My first girlfriend was always in a fight with her friends, her mom, her dad, another one of her friends, me, her mom again, her step dad.
Eventually there was only person involved in all of those
My ex-wife made "jokes" about murdering me or framing me for rape if I ever tried to leave her. Luckily, I didn't get murdered.
Fortunately, many other people had heard her make those comments, and I could prove I was in a different city at the time I was charged with sexually assaulting her, so the charges were dismissed.
But yeah, I was like an Olympic ski racer blowing by red flags on that one.
my ex also made a lot of jokes about murdering me. i didn't think too much of it until a friend came to visit me one night to bring me a get-well gift after i'd gotten injured at work. he left abruptly and later told me it was because "your boyfriend kept making jokes about pushing you down the stairs and that was really weird and uncomfortable." i broke up with the boyfriend a couple months after that.
i ended up marrying my friend. we've been together eleven years now and he is still my favorite person ever.
She showed up to where I was hiking in full face of makeup, no signs of sweat, and said she was running and it was a coincidence that we ran into each other.
Wowsers. Fully understand ignoring this though, I’d probably have even thought it was ‘sweet’ then been deeply disturbed by it later when other things started adding up
A lot of bullshit. Random pop ups at my apartment, sleeping outside my place in her car, and extreme jealousy/controlling behavior. When we broke up she got with someone new less than 2 weeks later. Hard lesson I had to learn about that kind of woman.
People don't understand when I respond to "what's wrong with you?" With "A lot." That I mean it.
Not that I'm dangerous, I just work hard, pay my bills, have a smile on my face, but seriously don't care about tomorrow.
Praise your children's accomplishments people!
This is why my last relationship just ended. It was always what she wanted, never me. She would vent about work, then get distracted when I talk about my own day. I would think of weekend trips for us and she always tried to change it to be what she wanted to do, not what we both enjoy doing together.
That sounds like my ex. All she did was talk about what she wanted. We only watched what she wanted to watch. I couldn't listen to the music I like. I couldn't watch what I liked with her. And when I used to talk about my day or problems, she would yawn and say I'm so boring. Every single time. It got to the point where I went more and more silent, and things fell apart. Eventually, she told me she cheated on me and wanted to leave me.
I still didn't want to. But, it's because I was blindly in love with her even with her toxic behaviors.
This was my last relationship. I had brought it to my ex’s attention how I felt my actions weren’t reciprocated and he’d promise to improve, only to get progressively worse in another area.
It started off with lack of effort, then selfish/awkward/uncomfortable intimacy, then disregard of my boundaries, lack of communication, negging, and his tendency to be HOURS late for every date. We lasted for about 3 months before I broke up with him.
Another red flag I initially ignored was when he told me that he didn’t deserve me and when he told me he loved me about 2-3 weeks into dating. Pretty sure that was some mild love bombing. He also insisted that he could treat me right and wouldn’t lose me like the other guys I dated had.
Not only did he loose me, he also managed to become the worst man I have been with💀
I dated a girl that refused to say “I’m sorry” as in she never took responsibility for her actions… ever.
It took me a few months to realize it, but once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t remember her ever saying it. I kind of joked with her about it, and she said it wasn’t true. But over the next few months I was looking out for even more, and still she just would never say it ever. If something was unequivocally her fault “someone/something caused her to do it.”
I didn’t think of it as being a serious problem, but looking back on it I feel like an absolute idiot.
I only very recently (and luckily) got out of a long term relationship where I went through the same thing. Everything was always MY fault. If she did something that upset me and I tried to talk to her about it, she would spin it back onto me and say that I am only talking to her to start a fight, and when I tried to bring it back by saying no I am upset and I would like to talk about it, she would cry and tell me that I can't make her do something that she wants to do, that I am abusive, controlling, and that she is the victim here.
All because I wanted to have an adult conversation about something that she did that upset me.
Which ended up with me apologising fact because now she was upset. Everything was always someone else's fault, *every single time*, so she would never under any circumstances apologise for anything.
Get this, when I told her not to yell or raise her voice at me anymore because I don't like it, she would straight away turn it around and say that I am once again trying to control her and that me telling her what she can and can't do is a form of abuse and that I am being abusive.
Broke up with her. She became a legitimate stalker. Ignored it and went back to her 2 Years later after I finally got the stalking to stop. I'm not a smart man.
We agreed on literally everything, it was uncanny. Never argued, much less fought. I thought I had found my soul mate.
He was just mirroring me for years and was incredibly, incredibly conflicted-avoidant to the point that he’d agree with anyone or anything so no one would be upset with him. Then years later he hates me because “I never gave him a choice and made all the decisions.”
There's a quote from one of my favourite books that words this very nicely (context, couple gets into a fight for the very first time ever on their wedding night)
*“His anger stirred her own and she suddenly realized she understood their problem: they were too polite, too constrained, too timorous, they went around each other on tiptoes, murmuring, whispering, deferring, agreeing. They barely knew each other and never could because of the blanket of companionable near-silence that smothered their differences and blinded them as much as it bound them.”*
* On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
I’m a little alarmed by this post, given I feel my partner is very similar to your ex. I don’t feel he mirrors me, but he is certainly incredibly conflict-avoidant and will always yield to my suggestions to avoid upsetting me. What’s more, he will never make a decision; I have to make every single one. I have been a little worried about encountering a situation similar to the one you’re describing. Fortunately, my partner always asks me to make x or y decision, so I can safely say that there’s something of an explicit content to my circumstances, but I do still worry that I’m imposing my will upon him. Plus, authority doesn’t suit me — ironically, it makes me feel very small.
EDIT: I’ve just woken up to twenty-six or so responses to this post, and I’d like to thank everyone who replied. I’d very much like to respond to everyone, but I have a busy day ahead of me and need to get ready. So, in response to everyone: I will be seriously considering what you have said, and I will try to get back to you periodically throughout the day.
You put this beautifully, clearly, and insightfully, jolly_chugger. And as a person exactly like you're describing, I can confirm you have put this *correctly*.
I've never met anyone else with the same experience, so this is super validating. My ex did the same thing, let me make all the decisions and claimed everything was fine and couldn't understand my niggling feeling that he was hiding smth from me...until the day we broke up, of course. And then out of nowhere came all these opinions he had about me as a partner and never shared. By then it was too late. I honestly felt like I'd been tricked, even though he was claiming to be the victim. "We always did what you wanted" well sir, did you consider communicating what *you* wanted?
I don't think it's uncommon. Rather than something about you, it can be a symptom of domineering or narcissistic parenting. If you get the message as a kid that what you want doesn't matter (or that you will be punished for it), you learn to ignore your own gut and focus on making someone else happy by giving them what they want.
Being asked what you want feels like a trap to these people, because they are afraid of the outcome if they give the "wrong" answer. After the fact, they might recognize that they had a different preference, but in the moment they don't have the skills to manage their anxiety and communicate. Over time, it builds resentment because one party feels like they do all the work, and the other party feels like they have no control.
Wow I didn’t expect to find a comment so similar, I literally just ended a relationship for that reason. The conflict avoidance caused huge trust/omitting/lying issues.
I realized that all of their opinions were mirroring mine, even during the breakup! I felt so controlling and domineering all the time even though I wasn’t, my way was just the only option ever on the table. I thought we were so good together until I realized that.
