Picture this: you get into a relationship with a man, enjoy the honeymoon phase, then he starts to treat you badly. You can’t share this with anyone, not even with your friends. Instead, you overexaggerate his bare minimum and finally, when the relationship ends, you start revealing to your friends all the horrible things he did to you.

If this sounds too familiar, you are not alone, as this is a common experience for many women. It’s a phenomenon that I have seen happen both in real life and in online spaces. In a viral post on X, @AreyouHilaryB talked about how her female friends often spoke about how amazing their male partners are, but when the relationship ended, they started revealing how he truly was. A good number of women agreed with her.