Why is it that sometimes we do feel sorry, but something stops us from saying it out loud?

@being Well-stated, imho. When it comes to parent/child, it frequently is as much a factor of the parents' upbringing, and/or life at the time of becoming parents, as of the parent-child relationship. That most often is described as the cycle of abusive relationships that has to be broken, but it is much broader, imho. My parents were older, from an age and cultures that were not big on outward displays of affection. They started their family at the onset of the Great Depression, and had a hard scrabble existence to just manage a roof over our heads and food on the table -- most of which we grew ourselves. Everyone was expected to contribute to the family; to excel at every endeavor. When we did excel, their wasn't much fanfare or affection. Conversely, when we didn't, there was some quiet support and consolation but in the tough love vein of "failing is not bad; it's how you overcome the failure that counts".

As a result, I have always found it difficult to outwardly express my love, my affection, my sympathetic support. To hug or console. I never had a role model. It would be easy to blame my parents for having been so emotionless. Otoh, the longer I live the more appreciative I have become of the incredibly tough times they lived through and how supportive -- in their own way -- they were to this sickly child that spent four years bedridden, keeping my mother from teaching and running up weekly medical bills they could not afford. The fact that I found it difficult to ever tell them thank you, or express my love to them, would be easy to lay on the fact that they never really gave it to me in the ostentatious displays of affection today's society projects as the norm. Otoh it was on me to break through that cycle.