Should I confront a friend who never apologises?

A student once asked me how to treat a friend. I said: advise them loyally and guide them well. If that does not work, stop. Do not bring humiliation on yourself.nnThere is more in that answer than it seems. First, you should speak. A friend who sees a fault in another and says nothing, year after year, is not being kind. They are being careless with the friendship, and they are letting resentment grow where honesty should be. Loyalty includes telling a friend what they need to hear.nnSecond, how you speak matters. Advise, do not accuse. Choose a calm moment, not the heat of a new offence. Speak about what happens between you, not about what kind of person they are. Make it plain that you raise it because you value them.nnThird, there is a limit. If you have spoken clearly and kindly and they will not hear it, do not keep pressing. One of my students observed that pestering your friends leads to estrangement. Repeated demands for an apology become a quarrel of their own, and you lose your dignity in it.nnAt that point you have done what friendship requires. You may decide that the friendship is still worth having on these terms, and accept them as they are, with their limits. Or you may quietly give it less of yourself. Either way, you will have acted rightly, and that is the part that is in your hands.

I have always believed that no one does wrong willingly. People do what seems good to them at the time. When they do harm, it is because they have misjudged, not because they chose evil knowing it to be evil. I know this is an unpopular view. But it changes how you might approach your friend.nnYour friend does not apologise. Why not? You assume they know they hurt you and refuse to admit it. Perhaps. But perhaps they do not see it as you do. Perhaps they think they were in the right, or that you were too sensitive, or they genuinely do not know what they did. You cannot know until you ask.nnSo do not go to them with a verdict. Go with questions, as I did in the marketplace. When you said that, what did you mean? How did you think I would take it? Do you remember the time when? Do this calmly, with real curiosity, and you may discover that your friend has a different picture of events. You may also find that, in trying to answer, they begin to see what you see, which is worth more than any apology you could force from them.nnAnd be ready for the questions to turn on you. Perhaps you will learn something about your own part in it. That too is worth knowing. The unexamined friendship, like the unexamined life, is hardly worth having. Examine it together.

I wrote three books on anger, and if I had to reduce them to one piece of advice, it would be this: the greatest remedy for anger is delay. Anger wants to act immediately, while it burns. Almost everything it does in that state it later regrets.nnSo do not confront your friend while the latest hurt is fresh. Wait. Let a few days pass, then ask yourself whether the thing still matters as much as it did. Many offences shrink when we look at them coldly. We are touchy, we read insults into carelessness, we take personally what was not meant personally. And we forget how often we ourselves have given offence without noticing. We are all at fault, I said, and anyone who would condemn others should first look at their own conduct.nnI used to review each day before sleep: where did I lose my temper today, where was I unfair, where could I have been gentler? It is a good habit. Try it before you speak to your friend. You may find your own share of the trouble.nnBut if, after the delay and the review, the hurt is still real and still repeated, then speak. Do it calmly, as a matter of fact rather than passion, because only a calm mind can say hard things without making them worse. And be prepared for them not to apologise. If your peace depends on their words, you have handed them the key to it. Keep that key yourself.