Offended by you: how to react?

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Being offended is pretty stupid, but even decent people often do it. If you are offended, your reaction can be very diverse. Much depends on the validity of the offense in your direction, the personality of the one who is offended and the history of your relationship.

In an educated person, the reaction to an insult in his direction consists of a mandatory and an arbitrary program. The compulsory program includes three points: to understand, to understand your contribution, to apologize, the free program is the choice of the final strategy. These strategies are also three: a soft exit from communication, operational psychotherapy and the cultivation of the habit of reasonable communication.

Now about all this — in more detail, and let’s start with the «obligatory program».

It happens that grievances flare up from scratch, without any serious reason. To respond adequately, you first need to understand what actually happened: who said what and what he did. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding? So, first you need to deal with resentment. Understanding, responsible people always ask themselves first of all: what is my personal contribution to what happened, what is my personal responsibility for the offense that has arisen? If the offense against you is somehow justified, you should immediately apologize and ask for forgiveness: informally, clearly and extensively.

If you are not to blame for what happened, but the other person is experiencing resentment, in any case, it makes sense to apologize. Apologizing is a formality, but well-mannered people usually do it. At least: «I’m sorry, I understand your feelings.» Forgive, don’t forgive — it’s not really your business — people are different, but you did your part.

However, there are no completely standard solutions here, since once you are indignant at someone else’s insult, it is the most effective way to stop someone else’s insult. Or, suppose you understand that the offense is clearly manipulative and the person is offended only to make you guilty and avoid their responsibility. No, it’s not worth shifting responsibility from a sick head to a healthy one, it’s not necessary to apologize here.

The required program has ended. What’s next? Further options. Sometimes the best solution is a gentle exit from the touchy person. Dealing with other people’s grievances is a rotten and ungrateful business, and if there is an opportunity to simply get out of a problematic communication, this is usually the most reasonable solution. No showdowns, no excuses and long conversations — here the longer the conversations, the more insults. Make a simple decision: don’t understand anything, apologize and hush up for clarity: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” then smile and change the subject. And even better — to get out of communication with such people at all.

From offended and touchy, in principle, you should stay away. Touchy girlfriends, touchy girl acquaintances — are you sure that you should maintain close contact with them? Usually there are more troubles and troubles than benefits and joys.

If you are a woman, and your man is offended by you, do the same, but with two caveats. First — it is very likely that the man was not offended, but angry with you. Attention: if you are not absolutely sure that this is his OFFENSIVE, and you admit that he is ANGRY with you, proceed from the second. To tell a man that he is offended when he is angry with you is to make him doubly angry. According to men, only women and children are offended, so you should be careful here.

The second caveat is that if a man is really offended by you, you should not deal with him. Men are not offended.

Next.

It’s really better not to deal with touchy people, but it’s not always possible to stop communicating with them so decisively. There are people dear, interesting, pleasant, needed and loved — there are a lot of people around you with whom you will communicate anyway, and it is useless to educate and re-educate them. In these cases, operative psychotherapy can help — a quick help to a person in relieving emotional stress and negative experiences.

Mother-in-law and mother-in-law to educate and teach life, most likely, is not worth it. The fact that small children will immediately understand you also usually cannot be counted on.

In these, we will call them difficult cases, the optimal psychotherapy is optimal in the household version: an appropriate soft joke, distract, let other options for emotional detachment, emotional switching, and involvement in which something interesting and attractive, just giving flowers or ice cream — all this helps a person get out of resentment, remove mental pain, free himself from anger, overcome frustration, and mitigate other negative experiences.

​​​​​​​The most win-win, but also the most “expensive” option is to give a variety of answers, all the time different, but directed towards the desired goal. The most “inexpensive” and reliable option is a typical three-point reaction: neutral, reaction, switching. That is, initially you react neutrally to resentments that once arise, in no way, as to this or that weather phenomenon — not because you don’t care, but in order not to create positive reinforcement for the habit of being offended next to you. After that, give the person the opportunity to react to their emotions, that is, to speak out, to snore, to cry a little and even to quarrel — if only it would make your soul feel better! And after that, as soon as it is possible, switch to something more positive.

You divert children to other entertainments, offer adult children relevant things or include them in your positive communication. If suddenly this is your beloved girl, then flowers, care and other signs of attention are always very helpful. What’s more, you’ll probably enjoy it!

And the most important and at the same time the most difficult thing is not just to remove the offense “here and now”, but to start slowly weaning off the habit of being offended. Education, especially re-education, is an exceptionally creative matter, but most often three points, three possibilities turn out to be useful here: set the format, discuss what is happening, accustom to reasonable communication. This is a separate large project, if you are interested, read “Cultivating Good Habits. How to wean from insults and accustom to reasonable communication?