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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

Was your ex unrecognisqble by the end?

33 replies

BlastedPimples · 08/06/2024 23:14

I am often struck that I simply do not know my stbxh at all and I find it frightening that I have to deal with this person for co-parenting.

We meet in 2001. Married in 2004. In 2013, he stated to change. Had hysterics a lot and I later found out an affair.

From 2015-2019, he was ok again but never quite the same. Relatively normal. Then absolutely went off piste from 2019 onwards. Screaming abuse, at least three affairs that I have since found about and he pissed away hundreds of thousands of pounds from the sale of our house. We split in Jan 2023 after he was violent. And I found out about his extensive adultery.

I just do not know who he is. The person I married is long dead. I am just amazed at the extent of the change. Or maybe the very slow revealing of his true character. I am afraid of him.

I mean, people say why did you marry him if he was abusive but my stbxh showed nothing of this. Nothing. Was attentive. Kind. Generous. Overly so perhaps.

Anyone experience this type of transformation throughout a long marriage?

OP posts:
Ofcourseshecan · 09/06/2024 00:10

Sorry you’ve had such a bad time, OP. He’s been abusing and undermining you for years and you must be feel totally confused as well as exhausted. I hope someone with relevant experience can answer your question, and I hope this is the start of much happier times for you and DC.

mathanxiety · 09/06/2024 00:58

Yes, and I'm still unraveling the tangled effects of his abuse.

Go and get help - therapy to recover from narcissistic abuse might help you.

There's a series on YouTube by a Dr Ramani that might also help.

TheShellBeach · 09/06/2024 01:05

Yes, after we split up, I couldn't recognise my ex.
That was in 1997 and he's got worse and worse.

Luckily, I got married again so I didn't have to deal with him.

Original poster
BlastedPimples · 09/06/2024 06:28

I just think, "Who the hell are you?" every time I have to see or speak with him.

It's so strange when we were married for so long. Although his decline happened slowly over then years and the last five were really alarming.

He is on his second gf since we split and my dcs say she's savvy, no nonsense etc. Just like I used to be.....being savvy and no nonsense is often meaningless when faced with such behavours over time. It's definitely boiling frog syndrome.

I don't think I will ever recover tbh.

OP posts:
PivotPivotmakingmargaritas · 09/06/2024 06:33

I think mine is exactly the same it’s just my eyes started to open and see how much of a freeloading cocklodger he was/is.

I grew up he stayed a co-dependent man child …

He thinks I changed in which I constantly said yes I became a mum and grew up and realised watching tv and drinking my weekends away isn’t my life anymore

I feel for my DD that she still has to deal with his laziness ( I do too but not day to day )

… oops sorry for the long message guess I had to vent

Octavia64 · 09/06/2024 06:34

Yes.

We were married for twenty years.

Got Married pretty much straight after uni and had kids (he really wanted a family and pushed hard for it I wasn't bothered).

Fifteen years later he never spent any time with his kids, when he did he was just horrible to them. Regularly drank and lied about how much he was drinking etc.

People change.

Donkeysdontdance · 09/06/2024 06:39

Yes I feel I loved the boy he was as we met aged 22. Hated the man he became

SoSo99 · 09/06/2024 07:30

I often wonder about this very question when reading about some of the awful husbands on MN: why marry such an awful character? I imagine that there is some degree of wishful thinking going on, and focusing on someone's positive attributes, not their negative ones. Or a pregnancy. But I think a lot of people can hide their true character which slowly emerges over the years.

Original poster
BlastedPimples · 09/06/2024 07:40

Oh my stbx definitely hide his true character or he just declined over the years. He of course blames his behaviour on me. All my fault.

OP posts:
PTSDBarbiegirl · 09/06/2024 07:44

Yes but it was always there I just didn't want to see it. As responsibility increased so did abuse. I'd distance or at least minimise lengths of time he is responsible for dc as he doesn't sound stable.

ErinAoife · 09/06/2024 07:48

BlastedPimples · 09/06/2024 07:40

Oh my stbx definitely hide his true character or he just declined over the years. He of course blames his behaviour on me. All my fault.

Exactly like yourself. I think when you are in love you don't notice the sign.

Sparklfairy · 09/06/2024 07:56

SoSo99 · 09/06/2024 07:30

I often wonder about this very question when reading about some of the awful husbands on MN: why marry such an awful character? I imagine that there is some degree of wishful thinking going on, and focusing on someone's positive attributes, not their negative ones. Or a pregnancy. But I think a lot of people can hide their true character which slowly emerges over the years.

I think women especially are conditioned to make allowances for poor behaviour. Dismiss it as a temporary blip (he must be stressed with work) or 'nobody's perfect, we all have our flaws' etc. Their boundaries get moved which then means they accommodate more and more shitty treatment, and then 'unacceptable LTB behaviour' becomes something relatively extreme. You see it here all the time, 'My DP does these 712 really shitty things but I don't want to leave because he's never hit me.'

Purplecatshopaholic · 09/06/2024 08:05

God, this happened to me too. Married over twenty years. He turned into someone I didn’t recognise. I have concluded he was masking over many years and things started to slip over time. The person I loved never really existed. Sadly the lying cheating abusive loser does. I’ve been divorced for 5 years now and happily in a new relationship but I’ll never get over how he treated me I don’t think.

Oblomov24 · 09/06/2024 08:06

This is of course true, and all our skills at reading people are amiss.
But also people change. I'm not the same person at 50 as I was at 15.

