Hiding Behind Excuses
One of the most annoying habits is when a person keeps giving excuses even when it is very clear that he or she is in the wrong. I remember the case of a friend of mine Rehema, a housewife, who called me one day, screaming that she was really fed up with her husband’s habits. “Joy, can you believe that we do not even have money for food?”, she lamented; much to my shock. It was no secret that her husband, Shila, owned a shop that sold spare parts in one of the busiest suburbs in the city. How could it be that his family was broke to the point of starving? My friend proceeded to narrate how Shila had developed a habit of passing by the pub to have ‘one for the road’. The problem though was that he would come back home drunk, more so, with an empty wallet. “This has been happening for the last one month” she revealed. “Hey…, why don’t you take him to task when he sobers down?”, I inquired; only to learn that the husband would very remorsefully beg for pardon each morning, claiming that either he had been delayed in the traffic jam, or that customers just did not turn up in his shop that day. “But I am not prepared to take that nonsense!” she had yelled. “Sorry? Sorry for what?” she shouted.
Did you know that excuses such as Shilla’s could irritate a well-meaning, potential forgiver? Such tendencies can easily make ‘forgiving’ an up-hill task for the person you offend.