To wonder if a man who has treated women like crap in the past can change?

[Extrachilli]

You’ll have to bear with me as this post will be LONG. I’ve just realised I’ve never properly spoken about this so it’s kind of cathartic to write it all down.

When I was 18 I met a guy that I was absolutely besotted with. He was absolutely gorgeous, charming (though now I see it as smarmy) older than me (but he lied about his age, so instead of being 4 years older than me, he was 8) and just seemed so sophisticated and unlike anyone I’d ever met before.

In short, he basically used me for sex on and off for 4 years until I was 22. I was young and naive and kept thinking he’d fall in love with me. In reality, he used to pick me up from my parent’s house about 9pm at night, shag me and then drop me home. He would try and get me to do stuff I didn’t want to do sexually (anal being one, he was absolutely obsessed with it) and when I said no went stone cold and quite cruel towards me. Looking back he would frequently make undermining comments, for example, when I went off to uni and saw him for the first time in the holidays, he basically told me I’d got fat. I put on just over half a stone admittedly at uni but went from a size 6-8 to a 8-10 so hardly fat!! (I lost it as soon as I graduated pretty much because I wasn’t binge drinking and eating crap all the time)

A memory that always sticks in my mind is I had a sad and emotional situation occur in my family quite suddenly and the weekend that it did, he wanted to pick me up on the Sunday evening and have sex. I was so numb and felt very alone at the time and just went along with it because I needed some comfort and stupidly thought I might get it from him. I remember sitting in his car and just crying and whilst he was ‘sympathetic’ that didn’t stop him having sex with me. Don’t get me wrong, it was consensual but any kind, decent man in that scenario surely would’ve seen the state I was in and just dropped me back home.

The final straw was when I was out one night with friends, he was ringing me as he was out too and I ended up meeting up with him and his friends at the end of the night getting a taxi with them and getting dropped off at his. We were all sat there and he started telling his friends, in front of me, about this amazing girl he’d met, she was so beautiful, blah blah. He pulled his phone out and showed them and me a photo of her and asked what we all thought. I sat there feeling so humiliated and all I wanted to do was stop the minibus and get off. But it was 3 in the morning, my phone had run out of battery, I had no money left and no way of getting home if I asked them to pull over in the middle of nowhere and let me out. So i just had to sit there, whilst he made me look like a total twat and then when I got back to his I didn’t feel confident enough to say no when he wanted sex! Strangely, I just knew he’d marry that girl, it was the way he talked about her and the way his face changed when he talked about her. That hurt just as much as what he did in that minibus. This was also the same night I found out he’d lied about his age and he was in fact 9 years my senior and nearly 30, instead of mid 20’s like I thought he was. (He was 27 when we met when I was 18, rather than 22 like he said!)

There are so many other examples of him being disrespectful, cruel and cold but we’d be here all day.

Anyway, a couple of years went by, I’d graduated and got my first job. I was sat there in the office one afternoon and my phone beeped, it was a message from him. It said ‘were you ever in love with me?’ At first I wasn’t going to dignify it with a response, but I did message back saying as I was young and stupid I probably thought I was at one point, but it definitely wasn’t love. I stalked his FB profile for the first time in years and it was pretty much all public and I could see that he was getting married the following week (to that girl) wtf?!

Anyway, occasionally over the years when bored I’ve had a look at his social media and from his profile it is clear that he is absolutely besotted with his wife (who was that girl he spoke about that night) they both look sickingly in love, which is fine, but I wonder if she knows how her husband used to treat women?

I haven’t thought about any of this properly for years, but I’ve been doing some self reflection this week and am ashamed and embarrassed that I let a man treat me so badly. I had zero self respect so it’s hardly surprising he didn’t have any for me. I’m so angry at myself as I’m so much better than that. I’m pregnant with my first child and just found out it’s a girl. I guess I’m thinking I’d never want her to be involved with a man like him. I went to raise her to always know her worth.

