If you’ve ever been betrayed, embarrassed or hurt by a narcissist, then you know that even an act of Congress won’t get them to apologize. Check out these reasons to discover why narcissists refuse to apologize.
They Avoid Feeling Negative Sentiments
- Their egos would take a major nosedive. Apologizing would activate the dreaded 4 Terrors for them which are shame, inadequacy, powerlessness, and guilt (aka SIP-G). Narcissists try to avoid these feelings at all costs.
- Narcissists love to project SIP-G onto others. Apologizing to you would remove an opportunity to project their feelings onto you. Better you feel any negative feelings than them.
- They love a chance to blame you, minimize their behavior, and deny, deny, deny their involvement, intentions, and/or impact. Apologizing would take all of the fun out of that.
- Narcissists always maintain a victim mentality. In their minds, everything happens TO them never because of them. Apologizing would mean that someone else would be the victim, and they would be the perpetrator or the bad guy. This would activate the 4 Terrors, which would be no bueno.
Doing The Right Thing Is The Wrong Thing To Do
- Narcissists would have to be responsible for their behavior. They would also have to be held accountable, show penitence, and pay restitution for their actions.
- Because of their God complex and often maintained delusions of grandeur, narcs do not believe that they are accountable to anyone least of all those they deem as weak, worthless, or easy prey.
- Penitence is a four-letter word in the mind of a narcissist. Narcissists are never sorry for anything. From their perspective, you caused the attack/assault they inflicted upon you. Why would they ever need to be sorry about that? You deserved it.
- Apologies often follow an expectation to change and/or amend their ways. However, narcs never change because they see nothing wrong with the fact they survive and cope by hurting others. How else can they protect themselves from being abandoned or hurt?
- Restitution is an admission of guilt. Providing it would make a narcissist not only feel powerless, but also it would serve as a balm to lessen your pain and assuage any pain or hurt you feel. Yet, narcissists are not known for healing pain–only causing it. Restitution would reduce their ability to maintain their false sense of power and “positive” sense of self.
A Warped Sense of Reciprocity
- Narcissists only give what’s been given back to them. This is why they seem to have a never-ending artillery for all things negative. Since no one ever apologized to the narc for hurting and/or mistreating them, they feel absolutely no desire to do anything different for you. Why should they? They were never special, which means you aren’t either.
- They love causing pain, and the more pain you feel, the more powerful they feel for having caused it.
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