Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Apology Quicksand
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those with someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Speaker 2 (00:23): Hi everybody. Speaker 1 (00:25): We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California, where we focus on training, consulting, and educational programs, all to do with high conflict. In today's episode, we are going to talk about apology quicksand. So kind of an interesting little, uh, title there, bill. And I think, uh, it's going to be a really good one because it's a bit perplexing to people. Uh, first, a couple of notes. Please send your high conflict related questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or through our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast, where you'll also find all the show notes and thanks. Speaker 1 (01:10): All right, so Bill, we're going to talk about apologies today and after coming off of two weeks in Australia where, you know, part of, of the entire, uh, country's vernacular is apologies. I'm sorry, , right? They start a lot of sentences that way. Um, so I know we've talked about this in past episodes, but we're focusing entirely on, on apologies this time and whether it's a good idea to use them in high conflict situations with high conflict people. Um, why or why not when to use them, um, when to not use them. So let's set up a scenario Bill. You have someone who you've been dealing with, you know, for, you know, quite a long time and you've, you've learned to manage the, the interactions a bit. But when you get blamed for something, a lot of times we might have a, a, you know, kind of an instantaneous reaction, an automatic first thought of apologizing, even if the blame, if the, the content of the blame is inaccurate or completely false. Um, and you know, it is, but your first instinct might be to apologize. And we do that to probably calm the other person, right? Speaker 2 (02:25): Very common approach. And actually some, um, I think customer service reps are told just apologize. You know, they say, well, your equipment, you know, broke down the day after the warranty was up and it's all your fault and you should apologize for that and, and you should fix it. Well, they could have bought a policy, a maintenance policy. So if it broke the day after the first warranty wore out, then it would've been taken care of. So the temptation is to say it's your own fault, or to say, oh, I'm so sorry that that happened. What's interesting, and I I wanna make clear right from the start, apologies can be a wonderful thing with reasonable people. You can apologize to a reasonable person and say, I'm so sorry that happened to you. Or I'm sorry I was 10 minutes late, or I'm sorry that I said that thing that I said, or I'm sorry I didn't, uh, understand all of that. Speaker 2 (03:34): Often people go, well thanks, you know, and that settles it with high conflict people. There's a problem. And that is they have a lot of all or nothing thinking. And so when you apologize, what they hear is it's all your fault. And you agree cuz it's, it's either all your fault or all their fault and they're gonna be very defensive that it's not their all their fault and they really see things in this a hundred percent way and they say it's all your fault. In fact, that'd be a good name of a podcast. Yeah. , um, . So we're really just talking about with likely high conflict people. And the problem is if you apologize, if you say I'm sorry, they exaggerate it and then they use it against you in the future. So kind of the first place where we started saying avoid apologies is our Biff response emails because here you are putting in writing a response often to an angry person. Speaker 2 (04:41): And when you put in writing, you know, I'm sorry I did it that way, or I'm sorry that that approach didn't work. Well, they're gonna show the world. See it was all his fault and here's where he admits it. You see that in the news. Sometimes a public figure apologizes for something small and it's considered like they apologize for, you know, world War I or something. Yeah. And, and it gets, it gets exaggerated. So in written this response especially, but even verbal, it, it feeds a sense that you're one down to them. Now it's like, you know, apologies. If you think of it in the animal world, it's like bearing your neck to the other like wolves. So two wolves are getting ready to have a fight and then one becomes dominant and the other bears its neck, which means we're not gonna fight because they're making themselves vulnerable and they kind of bow down to the other one. Speaker 2 (05:47): So when you apologize, you kind of bow down to the other person symbolically a little bit and that's fine with ordinary people. It's like, I'm sorry, I'm just putting myself below you, you don't have to attack me. But with high conflict people, they're going to attack you now that you've made yourself vulnerable and they're gonna use it against you. One classic example I think of is a mediation I had where there also had been some history of domestic violence and there had stopped being that and they both agreed it would be safe to proceed. Um, because you always have to screen for domestic violence in divorce mediation cases nowadays. It's really advised. And so in this case, at one point the guy pulls out this kind of rumple piece of paper and says, remember when you admitted it's all your fault? And you wrote right here, I'm sorry, I don't, uh, cook better. I'm sorry I don't clean better. I'm sorry I don't this, I'm sorry I don't that see, remember you admitted it was all your fault. Well that's not what the person was admitting, but you knew they were trying to calm the other person