To anyone who believes I owe them an apology, I want to say this clearly.

I am sorry for the moments when the way I communicated made you feel embarrassed, unwelcome, judged, dismissed, or unheard.

If my frustration became louder than the point I was trying to communicate, I am sorry for that.

If I repeated myself so many times that you experienced the repetition as an attack rather than my attempt to make certain I had been heard, I can acknowledge that too.

I can apologize for how I communicated without apologizing for why I spoke.

Because my boundaries still matter.

My home has boundaries.

My relationships have boundaries.

My family has boundaries.

My time, property, work, privacy, and personal space have boundaries.

When I communicate one of those boundaries, you don’t have to agree with it. You don’t have to understand every experience that caused me to establish it. But disagreement does not make the boundary disappear.

And this works both ways.

If I have crossed your boundary, tell me what the boundary was, when you communicated it to me, and what I did after you communicated it. I will listen.

If I owe you an apology for my actions, I want to own that.

But I won’t give a blanket apology that requires me to accept responsibility for things I didn’t do, intentions I didn’t have, or boundaries other people simply didn’t like.

There is also something I need from the people expecting an apology from me:

Please consider whether there is an apology you owe me.

Did I tell you something mattered to me?

Did I ask you to stop something?

Did I establish an expectation concerning my home or personal space?

Did you listen?

Did you ask why?

Or did you decide what I meant without asking me?

Reconciliation cannot mean one person apologizes while everybody else’s actions remain beyond examination.

So here is my apology:

I am sorry for the hurt I actually caused. I am willing to listen when someone tells me specifically what that hurt was. I am willing to correct my own behavior when correction is warranted.

And here is my boundary:

I will not apologize for respectfully saying no.
I will not apologize for protecting my home.
I will not apologize for asking to be heard.
And I will not call the violation of one of my boundaries a failure on my part simply because enforcing it made someone uncomfortable.

If we have hurt each other, then let’s talk to each other—not around each other.

I’ll listen to your boundary.

I’m asking you to listen to mine.

DOES THIS HELP®