When Things Fall Apart
I knew this guy Ron who broke up with his wife. It was a very bad breakup - the kind that involved being blindsided by betrayals and much backstabbing. It poisoned his circle of friends because his wife had run off with his best friend. In the aftermath his now ex-friend and ex-wife spread gossip about him and it left you wondering how Ron could be so blind to have chosen these people to be in his life to begin with.
Ron was a nice guy but he was a terrible judge of character. That sounds incredibly old fashioned to say so, but you had to look where he was in the wake of that messy split. And yet because Ron was an oddly cheerful guy, he somehow internalised all of it like it was his fault that these people were pushed into doing these terrible things to him because he had been an awful person to them. That led to some bizarre conversations. Nonetheless, Rob was clearly the aggrieved party. He just didn't want to be that. That's some complicated mental gymnastics to arrive there.
For my part, when break ups happen I tend to be a lot more definitive about who did what and who was to blame. I kind of feel people should take ownership of stuff they do that hurts other people. Doing terrible things to another person is one thing, but pretending you didn't do them or shifting that blame on to the victim makes things worse. People do as they must do. If you have to get out of a situation then, that's what you have to do. If you have to have an affair; if you have to betray the confidence of somebody in order to do something; if you have to fuck up somebody's life to just do your thing; these are the kinds of things you have to own. You did this because you wanted to, and it was shitty a thing to do but you did it anyway. You have to own that shit. Otherwise you are not a proper adult.
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