Think aloud
It doesn’t matter whether he broke up with you, said something that hurt your heart, or maybe even cheated on you. When your partner does something hurtful, you can’t help but wonder. “Do guys feel bad when they hurt you?”
As a woman, you know how much trouble you’d have falling asleep if you knew that you inflicted pain on someone. You’d probably keep thinking about that person, wondering how much damage your words or actions caused.
But since there’s a stigma around men’s emotions, you want to know whether they ever feel remorse for their wrongdoings. Do they ever stare at this one blank spot for hours, thinking about how their bad moves caused immense damage to someone’s heart?
Seeing as you want to know whether guys feel bad when they hurt you, the chances are that you’ve been recently hurt by one. He probably broke your heart and you’re still recovering from the pain he caused you.
And on those nights when it feels impossible to fall asleep, you wonder whether he ever feels bad for his mistakes. Does he regret hurting you?
You’ll find out soon!
Do guys feel bad when they hurt you?
Honestly, men have feelings just like women do but they’re often better at hiding them. This is usually because they were taught that no one should see them hurt, so they blindly follow this rule.
However, every time a guy hurts your feelings, the chances are that he’ll feel bad about it, especially if the two of you are close and you mean a lot to him. In that case, the regret he’d feel would be even greater.
If he knows that he made a mistake, he’ll feel bad about it. He’ll be sorry for breaking the heart of a good woman who didn’t deserve to end up hurt.
The only time a guy won’t feel bad for hurting your feelings is if you don’t mean anything to him.
If you’re just one more girl in a row to him, he probably won’t regret his actions and he won’t have trouble falling asleep because he won’t even know that he’s done the wrong thing.
But we’ll ignore those guys since there’s a much greater number of ones who’ll genuinely feel sorry for their actions. That’s why I’ll try to give you a list of signs a guy will show if he feels bad for hurting you.
Since they express their regret in all sorts of different ways, you have to know how to decipher men’s behavior in order to realize what he’s going through.
Signs a guy feels bad for hurting you!
Now that you know that most guys do feel bad when they hurt you, you probably want to know how they manifest that regret. How can you spot that a guy is sorry for what he did to you?
Well, there’s no straightforward answer since all men act differently. They deal with regret in different ways.
One guy may decide to admit his mistake to you and he’ll keep apologizing until he finally finds peace within himself. Another may keep defending himself because he can’t admit that he did such a bad thing to the person he loves.
So, there’s no right answer to, “How do guys show that they feel bad when they hurt you?” but there are certainly some patterns of behavior that will reveal their remorse.
Here are some of the possible signs a guy may show if he knows that he didn’t treat you the right way. If he feels bad for hurting you, he’ll act something like this.
1. He asks you all the time whether you’re all right
If a guy feels bad when he hurts you, he can start to ask numerous questions about how you’re feeling. All of a sudden, it seems like your well-being becomes his priority.
If a guy knows that he messed up, he’ll truly feel sorry for the way he treated you. And in that case, he desperately wants to know how you’re dealing with the pain he inflicted on you.
He can’t just ignore the fact that he broke your heart and he wants to be sure that you’re at least okay after what he did.
It could be that you found about him chatting to another girl or that he said something that really hurt your feelings. Either way, he knows that he messed up and he wants to be sure that you’ve moved on from it.
He regrets his actions but he knows there’s not much he can do right now as nothing can erase the damage that’s been caused.
Always checking on you is his way of letting you know that he knows that he did the wrong thing. Now, he wants to know whether you’ve forgiven him or if you’re still angry at him.
Your forgiveness could at least ease the regret he’s feeling right now. If he notices that you’re still not doing well after his wrongdoings, he’ll do whatever it takes to make things better.
2. He apologizes to you
In some cases, a guy may straightforwardly say he knows he messed up. He may admit to his mistakes and make a sincere apology.
He knows what he did was wrong and that he should’ve never broken the heart of the woman he loves. But it happened and now he’s deeply sorry for his actions.
He’s well aware of his mistakes and he wants to apologize to you. Trust me, he knows that saying sorry doesn’t mean much after what he did to you but it’s the least he can do at the moment.
