When Making Amends Isn’t Enough: The Psychology and Ethics of Sabotage

There’s a particular kind of silence that follows a sincere apology. It’s not the hopeful silence of reconciliation or even the resigned stillness of finality. It’s the vacuum where you start to realize: they’re not going to forgive you—and worse, they’re going to make sure no one else does either.

This isn’t a story about innocence. I was wrong. I hurt someone I cared about. There’s no way around that truth. My actions—or inactions—caused real harm. This isn’t my attempt to minimize that. In fact, I’ve tried everything I can think of to take responsibility: I’ve apologized. held space, respected distance, done therapy, owned it publicly, and changed how I move in the world.

But none of that stopped what came next.

When remorse met revenge, I entered a different kind of moral terrain—one where the pursuit of justice curdled into the machinery of personal sabotage. And it raised a question I never thought I’d ask: If I was wrong, do I deserve to be ruined?

I. The Psychological Architecture of Retaliation

To understand revenge—especially revenge that outlives the apology—we need to explore what psychologists call the retributive impulse. According to social psychologist Tricia McCulloch, revenge often originates in what she terms “moral injury,” a profound feeling that one’s ethical boundaries have been violated in a way that cannot simply be repaired, but must be avenged.

Evolutionary psychology offers further insight: Leda Cosmides and John Tooby argue that our sense of justice evolved in tribal contexts, where punishment deterred future harm and protected social cohesion. In that light, revenge isn’t irrational—it’s adaptive. But what happens when we leave the tribe and enter modern society, with its legal systems, therapy models, and social norms?

We don’t always evolve emotionally at the same rate we evolve structurally. So we carry that ancient need to punish, even if the “offender” has already tried to atone. This isn’t necessarily cruelty—it’s about restoring a personal sense of power.

But here’s where things get slippery: power, once tasted, is hard to release. Especially if your identity starts to depend on being the person who was wronged.

II. Forgiveness as a Threat to Identity

If revenge offers power, forgiveness requires vulnerability. And for some, that is the greater threat.

Psychologist Janis Abrahms Spring, in How Can I Forgive You?, explains that forgiveness can destabilize the narrative someone builds to survive betrayal. If I forgive you, I have to reintegrate you into my moral universe. That’s hard work. It requires emotional labor, self-reflection, and trust. For some, it’s easier to define themselves in opposition to you—especially if your wrongdoing gives their pain a clear and justified target.

Sociologist Erving Goffman talked about this through the lens of “spoiled identity.” Once someone casts you in the role of the villain, you’re not just a person who did harm. You become the harm. The embodiment of everything that hurt them.

And when that identity calcifies, your redemption becomes a threat to their sense of order.

III. The Ethics of Deserved Suffering

Let’s say I deserved the consequences. Fine. I accept that. But do I deserve to be humiliated? Harassed? Shunned from opportunities I’ve worked to re-earn? Do I deserve a life sentence of public suspicion, even after years of growth?

Here we enter the realm of retributive justice vs. restorative justice.

Retributive justice says: you hurt me, so you suffer. It's clean. It satisfies. But it doesn’t transform. Restorative justice, by contrast, asks: how do we repair the harm? Not just to the victim—but to the community, and even to the perpetrator?

Restorative justice doesn’t excuse wrongdoing. It demands accountability. But it also holds space for change. And in that way, it protects something precious: the idea that people can evolve.

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum, in Anger and Forgiveness, warns against the "status-maintenance" model of revenge. In that model, people aren’t seeking healing—they’re maintaining superiority. They need the wrongdoer to remain low, so they can remain elevated. In this model, your suffering isn’t about justice—it’s about aesthetic satisfaction. You must be seen suffering. That’s the performance.

It’s worth asking: is justice still justice if it becomes a spectacle?

IV. The Cultural and Sociological Ecosystem of Shame

The way revenge plays out is deeply shaped by culture.

In collectivist societies—like many in East and South Asia, or parts of the Middle East—honor and shame are social currencies. A single betrayal can tarnish family reputation or generational identity. In those contexts, revenge may be executed not through direct aggression, but through ostracism, exile, or reputational ruin.

In Western, individualist societies, especially those with a media-driven ethos, the punishment often comes through narrative control. One person becomes “the victim,” the other “the abuser.” And nuance dies in the process. Especially on social media, where outrage spreads faster than context.

Even geography plays a role. In small towns or insular industries, a whisper can have the impact of a lawsuit. In tight-knit networks, your reputation is your passport. Once it’s revoked, you become stateless.

V. Thought Experiments and Philosophical Mirrors

Consider this: if someone slashes a tire in response to theft, we might understand the anger. But if they come back every week to slash the tires again—even after the thief returns the item, apologizes, and changes their ways—what do we call that?

At what point does revenge become pathology?

John Stuart Mill’s harm principle might offer a guideline here: that liberty should only be constrained to prevent harm to others. Once the harm has been repaired, continuing to inflict pain may say less about justice and more about the saboteur's unresolved rage or moral ego.

Nietzsche’s warning applies again: “Anyone who fights monsters should take care not to become a monster.”

Or take Kierkegaard’s concept of despair: the refusal to be one’s true self. When someone dedicates themselves to sabotaging another—even long after the original wound—they may be externalizing a despair they cannot face internally.

VI. What Redemption Looks Like When It’s Denied

So where does that leave someone like me? Someone who did harm, tried to repair it, and found themselves cast permanently as the villain?

It leaves me in a kind of moral exile—but not without purpose.

I’ve learned that you don’t get to decide how people heal. You only get to decide who you become after the reckoning.

Some will never see me as more than the worst thing I did. That’s their right. But I also know that I’m not only that mistake. I know that growth is real—even if it’s invisible to the ones I hurt. I’ve stopped chasing forgiveness like it’s owed. It’s not. But neither is the destruction of a life.

If you’re someone in my position: own what you did. Don’t flinch from it. But also know that your evolution doesn’t require their permission. If you’ve tried to make amends, and they’ve chosen revenge, walk forward with integrity anyway.

And if you’re someone holding onto hurt—by all means, protect your boundaries. But ask yourself: What is the cost of being right forever?

Forgiveness heals. Revenge corrodes.

One changes the world. The other just burns it.