I just want to add that many of the women that my A ended up going with for periods of time were made to sound just magically wonderful at first. One of them ended up being a ridiculously sick enabler who would drive him to and pick him up from the bar, stocked her fridge with vodka and waited for him, since he forbade her from going out with him. He used her and she is now so broken she literally runs if she sees him coming. He was abusive, but she did not know what that was at that time.
Another was just beautiful, physically, but ended up having serious borderline personality disorder. She stalked him relentlessly, until he had to cut off all contact from her. She moved away.
Another was his ex high school sweetie, who he always compared me to. She ended up calling me one day to compare notes and realized he lied to her at every turn, had made me a villain to her. She said he was abusive and terrible to her as well. It was such a revelation.
But to hear it from him, or his cronies, or just socially, all these girls were so much nicer than me, they understood him...
But I did not get these validations whe I obsessively needed them, they came after I let go.