You might get an apology out of someone toxic, but it won’t be a genuine one. The only time they’ll apologize is to manipulate you into giving them what they want, to trick you into believing they deserve forgiveness.

Otherwise, they are never going to admit to wrongdoing. They are never going to say I’m sorry and leave it at that. There will always be more to the sentence. They will follow up with excuses about how you can’t really blame them because it’s their ex’s fault or their parents’ fault or your fault.

They’ll always try to pin the blame on someone else because they aren’t mature enough to take responsibility for their own actions. They feel like they couldn’t possibly be in the wrong. They feel like they were forced to fuck up because of their past or current circumstances, when really, they’re fully in charge of their own decisions. They get to choose what path they take, and if they choose wrong, they should own up to it.

Of course, they will never give you the apology you deserve. If they apologize for cheating on you, they’ll throw in details about how it never would’ve happened if the other person hadn’t thrown themselves at them or if you had been more interested in sex lately or if they hadn’t ordered that extra beer at the bar.

And if you have the courage to stand up to them, to call them out on their bullshit, they’re going to turn the situation around completely. They’ll list out all of the nice things they’ve done for you and call you ungrateful. They’ll mention how you aren’t perfect either and they’ve never held it against you. They’ll try to guilt trip you, even though they were the one who screwed up.

Toxic people are never going to admit they’re wrong. They’re never going to reflect on their choices and come to the realization that they need to change. It doesn’t matter what you do, or how much you love them, because you’re never going to win an argument with them. They’ll go to great lengths to prove they were innocent. They’ll create lies. They’ll spread rumors. They’ll twist the truth to fit their own narrative.

You can scream at them, you can curse them out, or you can calmly present facts to them — but it’s not going to make a difference. They have a talent for shapeshifting reality. They create their own truth. And they try to get as many different people to believe that ‘truth’ as possible, so in the end, you’re the one who seems crazy. You’re the one who seems wrong.

When you’re face-to-face with someone toxic, the best thing you can do for yourself is walk away because you’re never going to talk sense into them. You’re never going to get them to see the situation from your point of view. You’re never going to get them to admit they went too far. Toxic humans don’t think logically. They only think about themselves.