To ask; why do some people demand an apology?

[halfmice]

I can’t get my head around it - much as though I try.

My sibling is insisting I apologise for things, that I don’t recall doing or honestly seem trivial to me. I have really tried to see things from their point of view but I am drawing a blank. My DH thinks they know exactly what they are doing but I would prefer to think it’s subconscious - I don’t know why anyone would behave like this on purpose.

When I point out that I don’t understand, they claim I am gaslighting them and invalidating their experience. Then I question myself even though I did not mean to manipulate them at all I worry that I have. They also periodically do it to our parents and their in laws and if they don’t apologise they will say until they do they won’t see DGC. Their in laws have very little to do with them as a consequence, which my sibling believes strongly is their fault and tells everyone in our family (when they’re in the good books) that their in laws are just the difficult sort and unreasonable.

I leave interactions feeling really confused by them and running it over and over in my head, I don’t know what could cause someone to always need others to apologise to them? Is it something I can help with?

Perfect. Tell her she isn’t getting an apology and if her choice is not to talk to you that’s fine.

How odd, it sounds so similar - maybe this is just some people’s personalities and the way they see the world?

I had a friend like this. She had a difficult relationship with all of her family members (and she had a big family). She had no problem making friends but was always falling out with them, which I didn't understand until I invited her to live with me when she was in a tight spot. Big mistake. She demanded apologies for every little thing, every tiny mistake I made, she took issue with everything. But she'd never admit responsibility for anything that happened to her in her own life. It was always someone else's fault (her sister said the same thing to her once). When I did apologise, it wasn't enough for her because she expected a big long explanation of how I was going to redeem myself. Yet I noticed that every time she made a mistake, she'd never apologise to me. When I brought this up to her she'd claim I was gaslighting her. It was exhausting. We are no longer friends

This sounds identical! Did she ever change and see the impact of her behaviour when you decided not to be friends?

Your sister sounds very nasty and manipulative. You say she's not speaking to you at the moment. I'd be inclined to leave it like that.

I am inclined to agree but I would just hate for it to be underlying mental health and to turn my back on her if she was in this situation

What your sister is really saying is that certain things make her feel invisible/unimportant, and unloved. Being forgotten (the appointment) or being unimportant (the aunt brenda example). All this talk about boundaries and apologies are just a really stupid way of her trying to be recognized, remembered, and prioritized by you or other family members. But her sense of herself is so threatened and weak that you can never really come to the bottom of the problem. Its a moving target, to mix my metaphors.

Take a look at the book “stop walking on eggshells” as it has very good tips for managing this kind of fragile personality type. Its not a question of apologies or refusing apologies, its about working to set boundaries yourself for how you will be treated. She wants you to accept responsibility for her unmanageable emotional experience. But you can’t—the more you do for her the less she foes for herself.

in the short term Id just say things sympathetically but calmly like “it must feel bad when things don’t go as expected” or “Im sorry you were not able to arrange to avoid Aunt Brenda. Next time you should call and get the guest list.”

A personality disorder , or a personality type, isn’t the same as a “MH” condition.

Totally as an aside because that’s not in reply to me, but I thought personality disorder were a mental health diagnosis? No?

I'd be happy she wasn't talking to me.

She sounds like a manipulative, unpleasant waste of space.

Sounds a good book @pikkumyy77
I wonder if there was a book for the type of personality that triggers the personality that needs to be seen.

I can see now that my mother triggers me with her total inability to give value to my perspective of her because her perception of me is the real one. The End. Any push-back against the prevailing narrative is some form of mad/bad/sad

So I would love a book that would help me break through the psychological rigidity that leads people to believe that their interpretation of events is the real one and any challenge to that is instability or extreme sensitivity!

The forgetting the appointment thing, you did apologise for and tried to make good by arranging to free yourself up - I don't know WTF she was on about that you arranging to be free was disrespectful of her, trying to make sure you could honour the commitment that you had forgotten (and already apologised for forgetting) is the opposite of disrespect, surely!

The auntie Brenda thing is bonkers. You are not responsible for who goes to a family gathering that your aren't hosting, and you are not responsible for managing your adult sister's interactions, it is utterly bizarre to expect that from you.

It is also not a boundary to expect you to have found out if Brenda was going to be there and then to have told her. I am struggling to describe it but expecting you to go out of your way to manage a family meet up that you're not responsible for to avoid two people who you aren't responsible for being in the same room, isn't a boundary. Her not wanting Brenda in her house - that's a boundary. Her not wanting to attend a gathering which Brenda is invited to, is a boundary. But if she has grief with poor Brenda, she is the person who is responsible for finding out if Brenda is going to be at a family event before she accepts the invitation. If it is widely known that she won't be in the same room as Brenda she might manage to have grief with the person who invited them both, but it is entirely unreasonable to have grief with you about Brenda being at a party you were both invited to!

