Emotional Sabotage and 'The Retroactive Lie'

Human memory is a funny thing.
While some elements of a memory may be fixed and immovable, other elements are fluid and evolving as we age, grow, gain wisdom, and put distance between the present and our brain's catalogue of past events.

Some of my memories of the past many years hover and shift like shadows from a candle. Other memories are as bright and hot as the flame itself - always moving, shifting - details emerging and retreating back into the recesses, a new discovery and different landscape each time I revisit.

What happens when someone informs you that your memories of the past aren't accurate - or truthful - or even real?
Do you blow out that flame, discard your experiences and emotions and start over?
Or do you protect those memories and allow them to illuminate your present decisions?

The Scenario:
You and your partner attend a dinner party. You splurge on a new outfit/pair of shoes/hair-do for the occasion and your partner is effusive in his praise over your appearance. You attend the party, feeling like a million bucks on the arm of your mate. The two of you drink, dance, socialize, and you are the belle of the ball. You arrive home slightly tipsy, have sex with your guy, and fall into bed with the thought, "What a great night!"
Several years later, you are chatting with your mate and something spurs a recollection of the dinner party the two of you attended some years back. You bubble with remembered excitement about how fantastic that party was and what a great time you had.
"I hated that party," replies your mate. "Bob was there, and you know we don't get along. You were drunk early in the evening, making your rounds in that ridiculous dress/pair of shoes/hair-do, and I spent most of the night hopelessly flirting with the girl at the bar, hoping to escape the scene you were making."

As an empath, my response is immediate. What right do I have to keep my happy memories, when the person I love (and profess to share my life with) has only unhappy memories of the same event?

Even more devastating, what happens when your partner admits that they've not been committed to the same goals (or even the relationship itself) for quite some time? How quickly do we replay every event, milestone, intimate exchange, or argument and "rewire" our memories to be more accurate?

ALL of our experiences are subjective. We bring our history, our convictions, our baggage to the party and use them as filters to judge and categorize. What touches me or brings me to tears may not affect the person next to me. It doesn't have to.

Embrace it. Lean into it. Learn from it. Love it. Don't give in to the sabotage, and don't allow the 'retroactive lie' to invalidate your character and constitution. YOU have all the knowledge and experience you need to make the decisions that are right for you.

Just because my partner wasn't experiencing our relationship the same way, doesn't mean my experience isn't real and true. Our experiences don't need to be shared in order to be valid. To allow others to compromise that is to invalidate your own reactions, responses and feelings. Oftentimes based on nothing more than 'hearsay'.

Don't ever let someone else rewrite your story. It is yours and yours alone.