“But I never want to upset you” is not an apology

So???

Not the end of the world, he did say he did not want to upset you. Why are you making it a big deal.

Millymay, how annoying! If your husband was interested in the rules of honest discourse he'd not be so naive. My guess is he is not very interested in discussing feelings. Have you tackled him about the insides of cars?

Has his behaviour or demeanour said sorry? That can be as good a way of apologising as words.

You’re very lucky to get that all my DH would say when he knew he’d upset me was ….
For goodness sake don’t keep on, you’ve told me now so let it go.
Perhaps that’s why we’ve stayed married for over 63 years because I never used to ‘keep on’ and we had a kiss and hug.

Surely you know that love means never having to say you're sorry? 😄

You know he knew he had been rude/foolish. But you don't think he fully accepted what he had done wrong. Is your husband ten years old by any chance? Few partners are perfect. At least he cares that he upsets you.

MillyMay clearly whatever it was has left you feeling upset try to rise above it and forgive his foolish ways otherwise you will continue to feel hurt which I am sure was not what he intended.

Perhaps , your husband doesn't really know nor remember what he's done to upset you .
I guess that you could elaborate on why you are annoyed or
just excuse him - this time !

AreWeThereYet, love that. 😉

Perhaps he felt that what he had done was reasonable, although he was genuine in not wishing to upset you.

My question would be so why do what he did in the first place if he knew he would upset you. Sometimes loved ones do or say something out of term and don’t realise the consequences. That’s marriage/partnership take the rough with the smooth and move on or it ends up in an argument life’s too short.

That’s the sort of thing that my ex husband used to say. He didn’t understand why I could be upset if he didn’t actually mean to hurt me. I remember when we were first married he didn’t get me a birthday card. I cried for ages. He said I shouldn’t be angry because he hadn’t forgotten to get me one, he just hadn’t bothered. I realised years later that he is probably on the spectrum but I didn’t understand such things back then. Maybe, if I had understood we might still be married now

Depends what he did.

Maybe he is not sorry about what he did but did not want to upset you when he did it.

Saying sorry when it is not meant is pointless.

I’m even more hard to please. It really annoys me when someone has done something wrong but believes “I said I’m sorry” make everything okay..
(This applies to politicians too!
And to really bad wrongdoings)

It sounds like he's using it as a get out of jail free card. If he really didn't mean to upset you, he'd change that particular behaviour

Married for 55 years and look back on the early years when we each 'had to be right'. What a waste of precious time. Now sometimes we have quick little spats, over in seconds, but generally we would not want to hurt each other, and we are quick to apologize if we do. We are best friends and that is so important.

Perhaps you need to reply you have upset me and I require a proper apology for what you did

In my book. "I never want to upset you" or "I didn't intend to upset you" is an apology, although not a very graceful one, and should be accepted as such.

It at least implies that the person who said it has realised that he said or did something the other person found upsetting .

Let it go, you are hurting yourself by harbouring resentment.

Dear MillyMay,

Please be grateful that your husband is still with you. My husband died 9 years ago. We were married for 50 years and together for 53 and I would give anything to have him back with me. Of course we both had our faults and yes, we argued, but that is married life. I will tell you this that if anything hapened to your husband, you won't remember the wonderful years you had together, you will only remember the harsh things you said to him. Let it go, life is too short.