People who demand apologies are generally trying to assert their status, and IMO are usually quite insecure people who don't feel that they have status or respect and are trying to claw it any way they can. I'm lucky that the people who I have come across who are like that, I've been able to cut out of my life, and I do appreciate that it's much more difficult when it is your sister.

For what it's worth of the two people I can think of who would behave like your sister, one suspected herself that she was bipolar, and the other I suspected had borderline personality disorder. Neither had a diagnosis or acknowledged that their behaviour was unreasonable nor sought any kind of diagnosis or help. And when all is said and done, I don't feel that a personality disorder, wonky MH nor being ND (I haven't read all the replies but somebody must have raised that by now 😉) is a valid reason to accept being treated like shit.

With both of those friendships, they ended when the other person (yet again) took offence at a perceived slight of mine and I had burnt out of apologising and grovelling to them.

And I trigger her just by trying to be heard.
It's a tale of two narratives.

Of course a personality disorder is a psychiatric illness!

I mean this would annoy me. Didn’t you put it straight in your diary? Check it was still happening? To say yes but then leave it makes it sound like you don’t care.

If you do something wrong then yes you should apologise.

@pikkumyy77 re-reading your post I suggest to @halfmice that she start off by saying to her sister that she isn't trying to sweep this under the rug and that if your sister believed forgetting the appointment meant that she didn't matter, then halfmice could completely understand why her sister was so upset.
Acknowledge If you understood my forgetfulness meant that you aren't worth remembering then I completely understand why you are upset because I would also be upset if I thought I wasn't important to you.

Address it!!
Don't sweep her hurt reaction under the rug.

I don't understand the thing with the aunt really but perhaps she feels she doesn't get to have a boundary, or more likely, that she is powerless to protect herself.

So go in like that, tell her that if you yourself had felt ambushed by the presence of somebody you were trying to avoid, you too would have felt ambushed and powerless.

All these posters telling you she might be a bi polar /narc / brat .. maybe but try this first.

My mother could have shown me a tiny bit of understanding but instead she went straight to the you're crazy chestnut. It was my mental health that was the problem. Just that. In total isolation. Her rigid faith that her perspective was the only one was not the problem as obviously its easier to see somebody else's flaws.

Life is too short for this shit.
I would be telling them to fuck off and never again darken my doorstep

She did apologise. And assured her sister that she was seeking the time off work to make herself available so that it could still happen. And was met with an attitude that to do that was disrespectful.

People forget things even if they are in the diary, especially if they haven't been mentioned in 6 months! it's only human. I forgot a client meeting that was in my calendar last week, which was much more mortifying (and that I apologised for and made amends to rearrange it at their convenience. Client was understandably miffed but OK with rearranging and happy start the appt. I'm still cringing.

Totally agree people are human! Two people can both have valid but different perceptions of an event, a person can feel hurt by perfectly reasonable actions that don’t require an apology or reversal, healthy relationships are able to move on past these types of disappointment, errors or unpopular choices. Hear each other out, with a view to moving forward not both trying to get the other to agree with your view or to say a magic set of words you’ve decided are the only benchmark for moving on. Life is too short for this. A friend of mine’s mum died really early recently and I’m so thankful they had patched up a recent falling out over a remarriage.

Im one of very few on this planet that an apology just dont work for me.
I will apologize if im wrong but when its me being apologize to i dont really take it as i know most just say it because its easy and they never mean it.
some things cant be fixed with a sorry.

@Relaxd I do 100% agree with you but it sounds very much as if the OP's sister isn't interested in hearing each other out with a view to moving on. It sounds like she is pathologically obsessed with being firmly acknowledge as a (THE) victim in all circumstances.

I feel like this about forced apologies. If you have to ask for or force an apology from somebody, they aren't offering it out of their own free will - in which case I see zero point in demanding one.

Either somebody genuinely is sorry and offers an apology of their own accord, or they aren't sorry. 🤷‍♀️

You are spot on! You must have met her. Haha

I have a colleague like this - as @TheMotherSide said it is exhausting - over time they are also using up any reserves of goodwill and I've noticed people are having less and less to do with them on a social level and it has really damaged relationships within our work team.

Their reason for confronting people and demanding apologies is always "I need this for my closure/mental health" - they are completely oblivious to the fact their actions impinge on other peoples' mental health and cause great upset and anxiety.

Sounds to me that irrespective of whether or not you apologise, you'll still be in the wrong and she'll continue to bear a grudge.

I'd be inclined to let her go from your normal family life and just limit yourselves to get togethers that can't be avoided.

Life really is too short for this angst.