This is what I call the "Re-writing of relationship history" phenomenon - It doesn't matter that she was sending the guy love notes and texts a month ago. She has been unhappy for a long time now and since she is driven by her emotional reasoning, in her mind, the guy is at fault and does not deserve love.

Lets look at it from a practical perspective, instead of seeing it through the lovey dovey goggles.

I think this is what can be explained as The Light-Switch Effect . And it happens when a woman is no longer attracted to you and is moving on, whether or not she cheated. In short, she is in love with the man until she is not, and once she is not, the guy never did anything for her and according to her emotional reasoning, the guy did something wrong. This is the reality constructed by her emotional reasoning, and her mind disregards the actual reality because she, just like all women, primarily use emotional reasoning. Interesting to see how the female would works, to be honest.

She, as a woman, is not just discrediting all the past good in the relationship, she actually believes it never existed, because that is the reality that she created via her emotional reasoning. For her, thats the actual reality, when the truth is it's not. Confusing? Let me expand on that a little, and tie it into what we call The Briffault's Law.

Women use their emotional state/emotional reasoning to define their version of reality to end up believing that as actual reality- we already know this.

When a man feels an emotion, he asks, "what could have caused this emotion? Is it reasonable? Am I wrong for feeling like this? I think i should fix it as maybe the problem is me, not her".

Exploring this line of reasoning and trying to fix it(specially in case of relationships) is how the man determines whether or not his feelings match objective reality. If the facts don't line up, perhaps his reaction was wrong. And even if they do line up, maybe still he needs to fix the issue as he is in love with that woman.

When a woman feels an emotion, she uses this as her objective reality. For her, her version of reality emerges from her feeling multiple emotions at the same time and her emotional reasoning creating a new reality based on her emotions at that particular situation. Then that becomes "her version of reality". Why would she feel betrayed unless somebody had betrayed her? Because she feels so. Why would she feel sad unless somebody or something made her sad? Because she feels so. It does not matter that its just her feelings and a fictional reality created by her mind, for her that is her objective reality, but as we know, its just a fictional reality and not the actual reality.

Therefore the decisions she makes based on her version of reality may seem like total nonsense to a man, leading to expected questions like "why did she do it to me?", "I can never understand how a woman can act like that/do that". The reaction of the normal daily guy is reasonable, as the guy does not think much about the why when it comes to female behavior.

The woman's version of reality looks like total nonsense to the average joe, because the woman has determined her version of reality based on the only prime truth she knows: her emotional state. If a woman is sad, she tells you "you made me sad". In her fictional mind(the creative cortex, to be precise), she didn't decide her emotional state, you did, which is her version of reality where you are at fault for everything. Changing women's own emotional state is something they dont like to do, because then they will have to face the actual reality and face responsibilities and consequences for their actions(theoretically, as practically women still dont face them). And as we all know, responsiblity and accountability are a a big NO for women.

So that means the emotional state she is experiencing creates a fictional reality in her mind where you've done something to create that state, intentionally or not. Since she is sad, you've made her sad. Her fictional reality states that you've done something wrong to make her sad. This is where a lot of arguments begin, because the man mistakenly will argue "you've taken what I said the wrong way, of course I didn't mean it that way," etc.

Why did I mention "mistake" when said about arguing to prove your point to a woman? Because, to her, it doesn't matter what is rational or reasonable. She already created her version of reality and made up her mind to accept that as her objective reality. According to that reality, she is sad and she wouldn't be sad if there wasn't a reason to be sad. Her sadness defined this reality for her. Her fictional reality further indicates that If the man hadn't done something worthy of her being sad about, she simply wouldn't be sad.

So back to the light-switch effect. Lets use an example to make things easier.

When you've dated a woman for multiple years/got into an LTR eventually, and things start going sour, you experience the revisionist history where she claims to have "never loved you" or that you were "always abusive." Yes, the always/never statements. And what they reflect isn't actually the real reality, rather, they reflect her new reality based on her emotional state which is defined by her emotional reasoning.

The thought process in a woman's mind/emotional state looks much like this:

If true love is permanent and real, and I am not feeling true love for this man anymore, but rather disdain and anger, then I must be feeling this way because of the man and his faults. He must have done something even tho he did not. I feel that he made me feel bad, so he cannot be good. And since this man makes me feel bad I could not have loved them, because I would never love somebody who makes me feel bad (the qualities he exhibits now must have been inherent qualities he has always had). So I must have never loved them. The entire relationship must have been a lie. Real true love would be permanent, and this is not permanent, so it was never real true love. So he is responsible for this because he never loved me and have not done anything for me at all. He was abusive and hence I dont love him anymore.

And just like that, her emotional state defines a new reality, where nothing was ever good and everything was based on a lie. Like a light-switch goes from on to off, everything that the man had built for that woman disappears into the off position, as though it had never existed.

Majority of married/men in relationships at this stage try to bargain. "After all we've been through together, how can you throw this away? We can still salvage this! Let me fix the relationship for you! Please dont go, I still love you woman!!"

And it's a pointless question and a pointless waste of time, energy and effort. What is she throwing away? Absolutely nothing, in her mind. In her fictional mind, there was no value in the relationship as the man is at fault for breaking it. Therefore there must not have been value in the relationship.

Briffault's law operates around this very principle:

The female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place.

Corollaries:

  1. Past benefit provided by the male does not provide for continued or future association.
  2. Any agreement where the male provides a current benefit in return for a promise of future association is null and void as soon as the male has provided the benefit (see corollary 1)
  3. A promise of future benefit has limited influence on current/future association, with the influence inversely proportionate to the length of time until the benefit will be given and directly proportionate to the degree to which the female trusts the male (which is not bloody likely).

Pay attention to corollary 1- past benefit does not provide for continued or future association.

The thing is : concepts of past benefit and continued association requires a consistent objective reality where a woman can look at the implicit contracts made in a relationship.

now, for the man, he thinks the relationship will be like this : "We'll love each other forever, we'll make it through thick and thin, I'll give you a place to live and provide for you, and you'll remember these sacrifices I made in the future when the chips are down."

In her mind, when the chips are actually down, her emotional state will define a new reality where past benefit doesn't just not count, but rather it simply doesn't exist at all. If her fictional reality included that the man's sacrifices and love were not genuine and real, hence he is to blame. She feels betrayed and its his fault, according to her emotional state. But she does feel unattracted to the man, so the reality where the man provided benefit must not be real. Her version of reality is "he must have lied, and there was never a true relationship at all. So he is to blame."

Now, as always, let me address the "mah wifey different"/"but good women are different" crowd. Her "goodness/badness" does not mean anything when it comes to natural behaviors and instincts which do not vary from women to women.

Courtesy of PrinceRaj53.