People can turn on a dime, I’ve seen it happen. It’s especially infuriating because a lot of these men’s friends will only know the good version of them and refuse to believe they’re capable of being dicks.
It’s not just good acting, it’s that some men genuinely aren’t capable of treating a partner like a person and not a thing. So they can be nice to people they consider people, or to partners who are behaving they way they deem is correct. But the second you’re dating and something doesn’t fit their narrative of how things should play out, the claws come out.
My estranged mother in law, she’s all self sacrificing nice mom until you’ve made her mad, and then the mask comes off, her voice goes cold and she looks at you with emotionless shark eyes (though it was via phone, but I could imagine it). Happened the last time I talked to her and it was exactly like my wife described it
Oh jeez yeah, I’m not saying your mil has borderline personality disorder, but that’s a thing with people who do. They put you on a pedestal and hurt themselves to give you what they think you might want, right up until you fail to properly play the role they’ve assigned you. And as you say, the eyes go cold, they get angry, and they lash out hard.
As someone who struggles maintaining her own boundaries (working on it in therapy), I have far too much experience with this.
People with narcissistic personality disorder can do something similar.
People with untreated narcissistic and borderline are really good at using emotion to override certain types of people’s knowing better.
People can turn on a dime, I’ve seen it happen. It’s especially infuriating because a lot of these men’s friends will only know the good version of them and refuse to believe they’re capable of being dicks.
It’s not just good acting, it’s that some men genuinely aren’t capable of treating a partner like a person and not a thing. So they can be nice to people they consider people, or to partners who are behaving they way they deem is correct. But the second you’re dating and something doesn’t fit their narrative of how things should play out, the claws come out.
My estranged mother in law, she’s all self sacrificing nice mom until you’ve made her mad, and then the mask comes off, her voice goes cold and she looks at you with emotionless shark eyes (though it was via phone, but I could imagine it). Happened the last time I talked to her and it was exactly like my wife described it
Oh jeez yeah, I’m not saying your mil has borderline personality disorder, but that’s a thing with people who do. They put you on a pedestal and hurt themselves to give you what they think you might want, right up until you fail to properly play the role they’ve assigned you. And as you say, the eyes go cold, they get angry, and they lash out hard.
As someone who struggles maintaining her own boundaries (working on it in therapy), I have far too much experience with this.
People with narcissistic personality disorder can do something similar.
People with untreated narcissistic and borderline are really good at using emotion to override certain types of people’s knowing better.
Yeah its like it doesn’t bother him when he first starts talking and dating but will suddenly switch as soon as he feels insecure.