Moar about women and relationships, because it's very xmassy.
There is this wisdom:
At the start of the relationship the woman hopes that the man will change. He will not. The man hopes the woman won't change. She will.

Some truth in it ofc. We know very little about the other when we meet. Our minds fill out the blank parts, which is quite a lot. We start out with many preconceptions and as we learn more about the other the "new" facts will confront with these fantasies, and oftentimes we'll rationalize that the other lied to us and/or changed.
Ofc there are pretense. Many fear they'd be judged harshly if the outside world knew the truth about them. They do to make themselves more acceptable. But men do too. I can't say if as frequently as women, less or more.
Heh, some people's only authentic characteristic is that they pretend.