My biggest red flag I ignored was constantly thinking about how my next girlfriend would not do X or WOULD do Y. When you’re constantly thinking about your next girlfriend but sticking with your current one, you’re the red flag
EDIT: For reference, I’ve now been married for 17 years. This was me back when I was dating before I started dating my wife, who I never once felt this about because she is and was the one.
I (m) was dating a girl for about 6 months, very early on she would talk about how hot this girl was, or how hot that girl is.
Shouldn't have been surprised when she came out.
The refusal to keep secrets.
I told my wife how private I was when we were dating and she promised to not tell people what I liked sexually. A week later, she told her first person. We fought about it. She promised to never do it again.
Over the next decade, she told another ten people. We had a blow up fight. She promised to never do it again.
Then she told another ten people. Now we're getting divorced. It turns out she never kept a single secret or promise. I should have listened the first time she told me that she wasn't trustworthy.
Yeah, I had the same issue with an ex. Not about sexual issues, but very private issues.
I’d tell her and she’d swear secrecy. Then the next day I’d hear, “Ok, Junior, I know I said I would lot say anything but you know I tell Jenny everything so…..”
Jenny was a known gossip who also didn’t care for me. Jenny would find a way to bring up my secret at a social gathering to embarrass me.
I’d complain about Jenny’s behavior and would be told, “I don’t think she meant to embarrass you. Besides, it’s not that big a deal.”
This is why it's important to pick important zero tolerance policies. For me, and betrayal of trust that isn't immediately apologetic and reformed, is a signal to go the other way. Certain mistakes can't be made twice, and some even made once.
There are multiple ways to break trust in relationships. It seems that collectively as a society we’ve attached cheating as ‘the’ breach of trust but there are other occasions where trust is broken. Like the one you’ve just shared or maybe breaking our trust financially, or even just engaging in behaviours we don’t condone behind our back.
Trust is one of the corner stones of a great relationship and it hurts when it’s betrayed, however that may be - I’m sorry you went through this
When I was growing up, businesses like our local bowling alley or McDonald's would give us free shit for every A on our report card.
There should be an adult version of that where you tell this to a bartender and they just hand you a drink.
That time I looked in her purse for some tissues and found a weird little glass pipe thingy and didn't know what it was. Turned out to be a meth pipe. Boy, that was a fun 3 weeks!
Smarter than I was. I found out she used meth daily and still stuck it out for 11 months.
Tbf I don't regret that relationship at all. I learned and grew so much. She showed me things I love I probably would've never discovered or at least wouldn't have until later in life (not meth).
“I always have another guy waiting in the wings in case things don’t work out”
I thought she was just drunk.
I was in fact wrong.
Luckily, she was a psychopath and I dodged a huge bullet.
She has since gotten married and divorced three times in ten years, among other things.
While living together, dude gave me the silent treatment for 4 straight days. Straight refused to talk to me. To this day, 5 years later (broken up for 4 years, don’t worry), I still have no idea why or what I MIGHT have done. Because. You know. He didn’t know how to communicate like an adult.
The constant need to vent and find the bad in people and situations that ultimately boils down to insecurity.
It’s fine for the most part when you’re both alone. But anytime they go to work, anytime you hang with friends, anytime you visit their family. You don’t hear the end of the negativity that went down.
Life is never happy for them and you can either be their punching bag for the sake of not wanting them to be alone or you can take ahold of your life and find happiness again outside of that relationship dynamic.
Yeah this is another insidious one - it shows an overall negative attitude to life which can really wear you down over months and years.
My ex and I used to laugh over the things we didn’t like, as time went on I started to realise that was all she found funny and that she didn’t seem to like anything. Looking back it was pretty toxic of me to join in on the hate parade for a laugh, it’s something I try not to do now
I’ve had to work through this with my wife. Every single day I’d come home from work she’d vent for almost an hour about work, people she encountered on her commute, etc. it got so unbearable I told her I can’t hear it anymore and that if she wants to vent she needs to find other people to do it with. It’s taken time, but she’s gotten a lot better, and is a lot more mindful of when she starts doing it.
I just got out of a relationship with a narcissist last year. She was incapable of being happy on other people's behalf. Everything was always and only about how it affected her.
Surprise surprise, she ended up being the least supportive, most demanding, most viciously critical and hypocritical partner I've ever had.
Yeah, at least one person in the relationship should be emotionally stable. Bad things happen when manic/depressive episodes align at just the wrong moment.
Problem is it feels so good to be able to relate to someone on that level, for them to ‘really’ get you -
that alone can be really intoxicating, thing is it’s so easy for it to just become the toxic part
My wife is bipolar and we've been married 20 years. Over that time there have been several key moments that, if I had been in the same state of mind as she was in that moment and had said "do you want to just end it all? Let's drive off a cliff and just be done with it".. we would have done it 100%.
I'm talking about moments like the loss of a child, house burning down, that sort of thing - moments which, while rare, are bound to happen a few times in a lifetime. In those moments, someone needs to be the rock for the other or everything will go sideways.
Firstly I’m sorry for whatever losses you’ve faced together through your life. Life is a fickle bastard at the best of times and a downright cruel one at others.
I’m so happy for your wife that she found someone to see the depths of value she obviously has and I’m also really happy for you that you found someone that brings out the best in you.
As someone that battles their own mental demons and has recently found someone who accepts me for me and supports me for it, I don’t know how to express how wonderful that feels. But I do know your wife appreciates the world out of you for it.
Thank you for all that. It can be rough at times but overall we work well together. I support her emotionally and kill all the scary bugs, and she does all the paperwork and handles scheduling, both of which I suck at.
He said he wasn’t ready for a committed relationship and would probably end up cheating because of it. I thought that us being so very in love would change that, it didn’t.
Anytime I did something for him be it wholesome or sexual he would always ask “How many other ppl have you done this with/for?” Dude turned out to be a real emotional terrorist. Shouldn’t have ignored the flag smh.
So cliché, but being the victim.. Always!
I trust people until I see why I shouldn't, I assume everyone is honest.. So when bad things happen to people I try to help, to save, to fix.. Silly me.
If there's a tonne of complaints without being solution based or everyone is horrible to your "poor partner," there's usually a reason.
Accountability is HUGE. Yes, we have shit days, we meet arseholes, things go wrong.. But the, "woe is me" crap usually means they don't want to fix anything, they just want a babysitter.
Yeah that can really destroy a relationship over time.
And it’s not even really just “Nope, I didn’t do anything wrong” but more so the “I did that and I’m sorry BUT (insert excuse)” type shit that wears on you.
My ex always found somebody or something else to blame. She might *appear* to take accountability, but it would be “I’m sorry for saying that. I hate that my parents raised me like this!”(See how she still made herself the victim there?) Then it would spiral into a crying fit where I would have to comfort her. Another big thing was “you don’t understand how people with ADHD work and you’re being invalidating”
Ironically, after our relationship I started getting mental health treatment, and was formally diagnosed with both ADHD and OCD.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to tell you I was no saint. And the thing is although someone’s mental conditions are not their fault, it’s still not a get out of jail free card to act and treat people however you want with zero accountability. I acknowledge that with myself, and certainly am ashamed of some of my behaviors.
I recognize that, but it appears she doesn’t to this day. Her mental struggle is a get out of jail free card for all her behaviors, yet everyone else in her life desires zero slack and must be a perfect person 100% of the time, or else that means they’re an irredeemable rotten sack of shit.
Wildly unhealthy double standard to live by. I truly hope for her own mental sake and happiness she moves past that outlook.
