To ask if you ever REALLY know someone?

[mrsdrew]

Is this not possible or is it just that people change? Am asking as there have been several times in my own life that I've been shocked to discover things about people that I thought I knew well. On Mumsnet I see lots of threads about people having affairs or acting in some other way which their DP or others could never have imagined. In some cases it seems there have been doubts or red flags but in others it seems a bolt out of the blue. If you can live with someone, share their bed and their lives (for up to 30 years in some of these threads) and they can then seem to be someone you don't recognise at all..is that because they've changed or you never really knew them at all? Can I ask does anyone REALLY know you? Sorry for lack of paragraphs..on phone.

I don't think you can ever really, 100% know someone, no, because you can never get inside their head and know exactly what it's like to be them or see the world from their point of view. It frustrates me sometimes, especially with DH - you can be curled up together in bed, heads together, as intimate as anything, and yet not know what it's really like to be the other person. I don't think anyone knows me 100% tbh, but DH and my DM come closest.

I think that you can know someone well and anticipate their reactions to people and situations. Based on seeing them react to things before. But to REALLY know someone and how they would act out every situation life throws at them?

No. I'm not even sure I know myself that well!!

I think nearly everyone has a part of themselves or their personality that they keep completely private. I certainly do. I think that's normal and healthy. I suppose with some people it may take the form of behaviour that's not acceptable but I do think it's wrong to assume you can always predict someone's reaction/behaviour.

nope

I don't even really know myself so how could I know someone else ?

I suppose you never really know anyone. Like that man in Austria who'd kept his daughter under his house all those years and even his wife didnt know.

Some people are quite "simple", for want of a better word, in what they want and how content they are, so you can fully know some people, others not so.

I think that your childhood/background helps shape how complex you are, as does your general environment.

I know many of my friends who ignore red flags etc and delude themselves, no help is needed from their partner, because they want to be part of a couple/family etc.

It isn't nice to be very cynical/mistrusting, but it does protect you,in some ways and you get happy surprises when people turn out better than you thought.

I don't think you can ever say you really know someone, no, but I agree that some people are infinitely more predictable than others, to the extent where we often seem to know them better than they know themselves.

I always try to be open and friendly to everyone I meet, but I am very guarded about who I allow in beyond a certain point, and even though I act with complete trust in those near and dear to me (in that I don't act suspiciously of their motives or accuse them of things), my life is dependent only on my own actions and a degree of luck to preserve its stability.

No you can't always really know somebody and people change.

I dread to think how much trouble I would get in if people could read minds. What I say and what I'm thinking frequently don't tally,particularly when I'm at work.

Of course you can never know everything about a person. How freaking boring would your marriage be if there was total prediction and complete transparency.