You don’t have to be in the wrong to ask for forgiveness. You just have to want to restore the relationship.

Sometimes, we are in the wrong and we do need to ask for forgiveness. This takes humility. We need to ask for forgiveness without giving reasons why we did what we did. When we give reasons, we are saying we were really right – when in fact, we were wrong. We need to be ready for the person to react badly and have a plan. We need to be ready to hear how we hurt that person. Sometimes we need to add an action to our apology, like paying for damage.

Sometimes, we are not in the wrong and the other person is still hurt. In this case, we can apologize for hurting the person as that was not our intention. A sincere apology can mend many fences.