The human brain is small and simple and generally seeks the easiest possible answers for any given problem. It’s easy to label other people’s relationships because we know little or nothing about them. Whatever the currently fashionable Politically Correct attitude happens to be is going to be the easiest thing for people to grab hold of. This can infect our own way of seeing things if we’re not careful. My approach for myself has always been to ignore the opinions of others because they are rarely well-considered, and simply to look back with as much accuracy as possible and evaluate for myself the situation and the outcome. Everything else is just pointless noise.