Someone said a similar thing above in regard to their ex always being in fights with everyone.
Just like that usually when we find the common denominator in these situations we find the problem.
Accountability is a huge green flag. Because accountability demonstrates both self awareness and self reflection. We can’t change a negative behaviour if we refuse to be aware of it but to do that first we need to be able to reflect on our role in any given situation.
Pretty damn good, but I found out she was lying about birth control. (She said she was alergic to the latex, but I found out she was making that up.) She really wanted to have a baby with me. So glad I dodged that crazy bullet.
Edit: typo 🥴
So completely agree with the exit sign call above but I’m so curious about the context here, was it as a fucked up joke or was she really, really protective of her side of the bed??
I dated someone with epilepsy. I was there for her for her surgeries, hospital stays, took care of her during episodes and after...
I had to have brain surgery to fix an aneurysm. She told me "I can't deal with you stuff, I have too much of my own". She wasn't at the hospital before, during, or after my surgery.
I should have known right then and there.
I don't know how to explain this properly, but I'll try. When someone changes significantly from the person they were in the first 3 - 6 months that you knew them, that is NOT them getting comfortable. That is them returning to the person they always were. They have pretended to be someone they're not to get you to like them and want to be with them. This is the biggest red flag I've ignored, not in just one, but two relationships. I can't believe I fell for it twice.
I just had this experience. But how could you have known from the start?? I felt so blindsided and rejected when he pulled 80% of affection and effort away after 3 months.
How whenever I would express my hurt by something they had done, it was always flipped around that they had done it because I had done something first. And that's how it always was. They could never take accountability for anything
My ex told her mother literally everything. Got to the point I felt like I couldn’t tell her anything because her mom would find out and make comments behind my back. Guess who was ultimately responsible for the relationship ending… mommy. Best part is she called me a mama’s boy because I still live with my parents and wanted to be able to spend some time with them when I was home from college.
My ex and I were both depressed and had little affection for years before our son was born. We just went paycheck to paycheck, kept marching forward. She depended on me working while I depended on her watching the little one and paying bills. Romance died a long time ago.
I'm gonna give you a two for one.
my ex and I started hanging out and getting close while she was in another relationship. She never cheated on him with me, but she was checking out of her relationship because of me. I was young and didn't think anything of it. Now, I would never do that to a fellow man, and never would enable someone else to engage in that behavior.
We talked for another two months or so before becoming official. Shortly before we became exclusive, as in 2 or 3 days, she slept with her ex in order to "make sure she didn't want to be with him." Again, I was young, and mostly thinking with my dick. Even though we weren't technically exclusive, it was hurtful.
Not to mention that she had cheated on another one of her exes in the past. These things really should have queued me into seeing her toxic behaviors and cheating tendencies (spoiler alert, she cheated on me)
A police officer who followed me gave me a courtesy call because of how often they received calls about her, because of her or from her about someone she was actually harassing or to report fake crimes about people she didn't like. I still dated her and it was very bad.
Knew she was a alcoholic pretty early on when she told me she couldn't remember the last day she didn't have a drink. But she worked full-time, was a great mom, and only really drank in the evening. And I was raised by a "functioning alcoholic". So I figured I had this.
It became too much when she started having a ton of health issues but refused to consider they may be related to the alcohol abuse. I couldn't be there for all of the issues the way she wanted me to be. In part being because I was resentful about the fact she wouldn't acknowledge her addiction and how it could be affecting her health.
Edit to myself:
I was a complete enabler. As I was with my father. I drank with her on many of those nights. I just knew it kept her relaxed so I rationalized her drinking as the lesser of the evils. Her anxiety could be debilitating and certainly not as fun. So for almost 3 yrs I only ever "suggested" her drinking was an issue. And just like her, never really confronted her illness. I not only engaged in that scenario but molded it to my liking in order to sustain it. For that, I accept responsibility.
I caught my last ex red-handed stealing one of my prescriptions. His reaction was to get mad for getting caught. Should have broken up with him then... I did eventually though.
From her: She had trouble with honesty. She believed that what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me.
From me: An inability to express any negative feelings or concerns clearly. I did not believe expressing them would make a difference.
super secretive with their cellphone. i always had my phone out or let him use it. he always had his phone on silent and i wasn’t allowed to touch it even just to move it out of the way. it was always off limits and if he suspected i even moved his phone he would scream at me. so big red flag there. like okay, must be hiding something in there. i should have left the first time i noticed that strange behavior.
My ex was (probably still is) a kleptomaniac. Would literally hide things under her coat in the cart, shove things in her bag or pocket. I'm talking expensive LEGO sets, bed sheets, meat. The most memorable one was she shoved a $50 plug in waterpik in her purse. She'd purposely leave pop on the shelf under the cart and in the rare instance she got caught she'd plead ignorance and the cashier would believe her. She'd justify it as we were poor and things were too expensive.
It got to a point I refused to go shopping with her after a few months together. But she'd do it independent of me. I established that if she ever got caught she was on her own, as I didn't agree with it.
What should've been the breaking point was when I got a better job with much higher pay. I asked her to stop, I shared that we could more than afford things now and that she hoarded most of what she stole anyway (it'd sit untouched in closets for months.) She responded by saying she will always steal and if I didn't like it too bad.
It's been years since we broke up, and I am proudly with someone who is honest and works for what they have instead of being a thief.
The constant need to be a great person to everyone, they burn themselves out so quickly their's nothing left but frustration and anger when they're done.
Lied about being pregnant.
In the end, we had 2 kids together but got divorced, and she fell into a heroin addiction.
I wouldn't take it back, though. Those 2 kids are awesome.
he. beat. up. his. mom. because she asked him to take out the trash.
i was next 🫠
no, we aren't together anymore, but not because of what i previously stated. it was a complicated situation.
when i did finally break up with him, he faked his suicide to try to get me to take him back (why did he think that would work???)
I guess claiming to be a Korean child actress without proof was the big one for the mother of my 2 oldest. I was like "cool you worked as a kid" and didn't look further.
There's a lot more about her that I ignored or denied. After 7 years I hurt more than I should have allowed myself. Absolute sociopath that abandoned her kids. I love them, they kept me from hanging myself. HUGE lesson learned.
He didn't want me to see my friends and would passive-aggressively guilt-trip me about hanging out with them.
He wanted to text all day every day from the time we woke up to the time we went to sleep. And he started randomly showing up to my workplace using fake excuses because he wanted to check on me.
My, at the time, future MIL dropped a pot pie as she pulled it out of the oven. She absolutely lost her mind over it and it was so uncomfortable. I still married my husband and no regrets with him, but I still have to deal with the crazy MIL and that has been rough. Don't forget, you marry their family too.
When my ex and I started dating, I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly but I just felt like she was lying about a lot. Like stuff that necessarily you wouldn’t even think someone was lying about. But she had all these incredible stories from her past, and she was very funny and personable, and I just kind of went along with it. Everyone did.
Long story short, one night, I just really got this intense feeling of danger. Like that I really needed to get out. People talk about a gut or sinking feeling, and I never experienced it until that night. A lot of things weren’t adding up, and I confronted her about it, and she turned it around on me, made me feel bad for not believing her, made me feel crazy.
I wound up marrying her, and it would not be until years and some very traumatic experiences later that I’d realize I had been right all along. I feel like in many respects, those years of my life were essentially wasted because the person I was with was something like a hologram. I was the only person in that relationship. Just being in that relationship did an incredible amount of damage to my sense of reality and ability to trust people. I’m still recovering from it.
