PSA: I sent the apology I never should have written
Last Tuesday I found an old draft apologizing to my ex coworker Dave for a project mistake. I blamed myself for missing a deadline on the Henderson account, but I forgot he never sent me the data file in the first place. I hit send at 9pm and by noon the next day he forwarded my note to our old boss. It made me look bad twice and reopened a wound I'd let heal for 3 years. The urge to apologize is not always the truth, it's often just guilt wearing a mask. Has anyone else sent something they regret and wished they'd sat on it for 48 hours?
Yikes, the fact that he forwarded it to your old boss says way more about him than it does about you. If someone sends you a genuine apology years later, a decent person just says "no worries man, it's water under the bridge." Forwarding it around is a whole other level of petty, and honestly it just proves you were right to let that wound heal without him in your life. Sitting on stuff for 48 hours is solid advice, but so is remembering that some people don't deserve your guilt at all.