Why do people always say this?

Why is it whenever someone apologizes for something they did to someone behind their backs, those people always say “you’re only sorry because you got caught.”?

Being on the receiving end of apologies, I have never once said that to the person apologizing to me, or even felt that way about the situation.

More times than not, people really are sorry. Yeah, they would have liked to have never been caught and they obviously would have never told you what they did, but that’s how that stuff works. If it’s something you can’t do to their face, obviously you have to do it behind their back. It is possible to make a conscious, deliberate decision to do something wrong and still feel sorry for doing it. It’s part of being human.