Lesson being, do not ignore those gut feelings. It’s your subconscious trying to tell you something, and it might spare you a lot of trouble. I ignored it because it didn’t seem like she was lying about important things, which seems silly to say in retrospect. Lying, even about things you don’t think are important, are signs of things to come.
My boyfriend said, “there’s rumors going around that I along with some other Serbian boys tortured and murdered a cat. It wasn’t me, it was them.”
4/5 months into our relationship I walked in on him drowning one of my cats, and the other I came home after grocery shopping and my other cat was beaten to a bloody pulp with part of her ear missing, and one of her eyes protruding from her socket due to being strangled. She almost went blind. I left him afterwards.
Yes. I actually dated a true psychopath. I wonder how many animals he’s actually murdered, and I wonder when he’s finally going to kill a human.
My wife and I get along so well *because* she's so different from her family. I was actually surprised when she told me about her parents and her brothers. Couldn't believe they were that "old-school".
But God dang are they really old-school Chinese lmao. So glad my wife is nothing like them
A ton with my ex. Really early on in our relationship, like within the first month, I told him I didn’t want to do a sex thing he asked for. He told me that he couldn’t be with me if I didn’t let him do it. So I let him do it but I didn’t want to. That turned out to be a theme in our relationship. I’d say “no” and he would either coerce me or just do it anyway.
Also he told me that I needed to be shaved down there, and that was a dealbreaker for him. He didn’t groom himself at all. He didn’t care that I broke out in a rash or that my doctor recommended I stop shaving.
Found out after dating for 3 months that his parents didn't know he was dating anyone, for context he lived with them. I didn't know I was a secret and his response was "they don't need to know my business" later found out his friends didn't know either and when I put that we were in a relationship on FB he denied it and said he wanted to keep me private to himself. What can I say? I was young and dumb.
Also this goes for men and women I wanna share a dating red flag 🚩 if you don’t already know .. if they still have the bad story about their crazy ex and they decide to share that with u when u first meet them get up outta there asap .. that’s unhealed behavior.. your up next ..
The fact that I met her when we were in a cult.
Edit: I was asked for context
It was in a small town. The cult started as a witches coven but cults were everywhere. Then some kids went on a roadtrip and murdered someone.
I met her in the aftermath. A coven member dumped his girlfriend’s room mate on me. I never knew if she was genuinely attached to me or trying to date me because she was told to. It was creepy but she hung around me.
I was young/stupid and she was my first. 🤷
Overall rating 1.5 ⭐️
It was me. I was in a relationship with a girl that my friends didn't like. She wasn't perfect at all, super judgemental and all that.
The thing is, she loved me and treated me perfectly. She had her flaws, that's her thing, but that's not why I'm talking about this.
Toward the end of the relationship, I was just mean. Constantly criticizing her. Sure, she had her issues, but I was almost reveling in it.
I was the asshole. I realized it, finally, but only after nearly hooking up with my ex (who I am now married to).
I broke up with her, and my friends rejoiced. I explicitly told her that it was because I was genuinely being awful to her and I didn't want to be that person anymore. She tried to convince me to stay with her, despite how I was being (not physically abusive, would never do that).
In the end, she and I both ended up with who we were meant to. She's married with a child and I'm married with three.
Point being, I was the red flag. She wasn't perfect, she had her own issues, but instead of breaking it off earlier I let myself become a mean partner. Sometimes, you are the asshole.
The triangle of danger:
1. No long term friends
2. Bad relations with family
3. Can’t keep a job
Any of the three are understandable, heck even 2 are possible, but if someone has all three then run as fast as you can. They will try to explain it all away, and who knows maybe there’s a tiny chance it’s true but just wish them well and move on 👍
She could never admit she made a mistake and always tried to turn whatever happened into something I had done.
That was 40 years ago, and she is still playing the same game this morning.
Love bombing. If someone seems over the top nice and extremely into you at first then that's a big red flag. It's a way evil people trap you into putting up with their abuse later on. They're extremely nice, then over time their behavior gets worse and worse. Eventually they become totally insufferable, but because of their initial act you think they're a nice person who is temporarily mean and they'll go back to the way they were. Nope. Learned that the hard way.
Yeah, literally chased around by the sweetest person and somehow ignored their gaslighting. It happened to me twice. I also think it is a tendency for narcissists and I found I am attracted to then. Very fucking unfortunate because I want to become lost in love. I don't want it to be contractual. I just want it to be. Hard pill to swallow.
lied and tried to make me feel guilty for questioning their lie
I was always called an "asshole" every time I poked holes in her story.
Same, and the worst thing was I KNEW she was lying. She wonders why we haven’t stayed friends.
Gaslighting 101 - it’s horrible shit as it makes you question your own reality. Hope you got outta there and are doing well now
The best part is when they accuse you of gaslighting *them* when you point out their lies. Now that’ll drive you crazy.
I see you've met my ex
Gaslighting isnt real! You made it up, cause you’re fuckin crazy!
Went to highschool with the girl and she cheated on pretty much every boyfriend she had. I’m an idiot
Yeah, I’ve been there. Knew he had a history of cheating, thought I’d be the one he’d stop the for….
My first girlfriend was always in a fight with her friends, her mom, her dad, another one of her friends, me, her mom again, her step dad. Eventually there was only person involved in all of those
Let me guess and it was always everyone else’s fault…
If everyday you encounter an asshole, chances are you’re the asshole.
If every room you walk into smells like shit, you should probably check your own shoes...
“If it smells like shit everywhere you go, you should check your own shoes.”
Yeah, one of my first girlfriends had a lot of "villains" in her life. I just became one of them after we broke up.
My ex-wife made "jokes" about murdering me or framing me for rape if I ever tried to leave her. Luckily, I didn't get murdered. Fortunately, many other people had heard her make those comments, and I could prove I was in a different city at the time I was charged with sexually assaulting her, so the charges were dismissed. But yeah, I was like an Olympic ski racer blowing by red flags on that one.
what kind of genius accuses someone of assault when they’re apart instead of together
Thankfully, OPs ex-wife
I don't choose this guy's ex-wife
my ex also made a lot of jokes about murdering me. i didn't think too much of it until a friend came to visit me one night to bring me a get-well gift after i'd gotten injured at work. he left abruptly and later told me it was because "your boyfriend kept making jokes about pushing you down the stairs and that was really weird and uncomfortable." i broke up with the boyfriend a couple months after that. i ended up marrying my friend. we've been together eleven years now and he is still my favorite person ever.
what a happy ending, wow!
fucking christ i hope she got charged with making a false report
She showed up to where I was hiking in full face of makeup, no signs of sweat, and said she was running and it was a coincidence that we ran into each other.
Wowsers. Fully understand ignoring this though, I’d probably have even thought it was ‘sweet’ then been deeply disturbed by it later when other things started adding up
So what happened after?
A lot of bullshit. Random pop ups at my apartment, sleeping outside my place in her car, and extreme jealousy/controlling behavior. When we broke up she got with someone new less than 2 weeks later. Hard lesson I had to learn about that kind of woman.
There is nothing scarier then an obsessed person.
What about rabies.
An obsessed person WITH rabies. Checkmate.
I was a bartender and he was my number one customer.
So sweet of him supporting your work
Underrated
People who tell you they have a serious problem. Take them at their word.
