I know how much you want them to say it.
I’m sorry. I was wrong. I see how much I hurt you.
You’ve imagined the moment. The relief of finally being seen. The way the knot in your stomach might loosen when your child admits what happened last summer, or last year, or every holiday since the family came apart.
And I know how exhausting it is to wait. To walk into every visit hoping this is the one. To leave again with the words unsaid, carrying the hurt home in your body.
Your longing is not petty. It is the ache of a parent who was wounded by someone she loves more than her own life.
And there is a tender truth I want to offer you: the apology you’re waiting for may be waiting for you.
The Stalemate
Here is what I see in so many families.
The parent is hurt and waiting for the child to acknowledge it. The child is hurt and waiting for the parent to acknowledge it. Each one is sure the other should go first.
So both hold their breath. Visits become careful. Conversations stay on the surface. Underneath, two people who love each other stand on opposite sides of the same wound, each guarding their own pain.
Nobody moves, because moving first feels like losing.
Why the Parent Goes First
This isn’t about who was more wrong. It’s about who has more capacity.
You have more years of life. More perspective. Hopefully more support and more healing behind you. And whatever your child did to hurt you, it grew out of something that happened in the family you both lived in.
When a parent goes first, it tells the child something they may never have heard: your feelings are safe with me, even your anger.
Very often, that is the thing that finally makes their own apology possible. Not because you asked for it, but because their nervous system no longer has to defend.
Going first is not weakness. It is leadership rooted in love.
What “Going First” Looks Like
Going first means you open the conversation by making space for their experience before sharing yours.
“I’ve been thinking about what happened between us. I’d love to hear how it was for you.”
Then you listen. Really listen. Without correcting their memory, without explaining yourself, without waiting for your turn.
When they share, you reflect: “That sounds really painful. I didn’t know it felt like that for you.”
You might name your part: “I can see I wasn’t able to make room for what you were going through.”
And you might tell them your heart: “I love you. I want us to be close.”
You do not end with “Now what about what you did to me?”
But What About My Hurt?
Your hurt matters. Going first does not mean pretending you weren’t wounded.
It means you stop asking your child to be the one who heals it.
In my work with parents, this is often the quiet turning point. A mother realizes that under her need for an apology is years of grief and anger, from a marriage, from betrayal, from her own childhood. Her child’s apology could never have been big enough to hold all of that.
So the healing of your hurt belongs in its own space: therapy, prayer, honest friendships, somatic work that lets the anger and grief move through your body instead of staying lodged in your chest and gut.
When your own heart is being tended, you can go first with your child from fullness, not from a hole.
If the Apology Never Comes
It might not. Or it might come years later, in a different form than you imagined: a phone call out of nowhere, a softer tone, a grandchild placed in your arms.
Repair is rarely one conversation. It is a pattern of small moments where your child learns you are safe.
If you can release the requirement of the apology, something surprising happens. You get your peace back. Your relationship with your child stops being a court case and becomes a relationship again.
Try This
Write a letter to your child that you will never send. Put every hurt in it: every sentence you wish they would hear, every you did this to me.
Then read it aloud to someone safe, or to God/Love. Let yourself feel it fully. Cry if the tears come.
Now write a second letter, one you might actually say. Begin it with: “I’d love to understand what it was like for you…”
The first letter is for your healing. The second is for your relationship. Both are sacred.
A Gentle Invitation
If you’re carrying hurt from your own child and want support finding a way back, I offer a free 15-minute consultation: no pressure, only a conversation.
Book a free 15-minute consultation.
You don’t have to wait alone.
Go Deeper at Your Own Pace
If this spoke to you and you’d like to keep going on your own time, my self-paced course Heal Your Body: CPTSD & Codependency After Narcissistic Abuse walks you step by step through healing the trauma bonds, people-pleasing and self-abandonment that relational trauma leaves in the body and heart.
If you are in crisis, please call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, US/Canada) or call 911.