down. And so that's why we recommend against it in like fifth emails, brief, informative, friendly and firm is, don't apologize, but you can explain, you can say this, this happened because of this and this is how I'm gonna make sure it doesn't happen in the future because the future is really what matters. Speaker 1 (07:26): Yeah. And they're so stuck in the past and and really want that apology, but I wonder do they hear, uh, do they hear, I'm sorry, differently than other people. I mean obviously by what you've just said they do and it's, it's just kind of striking me. It's almost like their brain processes the I'm sorry, differently. Speaker 2 (07:46): Yeah. Here's something that seems to be a fundamental characteristic of high conflict personalities and that is that they see all relationships as adversarial. And so they see either you're one down or you're one up. And so if you say I'm sorry, then that means you agree you're one down and now they're one up and they can treat you worse. Um, and I think it, it just gives them a, a relationship message that's not accurate and that's why it's better not to use words like, I'm sorry and apologize, but mostly in many ways talk about the future. Cuz as you mentioned, high conflict, people are stuck in the past. They're always trying to rewrite the past cuz they can't grieve and heal the past. So they're trying to rewrite history. So they didn't experience a loss by being able to blame other people. And so when people apologize, it's like they accept the blame that it's all their fault and it gives the message. It's tricky. Speaker 1 (08:57): It is, yeah. It is tricky, uh, because it, as I've trained some customer service and ombudsman in, in countries where it is very common to say, I'm sorry, it's, it is so absolutely ingrained in them to their very first words are, I'm sorry, you've experienced that and, and they've probably been trained that way, like you said, and it's extraordinarily hard to get them away from that. And so I wondered, you know, they've asked then can you use, I'm sorry you're feeling that way, um, as kind of as an ear statement. Is it okay then Speaker 2 (09:36): That's tricky because that feels like, like a fake apology. It's like you, you're trying to sound like you're apologizing, but you're not. It's the no apology apology. And I think it's better to steer clear of that and to focus on the future, but here's some alternatives. So one is you can say, I'm saddened to hear you're in that situation. And I often write that when, because I am, you know, oh, that's sad. I'm saddened to hear that you're in this situation. In other words, I'm not sorry I didn't put you in this situation. And that's a, that's what I would call a social apology. And Australia, Canada especially like, sorry, this, sorry, that is a social and it's common. But I think that word has some, some vulnerability to it and that's why you say I'm saddened. Another thing, and this has been studied in office communication is women tend to say, I'm sorry a lot more. Speaker 2 (10:43): And what I find when I'm teaching this like in law school and half the class is women, is they appreciate it. I mean, I don't have to say I'm sorry. Yeah. Say, you know, you're saddened to see the clients in that situation or if it's about you, you can say, here's what I think went wrong and here's what I'm gonna do so it won't happen again. That's much more useful. And I must say sometimes, like with kids, parents often say, now apologize to Johnny for what you did. You know, if they're ordinary kids, that's probably okay. But the thing that I learned as a teacher and say to parents is apologizing often uses up the energy to change and that you want the child to change. That's what's really important. Yeah, you can apologize, but what you wanna do is say, here's how I'm gonna deal with it in the future, Johnny, I realized that I got, uh, overly upset and in the future I'm gonna be more careful about the words I use. That to me is much better than an apology. Although for kids, it doesn't hurt if kids learn to apologize, but you don't want it to drain the energy to make a change. You want the change also. Speaker 1 (12:03): So let's talk about the source of the apology. Like you, you mentioned that it is more common for, for women to apologize is sort of our, I don't know what it is where, where that comes from, but I I've noticed that as well. Uh, I think the, the apology may come from just r routine. It's, it's what we know, it's ingrained in us. Uh, when someone's upset or someone's blaming, um, we can see they're upset and, and we're, we are saddened by that. But it's, it's just really natural to say, oh, I'm sorry about that, I'm sorry to hear that. Or the other then source I think is we're apologizing out of our own anxiety because we're feeling that, you know, we may be becoming more reactive in our own brain and body because of being blamed for something or we feel that hostility or we feel that kind of little, you know, getting under our skin a bit. And that creates our own anxiety, which then we don't know what to say. We're kind of stuck in trapped in our own reactivity. So we say, oh, I'm sorry because it's all we can think to say Speaker 2 (13:07): And it kinda diffuses the person's anger and usually does. But if it's a high conflict person, then they're gonna hold it against you in the future. Cuz I really wanna make clear we're not saying don't apologize to people in general. We're saying be really careful with high conflict people. Those are the ones where it gets you into quicksand and it just ends up being, being used against you. But let me, I wanna mention, um, in mediation, because this is really where we develop the concept of it as quicksand in mediation. It's not unusual if you have a high conflict person, let's say it's a supervisor in the workplace and the employee has done something, a high conflict employee, maybe they yelled at somebody in the office and it upset everybody. Everybody heard it and the supervisor said, you have to come talk to me and you need to do X, y, Z. Speaker 2 (14:06): So you don't do that again. So they come to mediation, the employee says, I want you to apologize for singling me out and treating me harshly about that conversation the other day because other people have yelled in the office and they never got treatment like that. So I can't proceed with this mediation until you apologize for treating me that way. There's a problem here. And that is the supervisor was appropriately setting limits. And so the supervisor's not gonna apologize for that. But the employee says, I can't go further until you apologize and the supervisor's not gonna apologize. So there's your apology quicksand, your mediation is just about to walk out of the room. Or let's suppose it's the other way around. Let's suppose the employee does something and the supervisors, you know, we need to meet or we need a mediation or whatever. So let's say it's a mediation situation. Speaker 2 (15:12): Well let's say it's two coworkers cuz a lot of supervisor stuff doesn't hit mediation. The supervisor should just take care of it. But let's say it's coworkers and they agree to a mediation and one is acted badly. And so the reasonable person says, I can't proceed until the person that was yelling in the office apologizes for that. Well, high conflict people don't apologize. I don't know if people have noticed that because , because it's not their fault. It's always all your fault. And so they don't apologize. And so they're gonna say, well, I'm not apologizing. Uh, it was appropriate that I did what I did. I had to get people's attention and yelling was the only thing that would work. And the coworkers like, well then I'm not proceeding because I'm not gonna go further until you apologize. So as a mediator you're kind of like, oh my goodness, what do I do now? Speaker 2 (16:15): So here's the solution that I found doing mediations. And that is as soon as somebody says, um, I demand an apology, or I'm not going further until I get an apology, as I say, oh, hang on folks, I don't do apologies. My mediations are focused on the future, not the past. And apologies are about the past. So if you're concerned about how something went down, then make a proposal for how you'd like it to go in the future. And that's something we can talk about. But I can't mediate the past, so I'm just not gonna go there. So let's focus on your proposal about the future by jumping in quickly. Right? Then it takes away all the steam from demanding an apology. And my experience is people are like, oh, okay. And they stop taking that rigid position that I won't proceed until I get of an apology. If you don't nip it in the bud, your mediation often comes to a halt there. Speaker 1 (17:21): And have you had any, any uh, mediations that stopped at that point that someone just would not, uh, proceed without an apology? Speaker 2 (17:30): Well, I'm thinking of one that I think got my attention to this issue. I think we somehow worked around it and made some progress, but it looked like it was gonna grind to a halt. So I don't, I don't think I've had them, I've been very close to it falling apart because of that. Yeah. Which is what got me thinking about this is this is quicksand. Um, we really wanna steer clear of it and have a way to just shift that to the side and focus on the future. Speaker 1 (18:06): Yeah. I ca cause I guess, you know, I, in, in the situation if that happened that someone said I will not proceed without an apology, uh, I I guess the response would be, well it's up to you. Right? It's up to you. Speaker 2 (18:20): See, I, that's why I would do my thing is I don't deal with apologies cuz I'm focused on the future cuz I wanna redirect their focus to the future. If I say it's up to you, they're gonna say, yeah, that's what I want. Speaker 1 (18:33): But as a last resort, like if they've, if you've done that and then they still say no, like you're really, it's, they're in that quicksand and there's just no getting out. I I mean they have to make a decision and that's up to them. Right? Speaker 2 (18:48): Yeah, no, i I I guess as a last resort, if they're insistent and the other person's also insistent, I'm not gonna apologize, then I might point out, you know, you have a choice here. We can move forward and focus on the future or we can stop at this point. Cuz it sounds like, sounds like an impasse. Uh, one of you want something the other's never gonna give and you're never gonna stop asking for it. Um, I I probably wouldn't use those words cause I don't wanna reinforce never, um mm-hmm. , but just saying, you know, do you want to take a break? Think about this for a few minutes and ultimately of course it's up to you. So that's, that's probably where I would end rather than where I would begin. Speaker 1 (19:35): So let's, let's switch focus to maybe a friendship group or, you know, within a family when someone's demanding an apology and uh, you know, maybe there's nothing super serious at stake, but it's just conflict within a group of, of, you know, teammates or friends or a family. Speaker 2 (19:57): Yeah. Some, sometimes people are at an impasse there, people walk out, people quit, people are in friendships because they don't get the apology they wanted. It's sad. But that, that happens. I would hope that this concept that our focus really is on the future and let's address this as a future issue and try to steer avoid it in the future. I mean, that's problem solving. Rigid demands for apologies really