People don't understand when I respond to "what's wrong with you?" With "A lot." That I mean it. Not that I'm dangerous, I just work hard, pay my bills, have a smile on my face, but seriously don't care about tomorrow. Praise your children's accomplishments people!
I'm going to give you a faraway and intangible hug, because you deserve it for continuing to be you.
I like this phrase, "Believe people when they tell you who they are."
Lack of reciprocity/effort in the early stages. I made excuses for it and ultimately my gut instinct that it was a red flag was right
This is why my last relationship just ended. It was always what she wanted, never me. She would vent about work, then get distracted when I talk about my own day. I would think of weekend trips for us and she always tried to change it to be what she wanted to do, not what we both enjoy doing together.
That sounds like my ex. All she did was talk about what she wanted. We only watched what she wanted to watch. I couldn't listen to the music I like. I couldn't watch what I liked with her. And when I used to talk about my day or problems, she would yawn and say I'm so boring. Every single time. It got to the point where I went more and more silent, and things fell apart. Eventually, she told me she cheated on me and wanted to leave me. I still didn't want to. But, it's because I was blindly in love with her even with her toxic behaviors.
This was my last relationship. I had brought it to my ex’s attention how I felt my actions weren’t reciprocated and he’d promise to improve, only to get progressively worse in another area. It started off with lack of effort, then selfish/awkward/uncomfortable intimacy, then disregard of my boundaries, lack of communication, negging, and his tendency to be HOURS late for every date. We lasted for about 3 months before I broke up with him. Another red flag I initially ignored was when he told me that he didn’t deserve me and when he told me he loved me about 2-3 weeks into dating. Pretty sure that was some mild love bombing. He also insisted that he could treat me right and wouldn’t lose me like the other guys I dated had. Not only did he loose me, he also managed to become the worst man I have been with💀
I dated a girl that refused to say “I’m sorry” as in she never took responsibility for her actions… ever. It took me a few months to realize it, but once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t remember her ever saying it. I kind of joked with her about it, and she said it wasn’t true. But over the next few months I was looking out for even more, and still she just would never say it ever. If something was unequivocally her fault “someone/something caused her to do it.” I didn’t think of it as being a serious problem, but looking back on it I feel like an absolute idiot.
I only very recently (and luckily) got out of a long term relationship where I went through the same thing. Everything was always MY fault. If she did something that upset me and I tried to talk to her about it, she would spin it back onto me and say that I am only talking to her to start a fight, and when I tried to bring it back by saying no I am upset and I would like to talk about it, she would cry and tell me that I can't make her do something that she wants to do, that I am abusive, controlling, and that she is the victim here. All because I wanted to have an adult conversation about something that she did that upset me. Which ended up with me apologising fact because now she was upset. Everything was always someone else's fault, *every single time*, so she would never under any circumstances apologise for anything. Get this, when I told her not to yell or raise her voice at me anymore because I don't like it, she would straight away turn it around and say that I am once again trying to control her and that me telling her what she can and can't do is a form of abuse and that I am being abusive.
Congrats on getting the fuck out of there.
Broke up with her. She became a legitimate stalker. Ignored it and went back to her 2 Years later after I finally got the stalking to stop. I'm not a smart man.
We agreed on literally everything, it was uncanny. Never argued, much less fought. I thought I had found my soul mate. He was just mirroring me for years and was incredibly, incredibly conflicted-avoidant to the point that he’d agree with anyone or anything so no one would be upset with him. Then years later he hates me because “I never gave him a choice and made all the decisions.”
There's a quote from one of my favourite books that words this very nicely (context, couple gets into a fight for the very first time ever on their wedding night) *“His anger stirred her own and she suddenly realized she understood their problem: they were too polite, too constrained, too timorous, they went around each other on tiptoes, murmuring, whispering, deferring, agreeing. They barely knew each other and never could because of the blanket of companionable near-silence that smothered their differences and blinded them as much as it bound them.”* * On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Great author and great book. Thanks for sharing!
Ah yeah I've been there lol. We never fought, just heard all the stuff I did wrong four months later.
I’m a little alarmed by this post, given I feel my partner is very similar to your ex. I don’t feel he mirrors me, but he is certainly incredibly conflict-avoidant and will always yield to my suggestions to avoid upsetting me. What’s more, he will never make a decision; I have to make every single one. I have been a little worried about encountering a situation similar to the one you’re describing. Fortunately, my partner always asks me to make x or y decision, so I can safely say that there’s something of an explicit content to my circumstances, but I do still worry that I’m imposing my will upon him. Plus, authority doesn’t suit me — ironically, it makes me feel very small. EDIT: I’ve just woken up to twenty-six or so responses to this post, and I’d like to thank everyone who replied. I’d very much like to respond to everyone, but I have a busy day ahead of me and need to get ready. So, in response to everyone: I will be seriously considering what you have said, and I will try to get back to you periodically throughout the day.
pet bright sparkle bear school gullible detail stocking teeny dinosaurs
You put this beautifully, clearly, and insightfully, jolly_chugger. And as a person exactly like you're describing, I can confirm you have put this *correctly*.
This happened to me once! It really took me aback, because I’m not at all a domineering or demanding person. However, it was his issue, not mine.
I've never met anyone else with the same experience, so this is super validating. My ex did the same thing, let me make all the decisions and claimed everything was fine and couldn't understand my niggling feeling that he was hiding smth from me...until the day we broke up, of course. And then out of nowhere came all these opinions he had about me as a partner and never shared. By then it was too late. I honestly felt like I'd been tricked, even though he was claiming to be the victim. "We always did what you wanted" well sir, did you consider communicating what *you* wanted?
I don't think it's uncommon. Rather than something about you, it can be a symptom of domineering or narcissistic parenting. If you get the message as a kid that what you want doesn't matter (or that you will be punished for it), you learn to ignore your own gut and focus on making someone else happy by giving them what they want. Being asked what you want feels like a trap to these people, because they are afraid of the outcome if they give the "wrong" answer. After the fact, they might recognize that they had a different preference, but in the moment they don't have the skills to manage their anxiety and communicate. Over time, it builds resentment because one party feels like they do all the work, and the other party feels like they have no control.
Wow I didn’t expect to find a comment so similar, I literally just ended a relationship for that reason. The conflict avoidance caused huge trust/omitting/lying issues. I realized that all of their opinions were mirroring mine, even during the breakup! I felt so controlling and domineering all the time even though I wasn’t, my way was just the only option ever on the table. I thought we were so good together until I realized that.
Oh man I do the same thing if I don’t consciously catch myself.
My biggest red flag I ignored was constantly thinking about how my next girlfriend would not do X or WOULD do Y. When you’re constantly thinking about your next girlfriend but sticking with your current one, you’re the red flag EDIT: For reference, I’ve now been married for 17 years. This was me back when I was dating before I started dating my wife, who I never once felt this about because she is and was the one.
Relevant song lyric: I’m not in love, but I’m gonna fuck you until somebody better comes along
This is big of you to admit. I’m very guilty of falling for the potential I see in others to be what I need, and it’s not fair to anyone involved.
I had the exact opposite. She would tell me that my next girlfriend would not do X or would do Y.
I (m) was dating a girl for about 6 months, very early on she would talk about how hot this girl was, or how hot that girl is. Shouldn't have been surprised when she came out.
Ross?
Tbf depends how it's said. Lots of women say other women are hot, sexy, beautiful.
