For those of you with an ex...

[JaneFonda]

If they were lovely in the beginning, but at the end turned out to be horrible, do you think they changed, or that they were pretending to be nice at the start?

[DameMargotFountain]

for me, i needed him to be nice to me, so i believe he was

his family hid secrets about him from me as they wanted him to be nice too

he wasn't, and still is a cunt now

he never changed, i realised

why do you ask, OP?

[JaneFonda]

Oh sorry, I didn't mean for it to be so ambiguous!

There's nothing wrong with my relationship, I just read a lot of the threads on here, particularly wrt DV, with people saying how their DP has changed.

It just made me wonder if they actually had changed, or if they were pretending all along.

[DameMargotFountain]

IME and please note the E men who think it's ok to hit women always think it's ok to hit women

just sometimes they don't

i don't think your OP was ambiguous btw, just obtuse

[BertieBotts]

I think I didn't really know what "nice" was and had a really low threshold for "nice" - if I met my XP now I would not look twice at him, yet I thought he was amazing because he acknowledged me and possibly another couple of faux-nice things like how he complimented my body and was proud to kiss me etc in public and how we sat in a car one night and chose "our" star and he dedicated a song to me on the radio. The first night we got together he asked me what I wanted to do, bought me drinks etc. (I don't know why I thought this was particularly noteworthy!)

I heard/saw those and minimised the bad things that he was doing even at the beginning like making me choose whether I wanted to be in a "long term, serious" relationship or no relationship at all less than 24 hours in - I was always making excuses for his bad points or just clean not seeing them. I mean, FFS, before we went out he told me that his ex had cheated on him with his mate, and he'd put the mate in hospital!

I don't think he changed as such I think I just stopped romanticising everything nice he ever did and got a bit more cynical about it. Plus, in the beginning I was all over him sexually, when I went off sex, he got a lot less affectionate unless he wanted sex - perhaps it was always that way and I just didn't notice because I was happy about the sex stuff then anyway?

[tiredoftrying]

yes does make u wonder if they was always that way but very false ,I had the same with my ex he seemed fantastic everything u wanted lol wasn't I wrong

[BertieBotts]

They're very good at reflecting back what you want as well aren't they? I remember XP used to have the exact same music taste as me and I was really surprised, weird when it magically changed to music that I didn't like as much!

[tiredoftrying]

yes agree they seem totally in sync with ur everything

[DoubleYew]

Snap, Bertie, that is almost spooky.

He has been so horrible and selfish to me and ds I can't believe he has changed into this person, I think he just hid it. Very disappointed in myself for falling for it and saddling ds with him for a dad.

[issey6cats]

my ex was every thing i wanted in a man to start with what i didnt know at the time was i was the OW and he was living with his partner and kids dont flame it was long distance so i dint honestly know, and hes aspie so i was the project he was working on and he went all out to get what he wanted, cue 8 years down the line and i was the project he had finished with so he went all out to get another woman interested in him and he turned into a sneaky lying cheat while still pretending evrything was normal in our marriage till i did what his ex did caught him out and threw him out

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I don't think my ex particularly changed and I don't think he was pretending either. I think he was on best behaviour, as most of us are, in the beginning, very charming, and I either chose to overlook, forgive or was too naive to see his faults the rest of the time.

[nospace]

We all show our best behaviour at the start but for someone to turn out to be so nasty, and treat you badly as a woman,I think they have deeply ingrained attitudes towards women that already exist in them, and there must have been some acting in the beginning which they cannot maintain after a while, or when you live together.

[nospace]

Also, as the old saying goes 'love is blind'.

[HotDAMNlifeisgood]

I don't think my ex "changed", it was a combination of:

• my own low standards, and
  
• gradual escalation of abuse (every boundary transgressed became the new "normal")