That's true. You can tell a story in favor of yourself. I first always have to hear the other side. When I was just divorced, oh poor me, I was so sweet and he was evil and it was all his fault, he hit me. Aaaww how can someone possibly do that to you? Ehm maybe because I screamed at him like an idiot and it was the only way to have me shut up. Oh wait.
I'll tell a story of a friend of mine, instead.
My friend (D), who is now married (defacto - to another woman), once dated the sister (S) of my former partner/wife (C ). At C and I's wedding - S said she would refuse to go if D (who was a friend of C's) came. So, to keep the peace, D said he wouldn't go. I never got a full story from anyone, but only heard that D had physically assaulted S. Basically - end of story from S's end. D was a horrible horrible abuser. That is what people were meant to think from S's perspective.
C (my wife), however - who apparently also didn't know the full story - always doubted her sister. She said as much to me. "I know what S is like, I know how she can be". To flesh this out - she told me a story of one of S's former boyfriends (not D). C had come home (their parents house) one time and S had trapped her former boyfriend in the house. Physically aggressive - she was somehow preventing him from leaving. I don't know the details of how she was doing that - but according to C, that is what she saw.
One day I was talking to my friend D and he spilled it to me. The story I was never told:
"You want to know the story behind what S is saying? Well here it is: When S and I were dating, there was this one time when we were on the road. I was driving the car. S was acting silly/stupid and she kept pulling at the steering wheel, pulling the car this way and that. I told her to stop multiple times. She kept doing it. Finally, to get her to stop - I grabbed the back of her head and smacked her forehead into the dashboard. She stopped after that. That is the whole basis for my being labeled an abuser and the talk against me from S"
Now, on reflection, perhaps a better method would have been to pull the car over and dump S on the side of the road, since she was endangering both of their lives. But to me, the story fleshes out the bs that S wanted to sell with regards to D. She didn't want to admit her part or her responsibility. D's reaction may have been inappropriate and knee jerk, but also probably spur of the moment to stop an impending disaster.
In any case, it does not warrant the reputation S tried to give him.