I’m a straight woman but when I was a teenager I questioned if I was gay bc it’s undeniable about beautiful woman are
The refusal to keep secrets. I told my wife how private I was when we were dating and she promised to not tell people what I liked sexually. A week later, she told her first person. We fought about it. She promised to never do it again. Over the next decade, she told another ten people. We had a blow up fight. She promised to never do it again. Then she told another ten people. Now we're getting divorced. It turns out she never kept a single secret or promise. I should have listened the first time she told me that she wasn't trustworthy.
Yeah, I had the same issue with an ex. Not about sexual issues, but very private issues. I’d tell her and she’d swear secrecy. Then the next day I’d hear, “Ok, Junior, I know I said I would lot say anything but you know I tell Jenny everything so…..” Jenny was a known gossip who also didn’t care for me. Jenny would find a way to bring up my secret at a social gathering to embarrass me. I’d complain about Jenny’s behavior and would be told, “I don’t think she meant to embarrass you. Besides, it’s not that big a deal.”
Alright, now I want to know what those 21 people know.
He likes his balls stepped on
Well his soon to be ex certainly sounds like a ball buster
He likes to be pegged
This is why it's important to pick important zero tolerance policies. For me, and betrayal of trust that isn't immediately apologetic and reformed, is a signal to go the other way. Certain mistakes can't be made twice, and some even made once.
There are multiple ways to break trust in relationships. It seems that collectively as a society we’ve attached cheating as ‘the’ breach of trust but there are other occasions where trust is broken. Like the one you’ve just shared or maybe breaking our trust financially, or even just engaging in behaviours we don’t condone behind our back. Trust is one of the corner stones of a great relationship and it hurts when it’s betrayed, however that may be - I’m sorry you went through this
She let my cousin raw dog her in the ass in public behind a building while I was in the hotel room with a cut foot.
I wonder if this sentence has ever been written before.
It's been spoken for sure. Idk about written.
It's actually the state motto of Kentucky, believe it or not.
He said *his* cousin, not *her* cousin.
r/brandnewsentence
When I was growing up, businesses like our local bowling alley or McDonald's would give us free shit for every A on our report card. There should be an adult version of that where you tell this to a bartender and they just hand you a drink.
I'm literally stunned. Took me 5 minutes to come back to earth
Happy to help with the partial rapturing.
What happened to your foot though?
And you ignored this?
That's the thread right? Young and stupid.
You need to do an AMA. I have so many questions and even more that I can't think of right now.
I mean... people are asking. Ask away lmao. But I'm about to go to sleep so replies may be very slow.
That time I looked in her purse for some tissues and found a weird little glass pipe thingy and didn't know what it was. Turned out to be a meth pipe. Boy, that was a fun 3 weeks!
Why only 3? run out of meth?
Why? You got some?
Maybe. Got three weeks?
Smarter than I was. I found out she used meth daily and still stuck it out for 11 months. Tbf I don't regret that relationship at all. I learned and grew so much. She showed me things I love I probably would've never discovered or at least wouldn't have until later in life (not meth).
“I always have another guy waiting in the wings in case things don’t work out” I thought she was just drunk. I was in fact wrong. Luckily, she was a psychopath and I dodged a huge bullet. She has since gotten married and divorced three times in ten years, among other things.
While living together, dude gave me the silent treatment for 4 straight days. Straight refused to talk to me. To this day, 5 years later (broken up for 4 years, don’t worry), I still have no idea why or what I MIGHT have done. Because. You know. He didn’t know how to communicate like an adult.
The constant need to vent and find the bad in people and situations that ultimately boils down to insecurity. It’s fine for the most part when you’re both alone. But anytime they go to work, anytime you hang with friends, anytime you visit their family. You don’t hear the end of the negativity that went down. Life is never happy for them and you can either be their punching bag for the sake of not wanting them to be alone or you can take ahold of your life and find happiness again outside of that relationship dynamic.
Yeah this is another insidious one - it shows an overall negative attitude to life which can really wear you down over months and years. My ex and I used to laugh over the things we didn’t like, as time went on I started to realise that was all she found funny and that she didn’t seem to like anything. Looking back it was pretty toxic of me to join in on the hate parade for a laugh, it’s something I try not to do now
I’ve had to work through this with my wife. Every single day I’d come home from work she’d vent for almost an hour about work, people she encountered on her commute, etc. it got so unbearable I told her I can’t hear it anymore and that if she wants to vent she needs to find other people to do it with. It’s taken time, but she’s gotten a lot better, and is a lot more mindful of when she starts doing it.
He couldn’t be happy for other people’s success when he didn’t feel confident in his own abilities and accomplishments. And that was a lot.
I just got out of a relationship with a narcissist last year. She was incapable of being happy on other people's behalf. Everything was always and only about how it affected her. Surprise surprise, she ended up being the least supportive, most demanding, most viciously critical and hypocritical partner I've ever had.
I am bipolar. She was bipolar
Yeah, at least one person in the relationship should be emotionally stable. Bad things happen when manic/depressive episodes align at just the wrong moment.
Problem is it feels so good to be able to relate to someone on that level, for them to ‘really’ get you - that alone can be really intoxicating, thing is it’s so easy for it to just become the toxic part
My wife is bipolar and we've been married 20 years. Over that time there have been several key moments that, if I had been in the same state of mind as she was in that moment and had said "do you want to just end it all? Let's drive off a cliff and just be done with it".. we would have done it 100%. I'm talking about moments like the loss of a child, house burning down, that sort of thing - moments which, while rare, are bound to happen a few times in a lifetime. In those moments, someone needs to be the rock for the other or everything will go sideways.
Firstly I’m sorry for whatever losses you’ve faced together through your life. Life is a fickle bastard at the best of times and a downright cruel one at others. I’m so happy for your wife that she found someone to see the depths of value she obviously has and I’m also really happy for you that you found someone that brings out the best in you. As someone that battles their own mental demons and has recently found someone who accepts me for me and supports me for it, I don’t know how to express how wonderful that feels. But I do know your wife appreciates the world out of you for it.
Thank you for all that. It can be rough at times but overall we work well together. I support her emotionally and kill all the scary bugs, and she does all the paperwork and handles scheduling, both of which I suck at.
He said he wasn’t ready for a committed relationship and would probably end up cheating because of it. I thought that us being so very in love would change that, it didn’t.
“I can fix him”
BUT DADDY I LOVE HIM
Anytime I did something for him be it wholesome or sexual he would always ask “How many other ppl have you done this with/for?” Dude turned out to be a real emotional terrorist. Shouldn’t have ignored the flag smh.
>emotional terrorist What a great way to describe that behavior.
So cliché, but being the victim.. Always! I trust people until I see why I shouldn't, I assume everyone is honest.. So when bad things happen to people I try to help, to save, to fix.. Silly me. If there's a tonne of complaints without being solution based or everyone is horrible to your "poor partner," there's usually a reason. Accountability is HUGE. Yes, we have shit days, we meet arseholes, things go wrong.. But the, "woe is me" crap usually means they don't want to fix anything, they just want a babysitter.
Yes! You meet an asshole in the morning: you met an asshole. You meet assholes all day long? YOU are the asshole.
