Emails, meetings, restaurants, crowds, partners and when it's more than a habit

The rule holds everywhere. A few places need their own paragraph.

Emails. The written softener is the one you can go back and delete before sending, and for a fortnight, do. Draft the email as it comes, then remove every sorry that isn't for a fault, and read it again. It'll read like a competent person's email. Then send it. After a fortnight you'll stop drafting them in.

Meetings. The thing, with your name on it, no preamble. If you want a run-up, "one thing on the north figures" is a run-up that isn't an apology. And when you've been talked over, which happens more to people who apologise for speaking, "I hadn't finished" is the sentence, pleasantly, and an earlier book in this series is about the other side of that.

Restaurants and shops. The waiter brought the wrong thing. "This isn't what I ordered" is a sentence with no fault in it on either side. The sorry for pointing it out teaches the waiter that you'll accept whatever comes, and some do learn that. Say what's wrong, kindly, and thank them when it's fixed.

Crowds and doorways. "Excuse me" for getting past, silence for being walked into, "after you" for the queue. The British sorry in a crowd is mostly a signal that you've noticed the other person, and "excuse me" is the same signal without the confession.

Partners. The reflex sorry at home is the one that's hardest to see and does the quietest damage, because a partner who hears sorry forty times a day from you learns the lessons in chapter 19 more thoroughly than anyone. The sort works at home too. So does the swap. And the real sorry at home, said once and fully, is the most valuable one you'll ever say, and it's worth saving the word for.

Children. Two things. Don't apologise to your child for asking them to do things. "Sorry, could you tidy your room" is a request with an exit, and they'll take it. And do apologise to them, fully, when you've done wrong, because a child who sees a real apology learns what one is, and a child who hears forty reflex ones a day learns what chapter 19 says.

When it's more than a habit. If the sorry comes from fear of the person you live with, if you apologise to keep the peace because the peace isn't safe, that isn't a threshold and this book isn't the answer. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is on 0808 2000 247. And if the sense of being in the way is the surface of a low mood that's been with you most days for a fortnight, or of a self-esteem so low that the NHS's description of it fits you, a GP is the door, and the NHS guidance on raising low self-esteem is worth reading alongside this book, because its method, noting the negative belief and writing the evidence against it, is close to the sort in chapter 20.