He can’t pretend like nothing ever happened as the ghosts of his actions are still haunting him at night. Because of this, an apology will at least ease the burden he’s carrying.
It won’t salvage the situation completely but it will make him feel better temporarily.
3. He shuts down
Do you know the feeling when you feel so guilty about something that you can’t look that person straight in the eyes? You can’t even talk to them because you know that your actions hurt them.
Well, if your guy goes quiet on you after he hurts you, it could be because he feels bad about his behavior.
He would apologize to you but he doesn’t know what to say. He knows that no words could repair the damage that’s been done.
So, he shuts down and doesn’t say a word to you. This can seem weird, especially if he’s usually really talkative and doesn’t stay quiet for long stretches of time.
You may even think that he doesn’t care that he hurt you. You may think he’s at peace with his actions but the reality is far different.
His conscience is eating him alive and he’s probably thinking about ways to mend all those broken pieces. He’s possibly trying to figure out what he could do to apologize to you, since a simple, “I’m sorry,” wouldn’t do the job.
He realized that he’s guilty of hurting you, so he decided to stay quiet until he finds a way to make up for his mistakes.
4. He promises you he’ll change
Maybe he cheated on you and the moment you realized that, your heart sank in your chest. Or maybe he’s an addict whose behavior has been hurting you for a while.
No matter the case, once he realizes that he’s made a mistake, he’ll instantly feel bad for hurting you. And at that time, he may make all these big promises that he’ll change for the better.
Once he realizes that his actions have caused you a lot of pain, he’ll decide that he needs to change something.
If he doesn’t do anything, the regret he feels will only grow stronger. And the idea that he hasn’t done anything to fix his wrongdoings will start to torment him.
He feels bad that he hurt you, so he wants to show you that he’s willing to work on his issues. He’ll make you a promise that he’ll change because he can’t stand to look you in the eyes after everything he made you go through.
A change of behavior is the least he can do for you now. Hopefully, it will show you how sorry he feels for doing this to you.
5. He gets defensive
Besides being open about his mistakes, the guilt he feels may manifest itself in the form of denial and defensiveness.
So, every time you try to talk to him, he may start defending himself, even though he knows that he’s the one who messed up. But since he feels bad for hurting your feelings, he’s trying to deny the fact that he’s the one to blame.
You may try to find a reason why he acted the way he did and the closer you get to the truth, the worse he’ll feel and the more he’ll try to run away from reality.
In this case, being defensive sounds like the only way to deal with his past mistakes. If he doesn’t admit that he did something wrong and finds the reason for his own behavior, he may succeed in shifting the blame.
But all in all, his mind is still aware of his wrongdoings. He knows he hurt you more than anyone else ever did and that’s something he won’t ever be able to deny.
6. He tries to make you laugh
A guy who feels bad when he hurts you may try to cover up his mistakes with humor. And your guy may be one of them.
Instead of having a meaningful conversation with you, he could try to ignore everything he did with one wish in mind – he wants to have things the way they used to be in the beginning.
He knows that he hurt you and he’s aware of all of the pain he made you feel but he’s not the kind of guy who can have a long conversation about what he’s done wrong.
He knows that it won’t be easy to have things back the way they used to be. However, in order to make everything feel like they did in the good old days, he’ll try to make the pain go away with all of the jokes he can think of.
He wants to see you smile because your laughter gives him the illusion that you’re happy. And since he knows that he messed up, he needs to see you happy once again.
So, if you notice him cracking jokes more than usual, you should know that it’s his way of saying sorry, as he feels guilty for hurting you. If he could replace all of the pain with laughter, he’d feel that you’ve forgiven him.
Besides all of the lame jokes, he may even try to put himself down, as he’ll feel much better if you laugh at him. Even though it’s a desperate move, it’s the only one he can think of using right now since he knows how badly he hurt you.
7. He says yes to the things he used to say no to
Perhaps weeks ago, you begged him to help you finish organizing the basement. Back then, he kept telling you that he was too busy to do it.
He kept ignoring your request but now the tables have turned. After hurting you, he realized that he made a mistake and now, he feels bad for the way he treated you and he wants to apologize without saying the words.
This morning, he got up early and told you that he’s going to organize the basement. Suddenly, the thing you’ve been begging him to do for a long time has become his weekend activity.