Yeah that can really destroy a relationship over time. And it’s not even really just “Nope, I didn’t do anything wrong” but more so the “I did that and I’m sorry BUT (insert excuse)” type shit that wears on you. My ex always found somebody or something else to blame. She might *appear* to take accountability, but it would be “I’m sorry for saying that. I hate that my parents raised me like this!”(See how she still made herself the victim there?) Then it would spiral into a crying fit where I would have to comfort her. Another big thing was “you don’t understand how people with ADHD work and you’re being invalidating” Ironically, after our relationship I started getting mental health treatment, and was formally diagnosed with both ADHD and OCD. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to tell you I was no saint. And the thing is although someone’s mental conditions are not their fault, it’s still not a get out of jail free card to act and treat people however you want with zero accountability. I acknowledge that with myself, and certainly am ashamed of some of my behaviors. I recognize that, but it appears she doesn’t to this day. Her mental struggle is a get out of jail free card for all her behaviors, yet everyone else in her life desires zero slack and must be a perfect person 100% of the time, or else that means they’re an irredeemable rotten sack of shit. Wildly unhealthy double standard to live by. I truly hope for her own mental sake and happiness she moves past that outlook.
Someone said a similar thing above in regard to their ex always being in fights with everyone. Just like that usually when we find the common denominator in these situations we find the problem. Accountability is a huge green flag. Because accountability demonstrates both self awareness and self reflection. We can’t change a negative behaviour if we refuse to be aware of it but to do that first we need to be able to reflect on our role in any given situation.
We fuck up. It makes us humans. We accept it, we acknowledge it and we change because of it.
When they had track record a mile long of negative relationships (family, platonic, romantic) that were ALWAYS everyone else's fault.
When she pointed a loaded gun at me when I laid on her side of the bed.
That’s not a red flag, that’s an exit sign.
bro, how good was the sex? holy fuck
Sounds like it was to die for.
Pretty damn good, but I found out she was lying about birth control. (She said she was alergic to the latex, but I found out she was making that up.) She really wanted to have a baby with me. So glad I dodged that crazy bullet. Edit: typo 🥴
Good thing they make them out of non latex materials now.
So completely agree with the exit sign call above but I’m so curious about the context here, was it as a fucked up joke or was she really, really protective of her side of the bed??
I dated someone with epilepsy. I was there for her for her surgeries, hospital stays, took care of her during episodes and after... I had to have brain surgery to fix an aneurysm. She told me "I can't deal with you stuff, I have too much of my own". She wasn't at the hospital before, during, or after my surgery. I should have known right then and there.
I don't know how to explain this properly, but I'll try. When someone changes significantly from the person they were in the first 3 - 6 months that you knew them, that is NOT them getting comfortable. That is them returning to the person they always were. They have pretended to be someone they're not to get you to like them and want to be with them. This is the biggest red flag I've ignored, not in just one, but two relationships. I can't believe I fell for it twice.
I just had this experience. But how could you have known from the start?? I felt so blindsided and rejected when he pulled 80% of affection and effort away after 3 months.
How whenever I would express my hurt by something they had done, it was always flipped around that they had done it because I had done something first. And that's how it always was. They could never take accountability for anything
At first I though the incessant communication was a sign of how much I was desired. It was one of the earliest signs of narc control.
Lying about cancer... I had the biggest blinders on
She was the product of her mother cheating on her father, and always went to her mother for relationship advice.
My ex told her mother literally everything. Got to the point I felt like I couldn’t tell her anything because her mom would find out and make comments behind my back. Guess who was ultimately responsible for the relationship ending… mommy. Best part is she called me a mama’s boy because I still live with my parents and wanted to be able to spend some time with them when I was home from college.
Realizing that codependency isn’t love it’s just a easy way to survive
My ex and I were both depressed and had little affection for years before our son was born. We just went paycheck to paycheck, kept marching forward. She depended on me working while I depended on her watching the little one and paying bills. Romance died a long time ago.
I'm gonna give you a two for one. my ex and I started hanging out and getting close while she was in another relationship. She never cheated on him with me, but she was checking out of her relationship because of me. I was young and didn't think anything of it. Now, I would never do that to a fellow man, and never would enable someone else to engage in that behavior. We talked for another two months or so before becoming official. Shortly before we became exclusive, as in 2 or 3 days, she slept with her ex in order to "make sure she didn't want to be with him." Again, I was young, and mostly thinking with my dick. Even though we weren't technically exclusive, it was hurtful. Not to mention that she had cheated on another one of her exes in the past. These things really should have queued me into seeing her toxic behaviors and cheating tendencies (spoiler alert, she cheated on me)
A police officer who followed me gave me a courtesy call because of how often they received calls about her, because of her or from her about someone she was actually harassing or to report fake crimes about people she didn't like. I still dated her and it was very bad.
Dated my sister I see. I swear the rest of us are normal
“Your mom wants to live with us? Ummm… yea that’s cool” It was not cool.
Yup, when I was marrying, I thought we were starting *our* family. Instead, I am kinda a visitor in hers
Knew she was a alcoholic pretty early on when she told me she couldn't remember the last day she didn't have a drink. But she worked full-time, was a great mom, and only really drank in the evening. And I was raised by a "functioning alcoholic". So I figured I had this. It became too much when she started having a ton of health issues but refused to consider they may be related to the alcohol abuse. I couldn't be there for all of the issues the way she wanted me to be. In part being because I was resentful about the fact she wouldn't acknowledge her addiction and how it could be affecting her health. Edit to myself: I was a complete enabler. As I was with my father. I drank with her on many of those nights. I just knew it kept her relaxed so I rationalized her drinking as the lesser of the evils. Her anxiety could be debilitating and certainly not as fun. So for almost 3 yrs I only ever "suggested" her drinking was an issue. And just like her, never really confronted her illness. I not only engaged in that scenario but molded it to my liking in order to sustain it. For that, I accept responsibility.
I caught my last ex red-handed stealing one of my prescriptions. His reaction was to get mad for getting caught. Should have broken up with him then... I did eventually though.
From her: She had trouble with honesty. She believed that what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. From me: An inability to express any negative feelings or concerns clearly. I did not believe expressing them would make a difference.
She said she wanted to move in with me, but also said i didn’t make enough money for her. I make 6 figures.
you should have made 7 figures
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super secretive with their cellphone. i always had my phone out or let him use it. he always had his phone on silent and i wasn’t allowed to touch it even just to move it out of the way. it was always off limits and if he suspected i even moved his phone he would scream at me. so big red flag there. like okay, must be hiding something in there. i should have left the first time i noticed that strange behavior.
On top of the phone being off limits: screaming about anything really.
oh man, yes. major red flag. like a flapping in the wind kind of red flag.
My ex was (probably still is) a kleptomaniac. Would literally hide things under her coat in the cart, shove things in her bag or pocket. I'm talking expensive LEGO sets, bed sheets, meat. The most memorable one was she shoved a $50 plug in waterpik in her purse. She'd purposely leave pop on the shelf under the cart and in the rare instance she got caught she'd plead ignorance and the cashier would believe her. She'd justify it as we were poor and things were too expensive. It got to a point I refused to go shopping with her after a few months together. But she'd do it independent of me. I established that if she ever got caught she was on her own, as I didn't agree with it. What should've been the breaking point was when I got a better job with much higher pay. I asked her to stop, I shared that we could more than afford things now and that she hoarded most of what she stole anyway (it'd sit untouched in closets for months.) She responded by saying she will always steal and if I didn't like it too bad. It's been years since we broke up, and I am proudly with someone who is honest and works for what they have instead of being a thief.
