🦚Everyone thinks your ex is wonderful?

“He’s so kind to everyone.”

That’s what someone told me recently. She was trying to understand what was happening in her situation. Things weren’t progressing. Agreements got stuck. He broke promises, but always with a reasonable excuse. Nothing aggressive. Nothing she could point to.

He just came across as a really lovely person. To everyone. Except somehow, she was always the one scrambling, always the one feeling like she was overreacting, always the one running out of patience.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m crazy because I overreact when he breaks agreements, etc. I’m running out of patience with that. I feel like I’m the wrong one when he does that.”

In other words, her ex lets her down, time after time, and when he does, he manages to make her feel like she’s in the wrong.

If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not imagining things. And you’re definitely not crazy.

Trapped by confusion

A relationship, and even more so the post-separation period, is complicated when your ex keeps up a “kind” facade. Everyone sees how reasonable they are. How accommodating. How cooperative they’re trying to be (they probably don’t even need ChatGPT to make them sound reasonable because they’re so good at this). They keep up their mask with everyone, even those closest to them.

Meanwhile, you’re the one who looks bitter, angry, unable to “move on.” You’re the one who gets labeled as difficult, high-conflict, unable to co-parent effectively.

If you’re feeling confused, it’s no accident. It’s because of the deliberate tactics they deploy. They use kindness to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. Their manipulation is invisible to everyone except you. Even you have to really work hard to see it.

This is what happens when someone has cognitive empathy but lacks affective empathy. They know exactly what to say and do to look good. They just don’t actually feel anything for you or your children beyond how you serve their needs.

Cognitive empathy vs affective empathy

Cognitive empathy is being able to understand what someone else is thinking or feeling. It’s intellectual. You can figure out that someone is sad because they’re crying, or angry because they’re yelling. You know what response is “appropriate” in that moment.

Affective empathy is actually feeling those emotions with someone. It’s that gut-level response when you see someone in pain and you feel it too. It’s what makes you want to comfort a crying baby or reach out to a friend who's struggling. It’s also why, as I described in last week’s newsletter, you can’t bear to see your child suffering when their other parent lets them down.

People with narcissistic traits and those who are coercively controlling often have excellent cognitive empathy. They’re masters at reading people, at knowing exactly what to say to look good, at performing kindness. But affective empathy is where their wiring is disconnected.

They can see that you’re upset. They know the “right” response would be to apologize or change their behavior. They understand that breaking promises hurts your children. But they don't feel that pain. They don't experience genuine remorse. They don’t have that internal drive to actually fix the problem.

So instead, they perform the motions of kindness while continuing the same behavior patterns that caused the hurt in the first place.

How this plays out after separation

When you’re dealing with someone who lacks affective empathy, here's what it looks like:

They apologize beautifully. Their words are perfect. Their tone is sincere. But nothing changes. The same pattern repeats next week, next month, next time they want something.

They’re devastated when they get called out. They’ll cry, they’ll express shock that you’d think so poorly of them, they’ll act wounded. But watch closely. The devastation is about how they look, not about the harm they caused.

They’re wonderful to everyone else. Teachers, lawyers, mediators, family members all think they’re great. Because cognitive empathy is enough for surface-level interactions. It’s only in close relationships, where actual emotional connection matters, that the mask slips.

Things never quite get resolved. Agreements almost happen. Plans are made and then fall apart. Nothing is ever their fault, and yet somehow, nothing ever works out. You’re left holding the bag, managing the disappointment, absorbing the consequences.

You’re always the problem. Because when you react to the pattern, when you get frustrated or angry or try to set boundaries, they can point to your reaction as proof that you’re the difficult one.

This is the woman who told me “he’s too kind to everyone” She was living this exact dynamic. Reasonable excuses. Surface-level cooperation. Perfect politeness. And underneath it all, a complete disregard for how his actions impacted her or the children.

Why you feel crazy

You feel crazy because there's a massive disconnect between what you’re experiencing and what everyone else sees.

