To think you can never really know your partner, no matter how long you're together?

[GirlOnIt]

Sorry if it's a bit depressive. Known Dp 5+ years and there's things I'd have sworn he'd never do or say things he now has. It's like us having a Ds has brought out a sexist idiot in him and I'm wondering how he could have hidden that side of himself.

Then reading relationship threads on here and I think, no matter how long you're with someone you never really know do you? Not even just with cheating but how some men then are completely different if it comes to a separation or after kids arrive.
Before I'd have sworn if me and Dp split up he'd be fair and considerate regarding Ds, but really he could be an absolute dick, because I don't really know.

This is why I could never ever be reliant on a partner. Least I have my own money and a job to return to after mat leave. So he can quite frankly go fuck himself!

An amazing woman I used to know who ran a charity supporting street sex workers once said that no-one should say they knew their male DP/DH would never pay for sex. She had been with her DH a long time, and said that she hoped he didn't, but she didn't know.

Really Doesabear. That's quite sad, but very true. I guess everyone would like to think their partner would never do that. I wonder how many do and just never get caught.

I'm in a very emotional mood and just wondering how I can ever trust anyone. When someone you love can just be so different to what you thought.

@Doesabear

That is so true.

I know so many men who regularly get private lap dances on ‘lads nights out’ yet their wives and GF are the kind of women who would stick their noses up as say ‘eww how gross, my Dan would never do that. He respects me far too much’. It always reminds me of the porn threads on MN with the posters swearing blind their DP would never look at porn.

Yanbu. It’s sad and depressing, isn’t it? I suppose if you dwell on it too much you’d never trust anyone.

It works the other way round though. How does he know you won't go and do something that he trusts you not to do? At this stage, even you don't know what you're capable of until it happens.

You see I'd say Dp wouldn't do that Vividdreaming. But all that means is that he's told me he wouldn't and with no reason to not believe him, because he's always been a decent boyfriend. I've took him at his word, which clearly now means nothing.

Yes, it can be true. I don't think any person is above any behaviour, really.

On the other hand, so many threads on here detail terrible behaviour from partners, people are initially sympathetic until OP reveals he's always acted that way. So I think it's often that people deep down do know their partners but choose to ignore it to stay in the relationship. Eventually they no longer can.

I knew ex would be a complete dick hence I stayed as long as I did. Delayed the enviable

After having a baby I find negative traits show in both parents. Sleep deprivation, anxiety, worry, hormones on the mother's part...me and DH can be absolutely vile and he said a couple of comments that i thought were sexist.

My favourite was "I need sleep more than you because I go to work, you don't work any more". Yeah mate because looking after twins isn't work, I can just have a nap whenever can't I.

It's usually transient.

I feel like I do actually know him.

We have been together twenty years. In a way we grew up together. And importantly, we have broken up. In a very final, divide the assets way. So I’ve seen his behaviour in a separation too. I’m not saying he’s never been a dick, but I do know him and accept the flaws.

Which commedian is it that asks the audience to look at the person they came with... to stare deep into their eyes and know, for sure, that if they knew their innermost thoughts, they would absolutely leave them?

I agree that you can never really predict how someone will behave in an unknown situation, however well you think you know them. To an extent it's what makes life interesting - otherwise we'd all be like robots!

I think you have to make the best decisions you can with the information you have at the time, be prepared to revise them later on in the light of new information, and not beat yourself up about making them in the first place.

I think someone always has the ability to shock you.

Not just a dp/dh I don’t think you ever completely know anyone not even your own child tbh

It's not so much doing something Singlenotsingle. I'd never have said he'd never cheat, I'm not that naive and I know things change and happen. I'd say he's unlikely to, but never that he wouldn't. It's more who he is as a person I guess. I feel like I've been conned about what his attitudes and thoughts really are.

Yeah, you can never really completely know anyone. I think the closest you ever get is with your kids, but men?.nope.
I love DP, I trust him with the basics of life, he has shown himself to be caring and kind and I have never found anything that shocked me ( I have looked, and I am unrepentant about violating the privacy a man who sleeps in my house however big a crime that is on MN! ).
However, I know that men can have total personality transplants when they are led by their dicks, so who knows.
ABSOLUTELY never depend on someone fully. Always know you could survive on your own.

You only know what people are willing to show you.

There's a Shakespeare quote that I think it very true 'there is no art to find a minds construction in his face'. Something like that anyway.

X post OP. What's actually happened between you? What did he say?

I think and hope it's that in our case Seline. But if I'd have seen that behaviour at the start no way I'd have been with him. Now we've got a child so I'm wondering if he thinks he can be his true self because I'm stuck.

I think you can but you have to be a good judge of character and see how they behave in difficult situations first. I think I know DH fairly well after five years of marriage. I can say with a good degree of certainty what he wouldn’t do (e.g. paying for sex, he is far too arrogant), what he might do but is unlikely (e.g. have an affair, he is very needy and insecure sometimes and I think he might turn to another woman in a moment of distress if I wasn’t interested in humouring him. That said he likes to think he’s above affairs so it would take a major mental crisis to trigger one) and what he is likely to do (e.g. fritter away money on stupid things, ruin opportunities in a moment of arrogance etc). But the past five years have been difficult and I am fairly unemotive in this respect so I have had plenty of opportunities to learn and observe. I’m not sure if DH knows me that well. Will have to ask him.

After 21 years together we can finish one another's sentences and often one of us says exactly what the other was just thinking so I think we know one another pretty well. This doesn't preclude either of us behaving like dicks from time to time because we're just human and imperfect.

I don't know, I think it's quite obvious the kinds of men who would have a lap dance etc etc. The signs are there in their general attitudes towards women, the jokes they make, a kind of arrogance in how they act. It's very subtle, but I think you can pick up on it.

Sometimes it suits you to ignore the warning signs.
I have a great exP who I thought was the one.
When I look back all the flags were there that he was a flaky future faker.
I'd already sold myself to being with him forever so when he fucked off it was my own fault I was gutted.

It's been a few things IfNotNowThenWhy that's resulted in a argument. But it's just parts of his personality that I've seen that I really don't like!

In the grand scheme of things not that bad, he hasn't cheated, hasn't physically hurt me. Nothing that would say LTB right now. It's more that there's this side of him that's showing and I don't like it and he's not the Dp I thought he was.

So see I really don't think there was any signs TheQueef.

You never truly know anyone well enough to say you know exactly how they would or wouldn’t act in any situation, same as no one could know you in that way.
I know my fiancé well, I trust him to an extent I wouldn’t trust anyone else and I feel I can take an educated guess at his reactions or actions. The above still applies.