Highlighta · 09/06/2024 08:14

Oh yes OP, I say this all the time. Divorced now and I have no clue how this man is thst I used to be married to and spent most of my adult life with. (married over 20 years).

I think it's mirroring. He is just become the same as the last ow he ending up with after multiple affairs. I could not even have a conversation with him now.
We have absolutely nothing in common. His life is all about how hungover he is, what a great party, look how flash my car is. Just very very different from the person I met as a teenager and 'grew up' with. But this is what the ow is like, so yeah.

LoveRules · 09/06/2024 08:17

Same here. 20 years of watching him become more and more angry and hateful towards our kids. We had a lovely life but he was always dissatisfied.
My problem is that I did chuck him after 6 months when we were 25, moves away, got a fantastically paid job, bought a beautiful flat. No internet or mobile phones then so we were completely out of touch then randomly he bumped into one of my friends and demanded my contact details. He drove through the night to see me and never left. He was so much worse mentally than two years before but as I'd not met anyone I clicked with as much let him jobless to move in then got married and had children.
I regret giving my kids such a shit dad but I do not regret having kids and may not have done if I hadn't got back together with him but they all suffer poor mental health due to his abandonment and anger in their early teens so I have to work hard on reconciling my decisions and not blaming myself. I've been a great mum.

poshfrock · 09/06/2024 08:20

I am going through this right now. Married for over 20 years and he has become a stranger almost overnight. Obviously there is another woman. He says and does such hurtful things now. He was never this person. But it does make the decision to divorce much easier.

Highlighta · 09/06/2024 08:21

SoSo99 · 09/06/2024 07:30

I often wonder about this very question when reading about some of the awful husbands on MN: why marry such an awful character? I imagine that there is some degree of wishful thinking going on, and focusing on someone's positive attributes, not their negative ones. Or a pregnancy. But I think a lot of people can hide their true character which slowly emerges over the years.

The thing is that they aren't awful characters at the time. They were being the person you wanted them to be, and liked.

Same as how some people are able to move on so quick. They morph into the lifestyle that the new partner lives and things seem all perfect. For a while. As at some point things will change again.

daisychain01 · 09/06/2024 08:26

I think women especially are conditioned to make allowances for poor behaviour.

I don't ever remember being told to make allowances for poor behaviour any more than my male sibling was. My long-suffering DH is tremendously tolerant of my quirks, foibles and peculiarities, as I am of his. It's one of his endearing features which neutralise things about him that annoy me intensely. Tthe checks and balances even out, we both say nobody else would ever put up with us, so we're doing society a big favour by taking us out of circulation,

in general terms, everyone has potential to be insufferable and annoying, it's what makes us humans. It's the degree to which our worst features, whatever they may be, are cancelled out by the good that we bring the relationship. And the degree that, on learning from the other that xyz thing that we do is causing pain or insult, we make supreme efforts to mitigate, to stop doing x and start doing y, because we own our behaviour and want to make our relationship work. Being emotionally intelligent in a relationship is a great asset, we can course-correct if we so choose.

Any ex is an ex because they have no desire or motivation to course-correct, and/or they don't give a shit how the other feels, then the balance is so negatively skewed and their behaviours so extreme that the other person decides Up with this I will not put and the daily grind is just too exhausting.

Highlighta · 09/06/2024 08:26

poshfrock · 09/06/2024 08:20

I am going through this right now. Married for over 20 years and he has become a stranger almost overnight. Obviously there is another woman. He says and does such hurtful things now. He was never this person. But it does make the decision to divorce much easier.

I'm so sorry. It sounds very much the same situation as I was in.

He isn't ever going back to being that person you loved and liked. I tried that, it doesn't happen. Sad but true.

Brushmyteeth · 09/06/2024 08:31

It is what narcissists do - love-bombing
Then devaluation
Discard

Can take years to happen then their true characters emerge

Purplecatshopaholic · 09/06/2024 08:34

Brushmyteeth · 09/06/2024 08:31

It is what narcissists do - love-bombing
Then devaluation
Discard

Can take years to happen then their true characters emerge

Exactly that. And it’s devastating

Original poster
BlastedPimples · 09/06/2024 08:43

Well, you say they discard.

I said my stbxh I wanted a divorce a few times.

He always persuaded me - usually citing the dcs' stability - not to.

Even when he had assaulted me, had been found out with another gf with whom he'd been planning to holiday with, he still suggested that we stay married. That his ideal was to be happily married to me. I was 😮. And refused.

He never wanted to let me go and even with another gf, I think he is desperate to retain control of me. It's awful.

OP posts:
poshfrock · 09/06/2024 08:47

Yes the love bombing and then abandoning really resonates. He did that for years and from what I gather he is doing it to his new love interest too ( we're still sharing a house unfortunately so I know far more than I want). He's just so unpleasant now.

Coffeeandanap · 09/06/2024 08:55

Yes I have this too, together 19 years but a complete change of person for the final 18 months & more so since we separated 2 years ago.
It’s like looking at a different person. I watched some of my wedding video back last night (Facebook memories) and it didn’t hurt because its like watching a video of a past version of me with a completely different man to the one who I now have to co-parent with.
It’s weird isn’t it, do you find yourself doubting yourself - questioning if it’s you who has changed, were they like that all along & just hid it incredibly well etc?

I found therapy really helpful for working through my thoughts & feelings on it. I have changed, but that doesn’t cancel out his complete personality and values transplant either.