"Just know that these men don't change, they just change tactics."

This.

But despite them changing their tactics, they are still pathological.

I think women looking to date men, should read material/books about narcissistic personality disorder, psychopathy, dark triad manipulation tactics and books like "The Gift of Fear". Porn is psychopathic, men's dating advice is also psychopathic, men are socially conditioned to be narcissistic as well. I'm not saying to go around diagnosing men with a personality disorder, but look for the signs. It doesn't matter if they're diagnosable or if they just imitate a narc or psychopath really well-- the end result for you is the same. They may do it on purpose or they may do it subconsciously, again it doesn't matter. Fuckboys, manosphere types, regular raggedy scrotes-- use dark triad tactics to manipulate and exploit women. They may change what they do and how they do it, but the psychological manipulation tactics are the same. And not in a sophisticated, genius narc or psychopath way. They are imbeciles and once you know how depraved their minds are, it's easy to read them.

The example OP wrote about in her post-- this is triangulation. Once you learn the terminology for things that were once making you feel crazy-- you'll learn you're not alone, that it's very common, to the point where books are written about it. Another thing-- if you have a policy of not being friends with exes, you're not going to get triangulated by an ex. It's really that simple.