place emotionally, I reached out to her and apologized. It was the hardest thing I had ever done because even after me and this guy split, my brain was still telling me lies about it all. Finally being real with myself and forgiving MYSELF, for reacting out of fear and anger when I was being manipulated, as well as apologizing to her, was the most important thing I ever did.
Flash forward a year and she and I are roommates and have a very happy friendship.”
His Public Apology Made Him Cry Of Embarassment?
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“Ah man, this has brought back a memory. In my 2nd year of school, the police came in to give the whole school a talk, probably about not talking to strangers etc. But they had these little gift sets with badges and things, and if we wanted one we had to stand up and get it. I was a really quiet shy kid, so standing up in front of the school was tough but I was so into the police so I really wanted one of those sets. At the end of the talk, the teacher collected them up and said we could get them back at the end of the day.
At the end of the day, the teacher says to us come get your sets so we all did. Then this horrid girl who used to bully me starts crying saying someone has taken her set (when she probably never bothered to get one). Teacher asks her who she thinks took it and she says me. Being shy and non-confrontational, I just give it up to her like that with no fight and the teacher makes me apologize to her in front of the class for taking it. I cried all the way home.”
Drama From The School Cooking Class
“So we had a cooking class in our school, and we were baking cookies. As you probably know, homemade cookies require flour. So I took the bag of flour out, and go to put it on the counter, but I dropped it. It exploded.
Now, that wasn’t the bad part. Having flour all over me and in my hair sucked, but I mopped up the most of it, the teacher was fine and gave us some more flour, we made the cookies, class ended and I went on my merry way to Spanish.
Now, this Spanish teacher was a little…unstable. He once locked two teachers in a closet for asking him to quiet down. So I walk into class, with some flour still on me, but not too bad, and start doing the work on the board. Then this jerk behind me screams ‘WHAT’S THAT WHITE POWDER PIPER HAS?’
This teacher is a crazy conspiracy nut.
You can probably see where this is going.
Long story short, I had to stand up in front of my entire Spanish class and apologize for ‘promoting dangerous activities’ and ‘threatening the class.’ For about twenty solid minutes. For weeks after that, I was known as the dangerous girl, and even teachers avoided me like the plague (pun absolutely intended). It was not fun.
That Spanish teacher has been removed, by the way, but due to an ‘unrelated incident’ after I graduated. He’d done numerous other faced up things (like insisting a 12-year-old boy was a demon on earth because he had minor scoliosis or calling the special ed teacher names after she got pregnant).
I can only wonder what got him fired…”
He Still Has To Formally Apologize…
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“One that I haven’t made yet.
It’s been something that’s haunted me for the last 3-4 years. I need to apologize to my two former room mates, M and L, for the way I just disappeared on them. They were a couple, engaged, and they were some of the nicest people that I’ve met. We had mutual interests and hobbies and jobs, and I thought of them as my good friends.
At the time, I was about to lose my job and was going through pretty bad depression. I think one day I just kinda packed my stuff and left. I think I might have left them hanging on a month or two of rent that I couldn’t afford to pay in a very expensive apartment.
I stopped talking to them completely afterward. I don’t remember if they really tried to communicate with me either, but with the way I left, I don’t blame them if they didn’t. What surprised me, however, was that they invited me to their wedding. I couldn’t face them. I didn’t reply to their RSVP. I later saw pictures of their wedding on Facebook, and they looked lovely.
I need to apologize for the way I left their life, for the way I saddled them with the rent, for not attending their wedding or even congratulating them on it, and for not speaking to them or ever giving them an explanation for what I did.
My life right now is still a mess, and I still don’t have the courage to face them, but I’m making some progress. Maybe at some point in the future, I’ll feel confident enough to make this apology for real. They don’t need to and I don’t expect for them to accept it, but this is something that I need to do if only for myself, to remove this guilt in my heart.”
Breaking Someone’s Heart…
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“Not-so-Brief backstory: In 7th grade, I started dating a guy in my science class. We grew to love each other. Fast forward a year and emotional/mental abuse from him begin. Summer of 2006 he took advantage of me, I was 13 at the time. Technically it was coercion because, in the end, I gave consent, but I did it out of fear of harm. So it was him taking advantage of me, but not your ‘conventional’ type, if you will.
At this point, I was caught in the mental abuse already and denied big time that it even happened. We would get ‘intimate’ a few more times after that.
We dated all the way up until Halloween of our Freshmen year of High School, which was in 2007. He and I went trick-or-treating and I found out that we’d been on a ‘break’, but in reality, he was just cheating on me with one of the girls we were ‘trick-or-treating’ with. What he and his friends actually wanted to do was go to the park and drink booze all night. Thankfully they didn’t acquire any so all we did was walk around neighborhoods that had no one giving out candy. He ‘officially’ dumped me outside our high school at like 9 pm in the evening while I was waiting for my mom to come pick me up, this was after we argued because I finally got fed up and demanded he walks me back to the school.
Well, the next school day a really nice guy in my math class noticed I was down and asked what was up. I simply tell him I broke up with my boyfriend and I didn’t even get any candy, this last part said jokingly at my own expense, which turns a lot of heads because people knew we’d been dating for 2 years at this point. Well, he visibly gets upset for me and pulls out 3 king-sized Hershey chocolate bars from his bag and then gives them to me.
We start dating like 2-3 weeks later, and I think you can see where this is going to go. I realize that I don’t actually have any romantic feelings for the guy; and I keep it to myself, all the time panicking because I didn’t know what to do. I made the wrong choice to keep my feelings to myself, I think stupidly I wanted to see if I could force myself to like him that way back.
It’s before Christmas break when he tells me that he loves me and that he’s liked me since the beginning of the 1st quarter, but hadn’t said anything because I was in a relationship already. I cry and end up telling him my feelings out of guilt.
I could see his heart break and I think my apologies only hurt him more. He didn’t speak to me for the rest of our High School years. A couple days before our graduation I approached him at lunch so I could congratulate him on an award he’d won, and he just turned on his heel and walked away.
I don’t blame him.”