I’m so glad you mentioned that it feels demeaning. Because it helps me better understand my ex-boyfriend. I’m thinking the demeaning factor plays are larger roll in some people more than others. And perhaps is more common in men. And perhaps even more common in men who tend to be more masculine. (Which is the #1 thing that made him so fucking hot). He would never apologize, and like you, his reasoning was always because he didn’t feel he was in the wrong. But even after him explaining that reasoning (and me knowing he didn’t do anything wrong), I still could never understand why he couldn’t say sorry anyway. I’m finding it strange that I still wanted an apology and can’t pinpoint why. I think it might be because some people (possibly more so, women) define apologies differently. Maybe those people also tend to over-apologize in general, but it’s common in my circle of women in my life. And even so, both views are probably almost impossible to change and impossible to make the other understand their thinking.

Long story short, I personally think (especially after your explanation) that it’s common in men that saying sorry when you didn’t do anything wrong feels demeaning. Which I can very much appreciate. This helps me tremendously because otherwise I wondered if it was some kind of narcissist behavior. And now thinking …maybe not