What do Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton and John Edwards have in common?
They are public figures, talented, intelligent, charismatic, cheated on their marriage AND are unable to show remorse.
And it is their inability to show remorse that has caused us to be frustrated and to not be able to let go of our disappointment, hurt and sense of betrayal by them.
Regret is different than remorse. Regret is saying: “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, can we just move on?” It doesn’t necessarily require any payback or restitution.
Remorse involves:
- Looking into the eyes of the person you hurt, betrayed and/or devastated
- Having them show you the damage you wrought (which they are very hesitant to do, because showing the raw vulnerability to the one who hurt you is nearly impossible)
- Seeing that pain and having it cause you great pain (something referred to as agape)
- Feeling that pain leading to a deep awareness of your hurtfulness regardless of whether you intended it or not
- Continuing to look in their eyes and have them see you heartfeltly feel and say: “I hurt you. I did wrong. I will never do it to you again and if I do, you should come after me in any way you see fit”
- Since you can’t change the fact that you did it, asking them how you can make it up to them going forward and then doing that
The reasons that people like Woods, Clinton and Edwards don’t show remorse are because:
