One of the issues I've had to work out in my marriage, I've come to realize after almost 10 years, is the way I say "I'm sorry."

You see, maybe its just me, maybe its an American thing (naoto says its an american thing) but my apologies tend to be qualified with what I perceive to be the reason I messed up.

Apology for becoming upset for no reason:

"I'm sorry, I'm just so tired and gir1 was really bugging me today"

or

Apology for forgetting something Naoto told me to do:

"I'm sorry, it's so hard for me to remember that."

Which I saw as "explanation" and Naoto sees as "pathetic, unecessary excuse."

What do you think? Do you do that? Do you hear that as excuse or explanation?

This has something to do with the taking of blame and the way of apologizing in both the United States and Japan (where Japan has more of the "I'll take the blame no matter whose fault it is because it was my responsibility" and America has the "It wasn't my fault" tendency)

Anyway, over the years, I guess I've come to see Naoto's point. I try now to just apologize, without explanation or excuse. And when someone apologizes to me, it always rings as more sincere if there is no qualification.

This just crystallized in my head this morning because of a slight kerfluffle in one of the writer's groups I monitor where a member sent an email to the members' list which was basically an email marketing scheme trying to get the members to send emails to "everyone in their address book" about this person's book.

Regardless of the appropriateness or inappropriateness of this incident, what got me started on this was that after a few members' irate responses, the member in question sent an email with the subject: "Apology"

It was an 11 line email.

Out of these 11 lines, the apology part was one sentence.

The rest was composed of a) excuses and b) complaints that the people who replied irately messed up the writer's tracking system for people interested in the email scheme.

Yikes. Now I see what Naoto means. That kind of apology REALLY doesn't work.

Even though I have to literally bite my tongue when I apologize to Naoto now to avoid the streaming excuses, I promise I will!