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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

When everyone thinks they are a nice guy

31 replies

Casperandme · 10/10/2018 11:11

Just looking for sympathy and others’ experiences I guess. How do you cope when someone has treated you quite badly over a period of time, yet everyone else seems to see them as “a nice guy”?

I’m really struggling with anger about this. We know lots of people in common but they don’t know the history and it seems so undignified to tell them. Has anyone else had this?

I’m so angry because I feel like I’ve lost a battle I didn’t want to fight in the first place and like I can’t say anything without seeming a bit bitter and unhinged.

OP posts:
Ohyesiam · 10/10/2018 11:13

You’re not still with him are you op?

Original poster
Casperandme · 10/10/2018 11:24

No I’m not - he went cold on me a couple of weeks ago. I was so love-bombed though I’m finding that it’s hit my self esteem quite hard, especially as we know people in common and he’s still universally described as being nice.

Which to be fair what I thought too until this happened

OP posts:
Original poster
Casperandme · 10/10/2018 11:25

In fact we were never together - I’m starting to realise that I’ve been strung along for some time by someone who is not nice at all

OP posts:
SpongeBobJudgeyPants · 10/10/2018 11:32

It happens sadly, and unfortunately a lot of people take people at face value. The lack of insight is annoying...surely its not hard to see things might well be different in a relationship with the supposed nice guy. You don't owe anyone an explanation, but if any questions are asked, IMO nothing wrong with saying something vague like 'People aren't always as they seem'. It's their problem if they lack the insight though, ultimately. IMO people get better at this as they get older.

twoshedsjackson · 10/10/2018 12:50

This is how you feel now; other people you know in common, don't know the history. It will be galling to bite your tongue, but unless he skips off to fresh fields, the repeating pattern will be noticed by other folk, who may even confide in you that they "have seen another side to Mr Nice Guy". SpongeBobJudgeyPants is spot on with the vague comments, "oh it wasn't really working" doesn't sound like a criticism of anybody, and time will tell.

Mustang27 · 10/10/2018 12:59

People still say this about my ex husband to me 😢😢.

No he was not a nice guy!!! Although 8yrs on I came to terms recently that it's not their fault that they don't see that. I actually took a long hard look at it and even now after all the things I have learnt I'd still fall for his charming facade again and again. It's amazing how good an actor some people are and I think I'm quite an intuitive person now thanks to the shit he put me through but if he stood before me now and I'd never met him before I'd still not see through the layers to the true twisted manipulative bastard at his core.

Mustang27 · 10/10/2018 13:01

Oh also like you I don't bother telling them otherwise what's the point and that's my private life I don't fancying sharing it with all to prove a point. To what gain 🤷🏻‍♀️.

mogratpineapple · 10/10/2018 14:39

Yes, my dad. He was charming, funny and generous. At home he beat my mother and brother, kept him in a room that had no glass in the window and said he could have no food (we sent stuff up to him via the glassless window.) Plus hosts of other abuse that no one knew about. When he died people were shocked that the rest of us weren't too upset. But he was such a lovely bloke...

MrsMaisel · 10/10/2018 14:56

My dad too. Utter prick. Utter utter prick. Threw me out of the house at 17 for disagreeing with him about whose fault date rape is ('women ask for it'). But everyone thinks he's a great guy.

adviceonthepox · 10/10/2018 16:02

In what way has he been not a nice guy? If he's done horrible things to you then of course let people know! Staying quiet about it isn't going to help you or anyone else.
You say he love bombed you but you weren't together? What exactly happened?

Hogglesballs · 10/10/2018 17:10

Had this myself op, everyone thinks the sun shines out of his arse yet he effed me over big time leaving me for someone whilst I was ill and owing me money. I don't want to go around telling everyone (did tell some close people) but he seems to be loving life and has no repercussions. Crap.

Yourarejokingme · 10/10/2018 17:22

I’ve had this with an ex too. Even my own mother loved him and thinking he could do no wrong and if I just nicer to him.

