How to Apologize to Your Girlfriend for Ditching Your Plans With Her

By: Karen L. Blair

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Ditching plans that you have made with your girlfriend is a nearly guaranteed way to get yourself into some hot water. To mitigate the potential damage of your actions, you will want to provide an effective and sincere apology. While apologizing cannot undo your actions, it will demonstrate your care and affection for your girlfriend, while also showing your remorse. Apologizing is often not an easy task, but when done properly, it can go a long way to mend a wrong.

The Elements of An Effective and Sincere Apology

Step 1

Make a clear statement of remorse by telling your girlfriend that you are sorry for having ditched pre-arranged plans to spend time with her. It is important that you clearly and explicitly state what it is that you are sorry for and that you are, indeed, sorry. Avoid getting off topic by providing reasons or explanations, as these may be viewed as excuses and will undermine the sincerity of your apology. Do your best to honestly acknowledge your mistake and to express sincere remorse.

Step 2

Ask your girlfriend to forgive you. It is important that you do not rush this stage of an apology. Although you ultimately do want your girlfriend's forgiveness, asking too early can make your request for forgiveness appear flippant or rushed and can make your girlfriend think you just want the problem to be over and dealt with or that you do not fully appreciate how you have hurt or upset her.

Step 3

Empathize with your girlfriend's feelings. Ditching plans with someone can make her feel uncared for, neglected, ignored or abandoned. Offering an effective and sincere apology will be greatly aided by your ability to understand how your actions have made your girlfriend feel. By empathizing with your girlfriend, you will be able to tailor your apology specifically to how she is feeling as a result of your actions. It is important when you are apologizing to express not only what you have done wrong, but also your understanding of why what you did was wrong and how it contributed to hurting your girlfriend's feelings.

Step 4

Offer to make amends for your actions. If it is possible to reschedule the same activity, make a sincere attempt to express your interest in doing so. If the plans that you ditched cannot be rescheduled, acknowledge how this contributes to your girlfriend's feelings and ask if there are any alternative plans that she would like to make with you instead. Be sure that you do not ditch these plans as well. Asking someone to forgive you for ditching plans once, or at least very infrequently, is more likely to meet with success than repeatedly having to ask for forgiveness due to constantly ditching plans with your girlfriend.