Why would a man do this?

[AmeliaPondsBaby]

I am struggling a bit with moving on with the end of an LTR and wanted to know if anyone can answer me the big "why" over my ex's bizarre behavior so I can try and make peace with it.

Can anyone tell me why would a person would possibly behave like this.

He was not a looker but he was a fantastic boyfriend. Kind, sweet, devoted, loving, attentive, supportive and basically everything I ever wished for and more.

He asked me to move in with him and became the most amazing stepfather to my DCs - kind to them, volunteering for bedtime stories and all that and replacing their own father who sadly disappeared when they were babies. DCs absolutely love him.

He spent years with me in a very happy life where I would have rated the relationship as 10 out of 10 on the happiness scale and he was quite vocal in expressing that he felt the same. He proposed publicly at his parents house with a tearful affirmation of how I made him the happiest he had ever been and he wanted to grow old with me.

Never once did he voice any unhappiness, any dis-satisfaction, any issues at all with me. Nor did he infer them through a reduction of affection or attention. In fact all the way through everything he said or did confirmed the opposite.

Then, very suddenly, out of nowhere, he announced randomly and without any emotion that he'd decided he didn't love me any more and proceeded to turn into the most evil, hideous bastard on the face of the planet.

He moved out and within a week joined every dating site known to man, and while there wasn't another woman he certainly went to great effort to find one and rubbed it in my face.

To make it even worse he started a smear campaign of lies - telling people around us (who were as shocked as I was) that behind closed doors that I was "crazy" and horrible to live with and tearfully told them how he had endured it for so long because of my DCs and he was so convincing that he actually ending up with people feeling sorry for him instead of me!

It was like he wanted to inflict the maximum possible pain and suferring onto me that he could inflict. He seemed angry, viscous, nasty and generally...just evil.

This happened to me a few months ago, and I just really want to find some understanding of how a person can behave like this or why they would want to.

I know people can "fall out of love" and hide it with ease if they choose to - although I do struggle with quite how convincing he was, but what I can't fathom is the cruelty and abuse towards someone who has never done anything wrong to deserve it...are some people capable of pretending to be lovely and then turning incredibly evil? Are they capable of pretending for years?

He has no history of behavior like this. For a long time I thought he had a brain tumour. His behavior since doing this has been very odd.

He started to drink very heavily, seems to not sleep very much, spends all his time on filthy chat sites or playing video games, he tells lies that are quite magnificent, is extremely manipulative and cruel.

I can't really begin to explain how much this is the opposite of the person I lived with for several years. I can't say I ever saw him be even the slightest bit nasty to anyone before.

I've skimmed the thread and am puzzled over how you know about his behaviour if you are no longer together- and why you feel it's something you need to take on board.

I find it incredible that he had an injury where the top of his head came off and the hospital did no brain scan. They do scans for suspected strokes- both my parents had this- months after the actual stroke- to look for injury.

On a side note, I just told my missus that AmeliaPondsBaby referred to me as a 'divine intervention' last night.

My missus started laughing and said that 'A divine intervention would volunteer to do the washing up more'.

That's me told.

Just caught up on this thread.

Wow, is all I can say.

Sax I thought you were a woman. It was the other way round here. Dh did the washing up, I told him about this thread. We were generally talking about treatment in a&e, as we had a few issues ourselves which wrecked part of our holiday. Nothing as bad as OP's DP thankfully.

Pinkfrocks at the time he didn't lose consciousness and during examination he showed no signs of brain damage. I spent a lot of time reading about brain injuries today and it looks like they use something called the Glasgow Coma Scale to decide whether a scan is needed and according to that scale he would have been classified as low risk so probably why they felt it not necessary. The internet does say all over it that minor brain injuries are very hard to detect and may not develop or show up immediately.

I'm not 100% convinced this is what it is, but it is all a bit fishy, so I have spent the evening penning a letter to his Mum with print offs from the various websites on all this. Hopefully at the very least she will observe the coincidence and timing of it and will see it's worth checking into.

Saxtonier, that's funny! Go and do the washing up! :)

I am a woman. I'm with a woman.

The washing up is now done. I've been rewarded with a slice of cake. If I knew I'd get cake I'd always be washing up! :)

Do you need to lose consciousness to be given a scan when the top of your head bursts off- which is what you said happened?
Not sure how a layperson is supposed to see signs of a blood clot or damage when even drs can't- think of poor Natasha Richardson who died after a sking accident.
Terrible treatment- he ought to sue.

But something else that struck me was how his behaviour before the accident was a bit odd- proposing in front of people etc all seems a bit OTT (IMO) - almost as if he was putting on an act and doing what he thought people did or would impress.
Sounds more like a MH or personality disorder to me.