Terig · 10/10/2018 17:27

I had a very similar problem. My second husband appeared fine to everyone but the didn’t know he smoked a lot of dope every night and watched so much porn it was ridiculous. we Argued constantly but because it was my second marriage and we had a child together I really felt I couldn’t leave. I put up with such awful treatment. He use to go to London to play in a band two night a week on his motor bike and ( this is so sad) I use to pray he would come off his bike and not come home.
I finally left him when he went off to Amsterdam for a week , supposedly with work and when I got cross he was going he said I was nuts and had a fucking problem. I was told hundreds of times over our 7 year relationship that I had a “fucking problem”
Once we separated it took me a whole year to get over it. He was very good at being charming when he needed to be so I did consider taking him back on many occasions.
I finally found true love and found the strength to let go of it all.
I always told my son that we broke up because we argued to much. Years later he worked out for himself that his dad had a problem with drugs and found lots of porn on his dad’s computer.
It is strange how
Life works out. Please don’t stick around with someone that makes you sad

Lweji · 10/10/2018 17:29

It often takes knowing a person intimately to find out they are not nice, but quite the opposite.

I suspect that most of those "nice guy" classifications are from people who only know them superficially.

MrsTerryPratchett · 10/10/2018 17:32

I was married to a 'lovely to everyone else' man. He spent all his energy being nice to other people. They don't know him. I did.

Namechanger1404 · 10/10/2018 18:51

But when you’re not in agreement with them (other people) you’re a bitter scorned womanHmm

Original poster
Casperandme · 10/10/2018 21:08

Glad others understand. It wasn’t bad per se but it’s felt a little like the idealise devalue discard cycle I’ve read about on here but a cycle that happened more than once each time leaving me feeling lost and confused

OP posts:
Original poster
Casperandme · 10/10/2018 21:10

Thank you for the posts especially terig - glad you found happiness in the end

OP posts:
lololove · 10/10/2018 21:15

People say this all the time about my grandfather outside of our immediate family.

To the outside world he was a wonderful man. To those who know the real him he is a thief, bully, woman beater with some serious personal issues too. My cousin started crying this week as she heard from my mum what he was truly like as she only knew the basics from her mum (my grandmas sister) and her experience of him.

You have the last laugh... whatever people think of him - you are free of him and you're not wasting a moment longer on an utter waste of space!

Millieboohoo · 11/10/2018 09:59

I can totally relate. I was strung along, love-bombed with constant texts and then when things got tough, told it was all in my head and he only ever wanted to be friends. Probably because he’d started doing the same with someone else. I’ve been through every possible emotion. We have lots of friends in common and they all think he’s a nice guy. I wish I could tell them otherwise - but for various reasons I can’t. My advice is to learn from it and move on.

Original poster
Casperandme · 11/10/2018 19:52

Millie that’s not too different than me and because there was never any commitment or anything he’s said he was just being nice and normal, it’s just me who has gotten the wrong end of the stick. Although I know what it was but he’s rewriting history so quickly I feel a little crazy now. How did you cope?

OP posts:
zobo90 · 11/10/2018 20:03

This is me atm OP. My family love my ex of 8 years. They fight his corner always. They don't know how abusive he was. It's so difficult!!! You're not alone!

Millieboohoo · 11/10/2018 20:06

Maybe it’s the same man! I know enough about him to know that he’s formed “friendships” with other women before. I’ve tried to work out what happened between us, but with no real explanation from him I have to conclude that he’s a user and a manipulator. He was always very cryptic and would never give a straight answer. We still text occasionally “as friends”. I cope by walking, running and basically trying not to analyse it, but I feel angry with myself for allowing it to happen and for being naive and gullible. I also believe that one day he’ll come unstuck.

SnoogyWoo · 12/10/2018 07:11

How come you never got together? Did he want to but you didn’t?

Hideandgo · 12/10/2018 07:15

I had this with my ex but I used to just answer ‘well he was a compulsive liar who was cheating on me too and had started getting physically abusive so no, not as nice as people think’.

I always felt that as it was the truth I had no responsibility to keep it ‘behind closed doors’ for his sake. People get away with shit like that because other people keep their secrets.