
I often think about people’s other side of the story, more than being curious is because I am an empath, meaning I probably will try to understand where someone’s behavior is coming from which has served me in good ways but also bad ways cause sometimes that has let me forget my boundaries.
I have been through my fair share of relationships, the toxic ones, the situationships, the ghoster, and the rebound, meaning I learn a lot for my age, in all of these relationships once it’s over I always wonder:
What’s their side of the story?
How does this play into their mind?
What were they where thinking?
If they would tell our stories, what would they say?
Thinking someone has been through the same experience with you but has a different perspective of what happened has always haunted me, do they think I’m the villain?
When a relationship ends, for me, it has always been like staying with missing pieces of what happened. Few people are lucky enough to have someone by their side who has explained how they feel and let them know everything that is going through their mind. Unfortunately, this does not happen often.
What really happens is that people leave without letting me know what did I do wrong. I never know their side of the story.
The Toxic Relationship
I was in a toxic relationship for years. I was the kind of person who always tried and tried, thinking it would be better but the truth is we weren’t made for each other, we were so different and argued about everything and I stayed there because above all he wasn’t a bad guy, sure he did a lot of damage as I did to him but I didn’t consider him a bad person, just not for me.
I was the one who had enough, needed to put myself first, and not continue believing things would change when I was so unhappy and unconformable, forgot about my friends, and my goals, and every time we spent time together probably an argument would come right after.
We had more bad days than good ones at the end and that’s how I knew I needed to end it and didn’t know how to build the courage because by that time I was drained, that thing when you ‘’when through a breakup during the relationship‘’ is true, the only thing that kept me there was that I was so afraid of change but in turns of the relationship I didn’t feel it anymore, I know I wouldn’t be crying all day after the breakup or been depressed, already did that while we were together.
So when the time came and the breakup happened, it was so hard on him more than it was on me, for me was like I was breathing again, and for him, I’m sure it was hell, and it turns out I was catalog as a villain there.
Everybody wonders what happened? thinking we were the happiest couple, thinking he was one of a kind because he usually got me flowers not knowing all the damage behind that because I was pretty good at covering it, I never said anything bad about him to my family or talked about how unhappy I was for the seek of the relationship, I knew if I set the record straight my inner circle would hate him, and some of then who knew somethings did.
I’m sure he said some pretty bad things about me to people we had in common, and I think he hated me at some point, claiming he didn’t understand why I was leaving when it was so obvious I wasn’t happy when I told him so many times about how drained I was and how tired it was to never be able to enjoy a night out with him or doing something different without arguing.
I guess through his version it’ll always be “The girl he gave his heart to and just left’’ because before me he never had a relationship so that’s why people were so amazed about us, because he wasn’t a serious relationship type of guy until we met and it was good for a while until it wasn’t and it looks like I was the one who came to his life, show him love and then leave it with all of it.
I didn’t hear all his version of the stories, just some parts he might told to people we had in common and it was completely different to mine, not because part of it wasn’t true, just because we experienced it differently, I didn’t blame him for it, yes, some of those things weren’t true, but we cannot know how people had a different perspective then us, I’m sure if he heard my version he probably think isn’t true either, or maybe it was more than I told him at that time.
The Ghoster
As well as some relationships have “closure” and maybe you hear from people in common their side of the story, there are also those relationships in which we don’t know exactly what happened let alone we won’t know their side of the story, this was my case with “the ghoster’’.
We dated for a while and sure we had differences but also we had a great time, it didn’t occur to me that he would become a ghoster, sure he was an avoidant but I thought we would pass that because of the amount of time we spend knowing each other, at least I was given the impression he cared about me enough not to leave out of the blue.
To set the record straight I don’t think he is a bad person maybe a damaged one but not a bad one, I think he has good intentions.
To summarize what happened, I didn’t feel we were moving forward as a relationship, It was like we were doing everything together, and cared for each other but it was turning into a situationship and sometimes him been avoidant activated my anxiety and we didn’t know how to handle it.
Amid miscommunication, we set a date to talk about how we were feeling and what we should do, when that date came we didn’t meet up to talk about it, he texted me and didn’t confirm we meet up, and when I asked him he didn’t answer so while I wait almost all day for him to answer me, I burst and say all the things I was planning to say that date and of course, it wouldn’t come as the way I planned it, there was a lot of deception and angriness in my words so there it was: no response, that night he ghosted me, after 6 months dating, texting every day and knowing each other for a year.
So Often I wonder What’s His Side of the Story?
What could possibly come to his mind when he read my text and decided I didn’t deserve an answer or at least a ‘’ this isn’t working for me ‘’
Of all the people I dated this is the one I would kill to know his side of the story, was something so simple as I didn’t care about her at all or was it more complicated than that, from my side of the story and the way I experience it was like those 6 months never happen to him, like I was someone else and it was decided it on that moment when he decides to never answer me again.
It’s even funny because I didn’t think of him like that, sure, he had a lot of issues with communication but I never thought of him as unconsidered, the way it all unfolded like it was somebody else who was there that night.
I wonder if he regretted it as soon as a week passed and realized it was too late. Wonder if he regrets it now months after and knows he can’t come back, can someone be okay with such guilt, because on my side of the story I thought we deserved better, the same way I always spoke to him if something was bothering me, I deserve to know if he was tired of me or if all the things I said was the last drop.
Can his side of the story give him a way out?
What if in his mind he did nothing wrong? What if he thought his peace comes first and just let me on seen was the solution for that? who could blame someone for finding freedom?
What if when he speaks about me, he said we were a good match but I constantly argue about silly things, or he tried so hard and was never enough to please me?
Their side of the story won’t change mine
I probably will never know their side of the story, chances are would never see them again let alone ask them what happened, I believe his side of the story won’t change mine, it wouldn’t undo how I felt at the time by our actions.
The reason I always keep wondering is that I want to understand, to give them I way out, thinking it was just bad timing or judgment, believing is not who they are just the circumstance of the moments, that deep down they cared and I wasn’t just a pit stop.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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