People married to jerks end up kind of jerks themselves

[Anonymous]

Have you seen this happen? I believe this happened to my parents. My dad’s a jerk and over the years, my mom’s comments have sounded like they’re coming out of his mouth. I have another friend whose husband is insensitive and I think how she copes is thinking that it’s just normal and romantic loving marriages don’t exist - so her advice is always super practical and I don’t think she expects any kind of tenderness anymore.

[Anonymous]

Bump

[Anonymous]

Someone on this board called it “catching fleas” and that is what it is. DH was nasty and irritable, I became nasty and irritable to cope, everyone was mean. Now things are better.

[Anonymous]

YES. The formerly meek and kind husband of my nastiest acquaintance is now a jerk and an aggressive driver just like her.

[Anonymous]

OP - What do you think causes this? The meanness is just normalized? Or the nice one gets bitter/lonely/jealous of others?

[Anonymous]

Hurt people hurt people.

Fear leads to answer, anger leads to hate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone on this board called it “catching fleas” and that is what it is. DH was nasty and irritable, I became nasty and irritable to cope, everyone was mean. Now things are better.

How did that improve?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone on this board called it “catching fleas” and that is what it is. DH was nasty and irritable, I became nasty and irritable to cope, everyone was mean. Now things are better.

How did that improve?

Lots of therapy and marriage counseling.
.

[Anonymous]

I was actually just thinking about this with regards to a friend of mine who I've always adored, but she's married to a hyper competitive, judgmental, tactless, jerk, and it's started to rub off on her, which sucks.

Interestingly in their situation, her personality seemed unaffected by his for years, until they became parents. Now they have to kids and that's where a lot of his worst behavior gets channeled -- he's the kind of person who constantly compares children to each other, will bad mouth kids and their parents from the school community (clearly out of jealousy or insecurity, hard to say), and is just generally really toxic. I would never have expected my friend to behave that way too, but in the last couple years I've heard her say some nasty, gossipy stuff about other parents, or just really judgmental things about kids. It's very sad to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - What do you think causes this? The meanness is just normalized? Or the nice one gets bitter/lonely/jealous of others?

DP. I think it's both, and I also think that spending a lot of time with someone who is very negative and nasty likely means that you absorb a lot of that negativity. Even if they aren't mean directly to you, they surely spew their nastiness and negativity around you more than anyone else. I think about how when my DH (who is not a jerk at all but has bad days like anyone else) is in a really bad mood, I sometimes have to consciously remove myself from his presence to keep it from affecting me. Or draw a clear boundary where I'll listen to him complain about work but will then gently change the subject to something more pleasant after a bit because I don't want to focus on something so negative for more than an hour or so.

But if your spouse is like that all the time, every day, I think it's probably hard to get away from and eventually changes your outlook.

[Anonymous]

Its a thing, some people become overly submissive and others similarly aggressive.

[Anonymous]

Couples absolutely rub off on each other. My childhood friend married a douche who is super competitive, superficial and mean, and she’s become competitive and has no empathy for anyone!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Couples absolutely rub off on each other. My childhood friend married a douche who is super competitive, superficial and mean, and she’s become competitive and has no empathy for anyone!

Sometimes I wonder if maybe those behaviors were there under the surface all along. Because why would someone be attracted to someone who is super competitive, superficial, and mean, if they don't share those traits to some degree? Like I date men like that before I got married and never made it more than a few dates before I realized they were just not for me. That's about how long it took for those traits to emerge.

So when friends of mine have ended up with men like that, part of me wonders it some part of them was always like that, but they are just skilled at covering it up and acting nice on the surface. And then when they start behaving like their spouse, it's really their true self coming out.

I used to have a colleague who was very nasty and mean and she told me once that she always kind of likes it when she meets someone who is a bit of a jerk because she thinks "ah, a kindred spirit." It actually explained a lot to me about certain dynamics I've encountered, both at work and socially. Misery definitely loves company.

[Anonymous]

People change a lot when they get married. A LOT. It’s ALL about self interest and the more money the worse it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Couples absolutely rub off on each other. My childhood friend married a douche who is super competitive, superficial and mean, and she’s become competitive and has no empathy for anyone!

Sometimes I wonder if maybe those behaviors were there under the surface all along. Because why would someone be attracted to someone who is super competitive, superficial, and mean, if they don't share those traits to some degree? Like I date men like that before I got married and never made it more than a few dates before I realized they were just not for me. That's about how long it took for those traits to emerge.

So when friends of mine have ended up with men like that, part of me wonders it some part of them was always like that, but they are just skilled at covering it up and acting nice on the surface. And then when they start behaving like their spouse, it's really their true self coming out.

I used to have a colleague who was very nasty and mean and she told me once that she always kind of likes it when she meets someone who is a bit of a jerk because she thinks "ah, a kindred spirit." It actually explained a lot to me about certain dynamics I've encountered, both at work and socially. Misery definitely loves company.

OP - I don’t think the nice ones start off like that. During courtship, the nice one is probably wooed/naive to it. In my friend’s case, she’s not nasty but just losing some empathy. I think she views me complaining about my now-exDH as whiny when she puts up with her DH. I chose to leave and have since seen how good a partner can be, and I think it’s easier for her to pretend it doesn’t exist. And maybe it doesn’t exist for her, if she wants to stay in her current marriage.