The Apology I Never Got — And How I Stopped Waiting

There comes a point in life when you realise you’ve been holding onto something without even noticing it—waiting for someone to acknowledge the hurt they caused, to admit they were wrong, to give you the apology you believed would finally let you breathe again. I spent a long time waiting for mine. 

I replayed conversations in my head, imagined confrontations that never happened, and held onto this quiet hope that one day they would finally understand the weight of their actions. At the time, it felt right to wait, as if their apology was the missing piece that would make everything settle. But the longer I waited, the more I realised I was expecting something from someone who wasn’t capable of giving it little bit apology. Some people simply don’t apologise—not because you don’t deserve it, but because they lack the emotional maturity to confront their own behaviour. Some don’t recognise the damage they caused, some refuse to take responsibility, and some know exactly what they did but still choose silence because it’s easier than accountability. And that’s when it truly hit me: “Closure doesn’t come from someone else’s mouth; it comes from your own decision to move on.”

Letting go of that expectation was not a single moment—it was a slow process, a quiet series of choices I made every day without even realising it. It happened when I stopped checking on them again and again just for apology. It happened when I stopped explaining their behaviour to myself. It happened when I stopped creating excuses for why they hadn’t apologised yet. I realised that waiting was only keeping me stuck in the same emotional space they left me in. The apology I thought would heal me was actually holding me back, keeping me tied to a version of the past that wasn’t going to change. Healing without an apology felt unfair at first, like I was letting them off the hook. But I eventually understood something important: letting go wasn’t about them, it was about me. It was about choosing peace over pride, growth over resentment, and my future over the parts of my past that no longer served me. I didn’t have to forgive them immediately. I didn’t have to forget what happened. I just had to stop tying my healing to their ability to acknowledge my pain.

What surprised me most was how freeing that choice became. The more I detached myself from the apology, the lighter I felt. My thoughts became clearer. My emotions stopped swirling. I started to understand my worth in a new way—not through someone else’s remorse, but through my own resilience. “You can outgrow the apology and still grow into peace.” I realised that healing is not a reward you get when someone else finally understands what they did; healing is a gift you give yourself when you decide you deserve better than waiting.

I began to see that life can be lived fully and beautifully without every explanation, without every closure, without every apology. Some people will never give you the words you wanted to hear. Some endings will never be neat. Some situations will never make complete sense. But if you spend your life waiting for someone to undo what they did, you hold yourself hostage to their silence. And I didn’t want to be stuck anymore. Healing on my own terms made me stronger, softer, and wiser. It taught me to accept what I cannot change and to move forward anyway. It taught me that I don’t need someone else to validate my pain for it to be real. I don’t need their guilt to justify my healing. I don’t need their apology to start living again. “Sometimes the real apology you need is the one you give yourself—for holding on too long.”

And so, I stopped waiting. I took a deep breath. I moved forward. Not because they made things right, but because I finally chose to make things right for myself. And that choice—the choice to let go of an apology that never came—is what truly set me free.