Covert Narcissist Apology Quotes

When Joanne met her husband and continuing for the first few years of their marriage, she was so impressed by how easily and quickly he apologized. He was better than her at apologizing, better than anyone she knew, really. Looking back, she noticed a pattern of him listening to her express how something he did or said hurt her, then apologizing, then changing his behavior for a couple days, then repeating the same old behavior. After a while, with all the other responsibilities of life, she stopped trying; she learned to just accept things about him that weren’t ideal and enjoy the good parts. He wore her down and subtly taught her it wasn’t worth the effort to confront him and tell him her feelings.

Serial provokers are experts at seeking out flexible, easygoing people. They exploit this quality by constantly provoking their target with covert jabs, minimization, veiled humor, and patronizing. The target will attempt to avoid conflict by remaining pleasant, choosing to forgive and excuse this behavior in favor of maintaining harmony. But the serial provoker will continue to aggravate the target until they finally snap. Once this occurs, the provoker will sit back, feign surprise, and marvel at how passive-aggressive, angry, and volatile the target is. The target will immediately feel bad, apologize, and absorb the blame. They are essentially shamed for rightfully losing their patience and behaving the way the serial provoker behaves every single day. The difference is, the target feels remorse—the serial provoker does not. The target is expected to remain calm and peaceful no matter what, while the serial provoker feels entitled to do whatever they please.

Even though Brad’s words were nice, Dawn could feel his anger toward her underneath them. The conversation began with her telling him how she felt used and somehow ended up with her apologizing and comforting him. He deflected the focus, didn’t address her feelings, and instead turned the attention back on him as the “victim.” She would continue to share with him how she felt over the years, but nothing ever changed. CNs aren’t interested in looking at their own issues or changing any of their behaviors.

CNs don’t have empathy, but they know how to act like they do. The same goes for apologies. They can be very adept at saying they are sorry without actually meaning it. They appease you for the time being, but have no interest in changing to improve the relationship or treat you better.

The key to healing here is reversing the focus on ourselves without feeling like we have to apologize for doing something that is good for us. You choose yourself by setting boundaries and making your own codex of behavior, the things you’ll tolerate and the things you won’t. Healthy boundaries will additionally push away the people who are selfishly using you and taking from you without giving back, and draw in healthy people who respect those boundaries because they respect you and your energy.

Zero Empathy It has already been mentioned but it still can’t be stressed enough. Narcissists have zero empathy, meaning that they also feel no remorse for their evil deeds. They are egocentric, never apologize, don’t know how to apologize; are expert story- tellers, present themselves as having high morals, are untruthful and manipulative, have superficial charm and an imposed sense of (false/ fake) social grace or philosophy, and feign like, love or care to get what they want. They can make themselves appear as the hero with superior morality when in reality they are evil, heartless and cold inside. An extreme narcissist truly has no shame or problem with ruining someone else’s life.

The last thing you can expect of a narcissist is an expression of guilt, remorse or apology (Saltzman, 2009)