aren't problem solving. They're really about one upping each other I think and status. And if when someone's that demanding, they're not gonna go further in a relationship till they get an apology. To me, that's not really practical. And that's, that's kind of a high conflict thing to do. Speaker 1 (20:49): Oh, for sure. Speaker 2 (20:50): Most people apologize quickly. And I, by the way, I do apologize on a regular basis to reasonable people and it, it just takes care of something like that. Oh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. If it's this way, then that's fine and blah blah blah. And it's always small. It's that high conflict. People make apologies too big. And I, I have a saying of course is keep the conflict small and in general people do that. But high conflict people like to make the conflict large to the point where it's irresolvable and then they try to dominate the other person. Speaker 1 (21:29): It's kind of interesting to watch. Then the other members of the group sort of split like they're undecided which way to go. Do you know? Well yeah, they just, just say the apology just get o get it over with. Right. Or why can't you just apologize so we can all move on? So you kind of have to address then that those members of the group, otherwise, you know, people really do start taking sides and it can be quite divisive. Speaker 2 (21:54): Right. And that's very common around high conflict people that groups get split. In fact, it's called splitting and half the group fights the other half the group. So half the group says, go just apologize. Get it over with, you know, let the person demand what they want and give them what they want and let's be done. And the other half say, no way, you know, you should not apologize. You should stand your ground and, and don't give in to what the other side's saying. And it's very common that you get that split. Um, maybe we saw a whole podcast on splitting, uh, in groups and families someday, uh, and work groups because that's, that's where the concept really came from was, uh, psychiatric hospitals and staff getting split over. Guess what? They're high conflict patients. . Speaker 1 (22:53): Yeah. Maybe We'll, we'll do that one soon. on splitting. Sure. Hmm. Because that it, it happens in, in organizations frequently. Um, and, and different, different groups where there are high conflict individuals involved and I mean, you just don't see that when there's not high conflict involved. Speaker 2 (23:12): Right. Speaker 1 (23:13): You really don't. Speaker 2 (23:14): Right. Speaker 1 (23:15): It's such a tell. Speaker 2 (23:16): Yeah. Well that's like a family. We see this all the time as a fam when a family's reasonable, the kids grow up solving problems with each other. When you've got a high conflict parent, then you often see the kids getting split and the kids being angry at each other and the parents taking sides, one child against the other and instead of just solving problems and moving on, it becomes, you know, someone's gonna dominate and someone's gonna lose. And so families have splitting too. And you see split families, like alcoholic families often have split cuz alcoholics have a lot of high conflict behavior. So, and then they get clean and sober and things settle down. The family gets along anyway. Speaker 1 (24:06): Yeah, we'll talk about that Speaker 2 (24:08): . Uh, yes. But apologies fit into all this because that's often a high conflict theme is you have to apologize for what you did to me when it was either appropriate behavior or my behavior was inappropriate and I'm not owning it. Speaker 1 (24:28): Yeah, yeah. So don't apologize for something you haven't done and be very, very cautious with it, with, with high conflict people. I mean, if, if you've done something wrong, yeah. If you've wronged someone, it's okay to apologize to a high conflict individual, but it's, well, Speaker 2 (24:45): Yeah, it's, it's, it's tricky because the goal really, you've gotta really assess the situation. Cause if you've done something wrong and the other person's demanding an apology, what are they gonna do with it? And are they gonna do something that's out of proportion? So in many cases I say, don't apologize, explain what went wrong and how you're gonna make sure it doesn't happen again. But let me add on the other side, if something has happened in a group or in a business and the public needs an apology, apologize to the public. The thing is, apologizing to a high conflict individual is where the problem is. But if you need to apologize for the, the public, you know, maybe our, our product had a problem and we're doing, um, uh, a recall, you know, we're gonna recall the catalytic convertibles in all the pickup trucks or something like that. And we're sorry that this has happened. If saying, I'm sorry to the public's a very healthy thing, but saying, I'm sorry to a high conflict person, you have to measure, are they going to take this out of, out of proportion and beat you up with it forever after. Speaker 1 (26:05): Yeah. Makes sense. All right. Well good. We hope this has been helpful to you, our listeners. And uh, next week we're going to talk about whether it's okay to walk from a high conflict relationship. You know, kind of if it is, then how do we do it and when do we do it? Send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. If you tell your friends and colleagues about us, we'd be very grateful. Until next time, keep learning and practicing these skills. Be kind to yourself and others while we all try to find the missing piece. It's all your fault. It's a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music, by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. 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