The Things That Fell Off: The Fantasy That Everyone Is Operating in Good Faith

For most of my life, I believed something that felt both generous and morally right.

I believed that most people were operating in good faith.

I know. I know. sigh

But really though. I believed that if there was misunderstanding, it was accidental.
If there was conflict, it was probably a miscommunication.
If someone believed something untrue about me, it was simply because they didn’t yet have the right information.

So my instinct was always the same.

Explain.

Clarify.

Offer context.

Give people the benefit of the doubt.

In many ways, that instinct came from a sincere place. I genuinely wanted to believe the best about people. I wanted to assume kindness, fairness, and honesty in the way others approached relationships.

And sometimes that assumption was right.

But the longer I have lived - and especially in the years surrounding my divorce - the more I encountered something I had not fully allowed myself to see before.

Not everyone is trying to understand you.

Some people are trying to confirm what they already believe.

That realization took time to sink in.

At first, when someone misunderstood my intentions, I would step in quickly with clarification. Surely if I explained things clearly enough, the confusion would disappear.

But sometimes the clarification didn’t change anything.

The story remained the same.

I would add context.
The story stayed the same.

I would try to be generous and fair.
The. story. stayed. the. same.

Eventually, a difficult truth began to surface.

Some misunderstandings are not misunderstandings at all.

They are conclusions people have already decided to keep.

Because the alternative - the possibility that their assumptions might be wrong -would require more curiosity than they are willing to offer.

Or more humility than they are comfortable with.

Or sometimes, simply more effort than they want to expend.

Recognizing that reality was painful at first.

Because believing in universal good faith makes the world feel simpler. It allows you to assume that if you are patient enough, kind enough, clear enough, people will eventually meet you there.

Letting go of that belief means accepting something harder.

Some people are not trying to meet you.

They are trying to maintain a narrative.

And narratives are powerful things.

They help people make sense of complicated situations. They protect identities. They preserve loyalties. They create clean explanations in places where the truth might be messy.

Once someone has invested in a particular story, it can become surprisingly difficult for them to release it.

Even if new information arrives.

Even if the reality in front of them is more complicated.

Even if the person at the center of the story is quietly telling them something different.

Divorce has a way of revealing those dynamics very clearly.

Because when a marriage ends, everyone becomes a storyteller.

People fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. They align themselves with the version of events that feels most comfortable to them. They build explanations that help the situation make sense within their existing loyalties.

And sometimes those explanations have very little to do with the full truth.

For a long time, I kept trying to correct those stories.

But eventually, I realized something that changed the way I approached those moments.

You cannot argue someone out of a narrative they are emotionally invested in keeping.

You can offer clarity.

You can speak honestly.

But you cannot force someone to reconsider a story they have chosen to believe.

Once I understood that, something quietly shifted.

I stopped exhausting myself trying to prove my sincerity to people who had already decided otherwise.

I stopped assuming that every misunderstanding was accidental.

And perhaps most importantly, I stopped believing that my responsibility was to convince everyone of my good intentions.

These days, I still believe in kindness. I still believe many people are doing their best with the information they have.

But I no longer assume that every story about me is told in good faith.

And strangely, that realization didn’t make the world feel darker.

It made it clearer.

Because when you stop expecting universal fairness, you become much better at recognizing the people who truly are operating with honesty, curiosity, and care.

Those people stand out.

And they become the ones worth explaining yourself to.

The fantasy that everyone is operating in good faith was one of the quiet assumptions that fell away in the years after my divorce.

What replaced it was something far more grounded.

Discernment.