I agree pinkfrocks....at the time though I didn't know anything about this, I was shaking and shocked to death and the doctor seemed so unconcerned (as did DP) etc. I thought at the time if he had a problem it would be obvious. Didn't know about any of this sort of thing.

He wasn't an OTT person at all, he was very subdued in personality, quite quiet and gentle but he did propose in front of family, which I thought was sweet.

I remember I kept waking him up when he fell asleep because I was worried he was dead and I kept checking his ears and nose for blood or ooze. I was a nervous wreck. They gave me a leaflet and nowhere on it did it say watch out for long term personality changes.

I did :) about the washing up and cake thing, Sax!

Amelia - hope you're sleeping a bit better now, and I think it would be a very good idea to write it ALL down in a document, with a timeline, from the accident onwards, including treatment and lack thereof; and then send/take it to the GP yourself. The reason being that his mother might decide that the GP really doesn't need to know the "sex stuff", and as Sax has just said, that's really important for getting the whole picture (as, I believe, is the sudden abusiveness). So send it yourself with a cover note - then your GP has it, and it's up to them what they do with hit.
I think the cooler body is probably to do with the weight loss, but it could be thyroid related as well, which could also be related to the rest of the situation. Thyroid glands can pack up under extreme stress.

Although, having said that, of course a "packed up" thyroid gland would usually induce weight gain so what I really meant was a screwed up thyroid gland.

a neighbour's husband developed a brain tumour & had a total personality change because of it. He also became obsessed with porn. would look at porn even when his young teenage kids were in the room. seemed to have no awareness of boundaries etc. He & his wife split, it was awful for her, previously he was a loving, kind husband & father.

I feel for you op, what an awful thing you have been through. I hope you get some answers to help relieve some of the pain.

Massive head trauma can also cock up the pituitary & hypothalamus. They're tiny things deep in the middle of the brain but, if your trauma's so impressive it pops your brain out the top of your head, I'd guess there's a fair chance they'd get bent out of shape. They influence pretty well all of your hormonal activity - sex, appetite, daily rhythms, temperature, emotional responses; even stuff like sweating and bowel activity, nutritional functions ... well, you've been pregnant, you know how powerful hormones are! In short, do bring the low temperature and ALL other changes to medical attention. Has he had any rashes, for example?

I'm not an expert and am glad you're going to speak to some tomorrow. As the excellent saxtonier says, brain injury's well beyond most GPs' usual ambit and, tragically, often goes undiagnosed too long.

I admit to a degree of about Mr Perfect Goes Bad ... There are strong similarities between your story and some others I've known, which were definitely down to long-term, irretrievable personality defects / mental health issues, call them what you will - the effects on those who love them are just as devastating. Such a severe head trauma before all this started cannot be ignored, however. It could very well be life-threatening.

From the sheer horror of the accident to everything you've experienced since, you really have had a dreadful year Please don't underestimate your own need for health support. Once you've done all you can to get your ex/partner into safe hands, I think you can expect shock to set in. See your own GP.

Good luck for tomorrow.

Amelia, Saxtonier and NDT have made the diagnosis for you, please follow their advice. The usual way to damage the frontal lobe is a blow to the back of the head (Google contracoup). This sort of change, even the delay, is typical of frontal lobe damage. I am sorry you have such a miserable time

Sax I see. Cake makes all sorts of things happen here

Amelia, good luck for today.

Sorry, no, his brain didn't pop out of his head! His SCALP split...his skull was completely in tact!

I did write the letter yesterday and put all this information down but I think I need to rewrite it to make it more factual and less subjective and emotional. maybe just bullet points or a timeline. I'll try and do that today. I feel really quite on edge and anxious and woke up being sick with diarrhoea.

I'm really concerned if I mention this that it might be confirmed that there's something wrong with him and what that means if there is. I'm really concerned she's going to think I am mad and after having been accused of being mad by him I feel like maybe I am mad. I am really worried that telling her these things is attacking him and that this is disloyal. I'm really worried if I tell her and she tells him he will hate me even more and I might get more verbal abuse from him when he's only just started to leave me alone. I'm worried if I say all this stuff and then it turns out to not be the case that I will look like raving lunatic.

Him turning on me already made me question my sanity and I don't feel at all confident about anything.

I know I need to speak up and I will but this is really stressful.

I'm confused and haven't had time to read every page but- are you married to him?
If so, are you living together still?

No, and no. He left 3.5 months ago

so why are you taking this on as your responsibility?

I suppose it's not, but I was with him for almost 8 years which is a long time to love someone and he might need some sort of help.

It sounds to me some kind of mental breakdown. Sounds dreadful but I can understand why you want to get to the reason for this personality change.