how to apologise to a japanese woman

Hi everyone,

Today I read a forum post in another board where a japanese man is explaining the cultural difference with his french wife, regarding to making apologises.

He is saying that when they have a fight and when his woman apologises, he is not happy because it's totally different from the japanese way (according to him).

--French way (according to him and I confirm):
his wife is saying sorry, asks for his forgiveness. And for her it's ok. She is expecting that the forgiveness process is allready or over or will be soon after a little talk.
(For your information, I think that 2000 years of jude-christian culture implied this consciously on unconsciously in our society, because forgiveness is one of the central message of the bible).

-- Japanese way :
Pale face and no talk during a long time for the one who is asking to be forgiven.
The one who is asked needs to assess the sincerity of his wife's words and feelings, before to give his forgiveness. This is needed to make him/her understand the bad things he/she did.

After that, he said that it's common to say :

mô ii yo (it's ok now). wakatta yo (I believe in your sincerity).


And here is my question :

Considering that I'm allready aware of the harm I've done to the person to whom I want to ask to forgive me,

What is the right japanese way to ask a japanese woman to forgive me for my faults?

Do you think that it's usefull to say something like : "I understand that what I did was bad now" ?

Thanks if you can help me with that and use romaji if needed.

For all the readers : I leart that point on a topic today and I think it is really important, because in european culture, accepting apologises is easy. ask forgiveness from someone is only words, but that's already giving a sense of shame of oneself.

However, after reading the message from the
japanese man, I understood why my jgf is not happy when I'm apologising for something.

Thanks for reading, and by advance for your answers !

I would not take this Japanese man to be an authority on the subject. I am sure you will get better advice here. Rather than focusing on anticipating and doing the right thing though, it would be better to communicate more effectively with the woman in question.

It's depending on the situation. There is no one fits all formula.

I'm not sure what you or the guy from the other forum is talking about, but in Japan, you are basically taught to say "gomennasai" whenever you did something bad. But I've seen a lot of people, no matter the nationality, who doesn't seem to mean what (s)he says. I've also seen a lot of people, no matter the nationality, who can't forgive no matter how sorry the other party is. I've also seen a lot of people, no matter the nationality, who tries to blame it on cultural differences when it's only a common relationship thing. Hope it helps.

Ok !

I understand..
this man's point of view seems not to be the general trend, so, I will do as I always did.

Thank you for your vise advices.