So, after that REALLY long post, I am wondering this morning whether deep down, no matter how much he loves his wife, whether he is still probably an arsehole? Is it possible to treat women (because I can guarantee it wasn’t just me he was using for sex and being a dickhead to) so disrespectfully and yet be seemingly so respectful to another? Do people really change that much? I guess I could excuse all this if he was 18 too as when we’re young we all make mistakes, but knowing he was not far off 30 for most of it, he’d have known how disrespectful he was being?

Like I said, all of this was on my head I fully appreciate, someone can only treat you how you allow them to be treated and I allowed it, so I’m certainly not blameless. But IMO it doesn’t make the mark of a nice person and if I found out that DH, aged nearly 30, treated women like that, I think it would make me re-evaluate how I saw him.

No they cannot.

No. It takes self awareness as you need to acknowledge the abusive behaviour ,which most abusive people don't have the insight to do. Your pattern behaviourally is set in childhood. As an adult you model & repeat the kind of relationships you see growing up. For all you know,he has a long term mistress or regular flings. What people serve up to others as their public image is very often just a front.

Sure anything is possible people can change it it isn't totally impossible but isn't being with someone meant to work simply if it is meant to be? All that complication would not make it worth it to me

I used to wonder the same about my ex and his new gf. Surely he was still a cunt. But perhaps she didn’t think so? Or he was on his best behaviour? Or it was just me that he hated? I still don’t know the answers but I’ve stopped caring.

Honestly, what he puts on social media about his wife is more than likely him trying to convince himself and other people of how much he loves her.
I knew a man like this, constantly told everyone how much he loved his wife and how sweet she was, how he’d never cheat and yet he was actually a narcissist who did cheat on his wife with multiple women.

It’s usually the smitten social media couples who have the most issues IMO. Not all, but most.

I had a boyfriend once who was lovely to me, always supportive respectful and kind. I met his ex after we had been together about a year as she was a friend of a friend. She painted a completely different picture of him. When I asked the boyfriend he said it was all true, he didn't know why he had done it and was now ashamed. The relationship limped on for a few more months and although his behaviour didn't change towards me I couldn't trust him anymore if that makes sense. He went on to marry someone else. They have been together years but I don't know what their relationship is like.

Someone in their teens can be a different person by their late twenties I am sure, but I could not see someone in their thirties changing by the time they are 40, for example.

I cannot see the OPs ex boyfriend changing though.

No.

And that public profile is a performance. It doesn't reflect what happens behind closed doors.

I would say probably not. I was in a similar set up with an older man at a similar age. I have seen him around over the years and always think that whatever image he’s putting out to the world, he’s almost certainly still the shallow and cruel person he always was. Some things are just ingrained behaviour.

NC to reply as I'm a boring middle aged housewife now but I actually think people can and do change. Just taking myself as an example (I'm a woman, but don't see why it is different for men). When I was younger, I had two longish term relationships. Both the men were seriously lovely and I would have been very lucky to end up with either of them. But I was young and I was selfish, I cheated on them, I was mean to them, I lied to suit my own agenda. I ended both relationships as they didn't challenge me and I didn't care... Then I met my now husband, who is also a really lovely man, and I am so lucky to have found him, I probably didn't deserve to. I think the key is that I respect him, I clearly didn't with the others. As soon as we got together I was a different person. I thought I was in love with the others, but I wasn't really, couldn't have been. I adore my husband, have never lied to him, couldn't contemplate cheating on him, have never even looked at another man since we met, he is genuinely my everything. We have been together nearly twenty years. Without even knowing it, he has made me into a different person, for the better! Maybe your ex just found his person...

Of course he hasn't changed. He was looking for a shag from you that week before he was getting married, but you shut him down without realising it.

He's probably shagging other women right now, behind his wife's back. He sees women as objects to be shown off and used, she isn't a partner to him. She's a means to an end.

They might look sickeningly in love, but often, social media that goes OTT about a relationship is generally showing a false relationship that doesn't exist. What you are seeing very likely doesn't exist.

Block him, stop looking at his social media and feel sorry for his wife. She has no decent man there, and hopefully she will find out eventually, can divorce him and find a better man. Or rather, an actual man, since he isn't one.

I agree that if he had been 18 at the time it's kind of possible he could change, though I don't think he would become Mr Wonderful. Given he was so much older he's a twat for life.

