How to deal with being painted as the villain of their story?

No not always, depends if the ex has behaved badly or not, then that's valid

But I hear it all the time from friends who’s been through a breakup, “my ex was toxic, controlling, manipulative, done this, done that, etc,” the other friend would say “oh you dodge a bullet, glad youre out, etc.” I tend to be neutral because most of the time I’m only hearing one side of the story. Unless there was betrayal or cheating on one side, I believe both are equally responsible for the breakdown of the relationship and there’s no need to paint someone as the villain.

Yeah I mean like you say, only the person/people in the relationship know what went on - so anyone outside of that shouldn’t really get involved.

And I disagree that it’s always both parties responsible for a relationship breakdown. It can be both but unfortunately it usually is when one person isn’t fully committed or for a reason such as cheating or other things etc. For a relationship to be functional both people need to commit the same.

In most if not all breakups, the exes always put the other ex as the villain. The exes friends and family will obviously have a biased side, even though they could be wrong. It just seem so unfair how your name is dragged to the mud.