perhaps my memory isn't the problem

On the Saturday morning, I asked Dennis whether he wanted to go to the BMX championship. I’d found the event the previous week while looking online for things happening around Frankfurt and the wider area. There had been plenty of events listed, most of which I hadn't mentioned to him. I’d picked out the ones I thought we might both enjoy, and the BMX championship had been one of them. When I first mentioned it, Dennis had sounded interested, so I’d kept it in mind for the following weekend.

A couple of days before the championship, I’d spent Thursday hiking while Dennis wanted to go to a free open-air concert beside the Main. We arranged to meet at around 6.30pm, and I went directly there after my walk. On the way home afterwards, I asked him about Saturday and whether he still wanted to go to the BMX event. This time his response was much less enthusiastic. I didn't push it. Somewhere during that conversation, I simply decided I would go by myself, and Dennis could come if he wanted to.

So, when I asked again on Saturday morning whether he was coming and Dennis told me that I had said I didn't really want to go, I knew something didn't fit. I don't remember the exact words either of us used in each of those conversations. If somebody asked me to repeat what Dennis had said when I first mentioned the championship, I couldn't. Nor could I precisely repeat what I’d said on Thursday either. However, I remembered finding the event. I remembered choosing it from all the other events I hadn't mentioned because I thought it was something we would both enjoy. I remembered Dennis initially sounding interested and that interest seeming to fade when I brought it up again on Thursday. Most importantly, I remembered deciding after that conversation that I was going anyway. I wanted to go. That much I knew.

Perhaps the reason the exchange stayed with me was that, over the years, conversations with Dennis have frequently begun with some variation of, “Remember I told you...?” Sometimes I do remember. I might not remember every detail, however I remember the conversation happening. Something in what he says connects with something already there and I can say, yes, I remember you talking about that. Other times there’s nothing. At those times, Dennis has always been completely convinced that he has already told me something, yet I’ll have no recollection of it at all. He doesn't appear uncertain when he says it. He doesn't hesitate or seem to question whether perhaps he only thought about telling me. He comes across as completely convinced that the conversation happened. For a long time, that certainty carried more weight than my lack of memory. I privately concluded that I must simply have a bad memory.

There have certainly been occasions when I’ve thought Dennis probably had a conversation in his own head and genuinely believed afterwards that he’d also had it with me. I don't believe every “Remember I told you...?” has been him purposely claiming a conversation happened when it didn't. Then, there have been other occasions when I’ve been less sure. The difficulty has been that I haven't always been sure of myself either.

Over the years, as my own confidence has dwindled, it has become much easier to assume that I’m the one who’s forgotten. Dennis sounds certain. I’m searching my memory and finding nothing. Somewhere between those two positions, his certainty has often won.

What felt different about the BMX championship was that this time I wasn't searching an empty space. I had memories surrounding it. They weren't a transcript of our conversations, and I guess that distinction matters because I’ve spent years treating an inability to remember every detail as evidence that my memory itself cannot be trusted. Yet I could follow what had happened from the point at which I found the event through to Saturday morning.

I’d been searching for events we could do together. I’d selected the BMX championship because I wanted to go too. I’d mentioned it to Dennis. I’d noticed his interest change. I’d decided I would still go without him. Then I was being told that I’d said I didn't really want to go. For once, I didn't immediately think, perhaps I did say that and I've forgotten. I kept returning instead to what I remembered.

That has made some of those older conversations harder to leave where they were. I cannot go backwards and suddenly establish exactly what was said on every occasion when Dennis was certain he’d told me something and I couldn't remember it. There will undoubtedly have been things he told me that I genuinely forgot. There may have been conversations where I remembered the substance differently from him. There may also have been times when something he was convinced he’d told me was never actually said aloud. I don't know. What I am beginning to question is why, for so many years, my starting assumption was that the problem must be my memory.

Perhaps this becomes particularly complicated when your confidence in yourself has already become quieter. Somebody else doesn't necessarily need proof of their version if they express it with enough certainty and you’re already accustomed to questioning yours. You can end up giving greater weight to how confidently something is remembered than to what you yourself remember.

Living abroad has given me plenty of reasons over the years to defer to somebody else's knowledge. There are languages I don't speak as well, systems I don't understand as easily and situations where somebody else genuinely does know more than I do. Somewhere within years of adapting and relying on Dennis in different ways, I think my confidence in my own judgement has become less solid than it once was. I’m only beginning to recognise how far that loss of confidence may have spread.

This is also the kind of uncomfortable territory that can emerge in Personal Support sessions: the places where years of adapting, relationships and changing confidence have left a woman uncertain about what she thinks, remembers or knows for herself. There doesn't have to be an immediate answer. Sometimes there’s simply something that no longer feels as straightforward as it once did.

The BMX championship hasn't proved that my memory is good. It hasn't proved that Dennis's memory is bad either. I still don't remember every word of those conversations, and I don't need to pretend that I do. What stayed with me was something much smaller: when I was told I hadn't really wanted to go, I didn't automatically abandon what I remembered simply because the other version was delivered with certainty. And since then, I've found myself looking differently at an assumption I've carried quietly for years. Perhaps my memory isn't always the problem.