What tawbah asks for, and what it does not

The formulation usually given, and associated with al-Nawawi, is three things where the wrong is between a person and Allah. Stopping the thing. Regretting it. And resolving not to go back to it. Where somebody else has been wronged, restoring what was taken is added to those. We give that as the standard summary, and the exact wording belongs to a scholar rather than to us.

Now read what is not on that list, because the absence is the whole point.

There is no threshold of distress. Nowhere does it say you must feel bad enough, for long enough, before it counts. There is no number of times you must say it. There is no requirement to feel certain that it was accepted, and no requirement to feel anything in particular at all. Tawbah is an act of the heart and a decision. It is not a performance you can fail on presentation.

And the resolve not to return is a resolve made at the time. Going back later does not reach backwards and cancel it. That is precisely what the report in Bukhari shows, by having the same servant come back three times and be forgiven three times.