RULE 32

Be the first to say sorry

Grown-ups don’t have rows. Sure they argue, they disagree, they debate. They express their feelings and say when they’re hurt or angry or upset. But they don’t have the kind of rows that require an apology to get over them.

Oh, alright then, we do. But that doesn’t make it right. From time to time we forget to do the, ‘When you say … I feel …’ thing we all know we should, and we behave childishly instead. Don’t worry, we all do it. I expect they started it anyway.

The big question is, having fallen out with the person we love, which isn’t what we wanted to do of course, what are we going to do about it? And the answer – as you may have guessed from the title of this Rule – is to say sorry. And to say it even ...

Get The Rules of Love, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.