You experience broken promises disguised as unfortunate circumstances, manipulation masked as reasonable requests, emotional harm delivered with a smile, and systematic undermining that never leaves fingerprints. Meanwhile everyone else sees the other person trying their best, being cooperative, and being “nice” and “reasonable.” You’re perceived by everyone else as the difficult partner or ex.

This is gaslighting by proxy. Your ex doesn’t even have to do the work themselves. Everyone else does it for them by insisting that someone so “kind” couldn't possibly be manipulative.

But your nervous system knows something is wrong. Your gut has been screaming at you that this person isn’t safe, that their words don’t match their actions, that something is fundamentally broken in how they relate to you and your children. This is how you become aware that their kindness is just a facade, because it doesn’t gel with what you’re actually experiencing. You have to be really close to that person to come to that realization.

You’re picking up on the absence of genuine emotional connection, and you’re realizing that the “kindness” is all performance and no actual feeling.

Your body knows the difference between someone who feels remorse and someone who’s just saying the words. Between someone who’s actually trying to do better and someone who’s managing their image.

So, now what?

First, stop trying to make them care. They can’t care in the way you want them to. That capacity is simply not there. Trying to explain how their behavior hurts is pointless. They understand intellectually, they just don't feel it.

Second, stop defending yourself to people who only see the surface. You don’t need to convince everyone that your abusive partner or ex is manipulative. You just need to protect yourself and your children.

Document patterns, not incidents. One broken promise looks like a mistake. Ten broken promises show a pattern. Stop engaging with individual excuses and start tracking the bigger picture.

Stop expecting emotional connection. Treat interactions like business transactions. Clear, brief, informational. Don’t share your feelings or vulnerabilities. They can use cognitive empathy to figure out exactly what will hurt you. Don't give them ammunition.

Create systems that don’t rely on their goodwill. Get things in writing. Use court orders instead of verbal agreements. Have backup plans. Assume they won’t follow through and plan accordingly.

Trust your gut over other people’s opinions. Your nervous system has been trying to tell you something. Listen to it. The fact that everyone else thinks they’re wonderful doesn’t mean your experience is wrong.

Work with professionals who understand coercive control. Find a therapist, a coach, or a support group where people recognize that abuse doesn’t always look aggressive. Sometimes it looks kind. Sometimes it’s the nicest person in the room who’s doing the most damage.

Don’t waste your energy

The hardest truth about dealing with someone who lacks affective empathy is this: they will likely never see what they’ve done. They will genuinely believe they’re the good guy in this story. They’ll carry on being baffled by your “overreactions” and hurt by your “unfair” characterization of them.

You just waste your energy trying to get them to understand. The one who needs to understand things is you. You need to start really knowing what you’re actually dealing with so you can stop spinning your wheels trying to reach someone who can’t be reached.

You’re not crazy. You're dealing with someone whose kindness is a performance, not a feeling. And once you understand that, you can stop trying to make them care and start building a life where their lack of genuine empathy can’t keep hurting you.

Let’s talk

If you're stuck in this confusion where everyone thinks this person in your life is wonderful, but you know something is fundamentally wrong, I get it. I've been there.

Feel free to reach out for a 30-minute consultation, free of charge. You can get it all off your chest, and you'll walk away with clarity on what you're dealing with and your next steps, whether or not you decide to work with me going forward.

This conversation alone can be the first step toward trusting your gut again instead of second-guessing yourself.

Want to know more about what I do?

Resources

Abuse masked as “kindness” is often exhibited by people who have traits of covert narcissism. This resource, How to Identify and Deal with a Covert Narcissist, explains how someone with these traits operates and how to manage this type of personality. And here’s a whole webpage on covert narcissism, along with do’s and don’ts for people who have to deal with them.

This article describes how “kind” abusers use cognitive empathy in the same way as CIA interrogators.

On a personal note, I’m super jazzed to announce that I’ve just completed the sub-certification of High Conflict Divorce Coach for the CDC. This was an amazing course, and I recommend that any CDC coaches who subscribe to this newsletter take the course. It’s given me a ton of new tools and modalities to help my coaching clients and newsletter readers. (the expiry dates in there look weird, BTW, because they line up with the renewal for my general certification).