This may seem odd but it could be his way of apologizing to you. The feeling of guilt is overtaking him and he doesn’t know how else to deal with it.
To him, doing everything you ask him to do sounds like a great way to repair the damage he’s caused. Maybe you’ll forget about his bad behavior and he’ll finally feel better about himself.
If you’ve noticed that your guy has been acting strangely by saying yes to all of the things he used to say no to, then this could be the reason. He feels bad that he hurt you and now he wants to do something to ease his conscience.
This way, he may be able to redeem himself for his bad treatment of you. If anything, he knows that he’ll feel much better once he does something for you.
It will be like a Band-Aid on a cut – an effective and easy way to prevent further damage.
8. He praises you in front of others
You wanted to know whether guys feel bad when they hurt you. Well, the moment you see him talking highly about you in front of the others, you’ll get an answer to that question.
He’s never been the kind of a guy who praises you in front of other people but now, he looks like a different man.
You went out with your friends and throughout the whole night, he made positive comments about you. He told them that you’re such an amazing, capable person, and he commended your commitment.
It got to the point where you felt a little uncomfortable. It just felt like you were the main topic of conversation.
When you asked him later why he’d talked so much about you, he told you that you deserved it, since you’re a great person. It all feels odd, and in a way, it is, since he could’ve told you all those things to your face.
However, he didn’t do that because he wanted everyone else to see that he respects you as a person.
He was trying to prove a point. He’s sorry for hurting your feelings since he knows how great you are.
He deeply regrets it now but he didn’t know how to tell you that in person. Instead, he thought speaking highly of you would do the trick.
So that’s where all the praise was coming from. He’s been trying to clear his conscience and talking great things about you sounded like a good way to do that.
9. He says that you deserve better
Maybe your boyfriend left you after being together for years and you feel kind of lost. Your heart got broken in seconds and you still can’t comprehend what actually happened.
Tears were streaming down your face the moment he told you that he was leaving you. But in the next minute, you heard him saying that lame excuse we all know very well.
“You deserve so much better,” or, “You can always find a better guy who’ll treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”
Even though these sayings have become the norm when breaking up, there’s still a sign of remorse in them.
The moment a guy realizes he has hurt you, he feels bad for his actions. And that’s when he seeks something that will ease his conscience.
He says that you deserve better than him because he doesn’t want to admit that his actions hurt you. He can’t face the truth that he made you cry.
Then he makes it seem like he did all of this for the sake of your happiness. Well, that’s probably another lie in itself but we won’t talk about that right now.
This all helps him deal with regret in an easier way. The fact that he can pretend that he broke up with you because he wanted you to find someone better will help him fall asleep more easily.
10. He either finds ways to talk to you or avoids you completely
The truth is that guys can feel bad when they hurt you but they show their remorse in different ways.
Let’s say that you just broke up because you found out that he cheated on you. You’re heartbroken because he truly seemed like a dream come true.
He was the kind of a guy you thought you could spend the rest of your life with. But then, he hurt you badly and you couldn’t stay with him any longer.
There was no future for the two of you since he decided to betray your trust.
In that case, he can act one of two possible ways. Both of them show that he feels bad for hurting you.
He can bombard you with calls and texts, trying to find a way to talk to you. He probably needs to explain himself because he knows that he made a mistake.
If you don’t answer his calls, he may even try to reach out to you through your mutual friends. Or he may hang out with them once he finds out that you’ll be there.
It’s obvious that he regrets hurting you and maybe even wants you to know that he feels bad.
On the flip side, instead of trying to talk to you, he may decide to avoid you completely. He knows that he made a mistake and he can’t look you in the eyes.
He broke your heart, he’s well aware of that. And as a result, he can’t really find the words to explain himself.
At some point, you may even face the facts and accept that it wasn’t meant to be. You may want to try to reach out to him to see whether you can stay friends.
You had a great connection and you don’t want to lose that. But you’ll get no answer from him.
You won’t find him in his usual places and he certainly won’t go to places where he knows you’ll be. You’ll feel like you did something that hurt him but then you’ll remember that he’s probably dealing with guilt in his own way.