I think that by your mid-late 20s your personality is pretty much 'set' but it may be that whatever he's gone through since then has made him reflect. He may have been badly treated and pulled his socks up but I have my doubts.

Social media is a fantasy that people put up to say 'look at us, aren't we lovely' and not to be taken seriously.

I think in theory people can change if they fully acknowledge what they did, and make a concerted effort e.g therapy.

However, that doesn't sound like it's the case for this man.

People on here are crazy - of course you can treat different people differently. No one on here has ever treated someone poorly? Really?! Come off it!
It's very likely that he treated you that way because it was convenient for him to treat you like that. He wanted sex and nothing more so treated you in a way to demonstrate that he wanted sex and nothing more. With the other woman, he wanted to be with her and so treated her like he wants to be with her. It's normal human behaviour to treat people that aligns with how we view them. It's unfortunate that he treated you poorly but many people have treated their ex partners poorly and become wonderful, caring, supportive partners to other people afterwards.
We aren't talking about whether people can stop a pattern of abuse here, you're asking whether a man who wanted sex from you could want more from someone else - that answer is obviously yes.

People can change but I think it's more likely that there are certain women he respects, but many more he doesn't. He probably saw you as purely a sexual partner and nothing else, and the fact that you went along with it for so long probably confirmed to him that you weren't worthy of his respect. Many mid-20s men have one or several student girlfriends as they are easier to "impress" - an 18 year old man is more immature than an 18 year old woman, after all.

Isn't the current situation best for everyone though? He's with a woman he respects and loves, and you're not with a man who purely sees you as his sexual plaything. It's best not to worry about it, and move on.

Going against the grain, I think its entirely possible that he treats his now wife better than he treated you for a number of reasons; a) he's older and wants to play the field less b) she may be tougher with him and have better boundaries in place (this is not victim blaming in any way but its very clear from what you've said that he didn't respect you).

But underneath it all he clearly has quite a dim view of women and this will colour how he approaches all his relationships.

Hasn't he already cheated on her with you? He met her but slept with you?

Most people treat others in line with a. how they view them b. what they want from/with them c. the boundaries the other person sets.

It's quite likely that from the outset with this woman, she made it clear that she wasn't up for being a no strings a shag to be picked up and dropped at his convenience.

I treated most of my girlfriend's pretty badly. Right through my twenties, i certainly took every opportunity to cheat, just for the thrill and variety of it. I've been happily married for 14 years now, with kids. I don't recognize my former self, but I can spot that behaviour in other men a mile off. I often find being a husband and father difficult, but I would never cheat, or leave. Even if I wanted to. It's about being of good character for me now, having self respect, and knowing that although times can be hard, if you work at it, they get better. I couldn't cheat now, whatever opportunity presented itself, and while we have our rows, I adore my missis. I think I've changed beyond recognition. It took honesty, a change in intent, and a desire to be different though.

I think there’s no big personality shift that necessarily has to happen. There’s no blame on your part, but he didn’t respect you, you didn’t challenge him, and he just wanted sex from you. Can he then meet someone he respects, challenges him, and he wants to marry? Of course.

You sound like you’re better off out of the situation, but having purely sexual encounters, compared to having a relationship with someone is worlds apart. I don’t think you can compare them, personally

People CAN change, but only if they want to, and it can take a lot of work

You were young, he was a jerk. I think you'd be best to chalk it up to experience, stop looking at his FB profile and move on

I treated a previous boyfriend quite poorly, because he let me.

I think it becomes a game sometimes, if you don't find someone interesting enough to want to treat them well but they are useful to you in some way. For this guy, you were useful for sex or an ego boost but he didn't respect or like you enough to want to treat you well.

Did he make it plain to outsiders when he was mistreating you?

If not, he's probably not going to make it plain to outsiders when he's mistreating anybody. Abusers get away with horrific stuff because they can manipulate their victims into silence.

Why are you even concerning yourself about him though? It's time to move on, isn't it?

Sorry, to expand on what I meant about a game - he showed that picture in the car on purpose to upset you, that is obviously a horrible and abnormal thing to do. He wanted to see what your reaction would be. That's what I meant by a game.