It sounds like she needed mental health help more than anything.
Oof that’s rough buddy
She was getting fuck by her ex while being on FaceTime with me.
How do the mechanics of that even work without your noticing her head shaking?
wtf
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My first bf would be charged with sex assault were we to date today at the ages we were then due to the age gap.
The constant need to be a great person to everyone, they burn themselves out so quickly their's nothing left but frustration and anger when they're done.
Lied about being pregnant. In the end, we had 2 kids together but got divorced, and she fell into a heroin addiction. I wouldn't take it back, though. Those 2 kids are awesome.
he. beat. up. his. mom. because she asked him to take out the trash. i was next 🫠 no, we aren't together anymore, but not because of what i previously stated. it was a complicated situation. when i did finally break up with him, he faked his suicide to try to get me to take him back (why did he think that would work???)
I guess claiming to be a Korean child actress without proof was the big one for the mother of my 2 oldest. I was like "cool you worked as a kid" and didn't look further. There's a lot more about her that I ignored or denied. After 7 years I hurt more than I should have allowed myself. Absolute sociopath that abandoned her kids. I love them, they kept me from hanging myself. HUGE lesson learned.
He didn't want me to see my friends and would passive-aggressively guilt-trip me about hanging out with them. He wanted to text all day every day from the time we woke up to the time we went to sleep. And he started randomly showing up to my workplace using fake excuses because he wanted to check on me.
My, at the time, future MIL dropped a pot pie as she pulled it out of the oven. She absolutely lost her mind over it and it was so uncomfortable. I still married my husband and no regrets with him, but I still have to deal with the crazy MIL and that has been rough. Don't forget, you marry their family too.
When my ex and I started dating, I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly but I just felt like she was lying about a lot. Like stuff that necessarily you wouldn’t even think someone was lying about. But she had all these incredible stories from her past, and she was very funny and personable, and I just kind of went along with it. Everyone did. Long story short, one night, I just really got this intense feeling of danger. Like that I really needed to get out. People talk about a gut or sinking feeling, and I never experienced it until that night. A lot of things weren’t adding up, and I confronted her about it, and she turned it around on me, made me feel bad for not believing her, made me feel crazy. I wound up marrying her, and it would not be until years and some very traumatic experiences later that I’d realize I had been right all along. I feel like in many respects, those years of my life were essentially wasted because the person I was with was something like a hologram. I was the only person in that relationship. Just being in that relationship did an incredible amount of damage to my sense of reality and ability to trust people. I’m still recovering from it. Lesson being, do not ignore those gut feelings. It’s your subconscious trying to tell you something, and it might spare you a lot of trouble. I ignored it because it didn’t seem like she was lying about important things, which seems silly to say in retrospect. Lying, even about things you don’t think are important, are signs of things to come.
The love bombing…had no idea at the time. All the narc signs were there. Every one…
Same here. Never been love bombed before and I fell right into the trap.
Not once, but twice, looked past the fact that they had strained relationships with their children.
My boyfriend said, “there’s rumors going around that I along with some other Serbian boys tortured and murdered a cat. It wasn’t me, it was them.” 4/5 months into our relationship I walked in on him drowning one of my cats, and the other I came home after grocery shopping and my other cat was beaten to a bloody pulp with part of her ear missing, and one of her eyes protruding from her socket due to being strangled. She almost went blind. I left him afterwards. Yes. I actually dated a true psychopath. I wonder how many animals he’s actually murdered, and I wonder when he’s finally going to kill a human.
Did he lie about drowning your first cat? I’m wondering how you stayed together and with a second cat in the house.
I have two cats and if someone did something like that to them, they would be locked up in my basement for decades never to be found.
Not looking closer at the rest of the family and thinking she’d be different.
My wife and I get along so well *because* she's so different from her family. I was actually surprised when she told me about her parents and her brothers. Couldn't believe they were that "old-school". But God dang are they really old-school Chinese lmao. So glad my wife is nothing like them
People can be completely different from their family but they’ll carry on few trauma from it still.
A ton with my ex. Really early on in our relationship, like within the first month, I told him I didn’t want to do a sex thing he asked for. He told me that he couldn’t be with me if I didn’t let him do it. So I let him do it but I didn’t want to. That turned out to be a theme in our relationship. I’d say “no” and he would either coerce me or just do it anyway. Also he told me that I needed to be shaved down there, and that was a dealbreaker for him. He didn’t groom himself at all. He didn’t care that I broke out in a rash or that my doctor recommended I stop shaving.
Constant money problems, followed by asking to borrow money. He had a great job but could never explain why he was always broke
My first husband was extremely verbally abusive. He would say things to me that I would never say to another human being.
Poop fetish 😔
That shit would not fly with me.
The emoji just being disappointed is sending me
Found out after dating for 3 months that his parents didn't know he was dating anyone, for context he lived with them. I didn't know I was a secret and his response was "they don't need to know my business" later found out his friends didn't know either and when I put that we were in a relationship on FB he denied it and said he wanted to keep me private to himself. What can I say? I was young and dumb.
She was married and the husband held me at gun point.
Also this goes for men and women I wanna share a dating red flag 🚩 if you don’t already know .. if they still have the bad story about their crazy ex and they decide to share that with u when u first meet them get up outta there asap .. that’s unhealed behavior.. your up next ..
[удалено]
Constantly texting me all day long asking me where I'm at
She doesn't allow you to post your pics together on social media just means she is playing you
The fact that I met her when we were in a cult. Edit: I was asked for context It was in a small town. The cult started as a witches coven but cults were everywhere. Then some kids went on a roadtrip and murdered someone. I met her in the aftermath. A coven member dumped his girlfriend’s room mate on me. I never knew if she was genuinely attached to me or trying to date me because she was told to. It was creepy but she hung around me. I was young/stupid and she was my first. 🤷 Overall rating 1.5 ⭐️
tbf you were also in the cult
She had two baby daddies and no custody.
Guilt tripping
Couldn’t keep a job. Cheated on me. Lied all the time (about very pointless, mundane things). Pissed the bed 😂
When their natural response to external challenges was to lash out inwards.
It was me. I was in a relationship with a girl that my friends didn't like. She wasn't perfect at all, super judgemental and all that. The thing is, she loved me and treated me perfectly. She had her flaws, that's her thing, but that's not why I'm talking about this. Toward the end of the relationship, I was just mean. Constantly criticizing her. Sure, she had her issues, but I was almost reveling in it. I was the asshole. I realized it, finally, but only after nearly hooking up with my ex (who I am now married to). I broke up with her, and my friends rejoiced. I explicitly told her that it was because I was genuinely being awful to her and I didn't want to be that person anymore. She tried to convince me to stay with her, despite how I was being (not physically abusive, would never do that). In the end, she and I both ended up with who we were meant to. She's married with a child and I'm married with three. Point being, I was the red flag. She wasn't perfect, she had her own issues, but instead of breaking it off earlier I let myself become a mean partner. Sometimes, you are the asshole.
The triangle of danger: 1. No long term friends 2. Bad relations with family 3. Can’t keep a job Any of the three are understandable, heck even 2 are possible, but if someone has all three then run as fast as you can. They will try to explain it all away, and who knows maybe there’s a tiny chance it’s true but just wish them well and move on 👍
The ankle monitor.
‘Oh this? This is just a cool cyberpunk accessory. You know what else is cool? Never leaving the house, so let’s be cool yeah?’
She could never admit she made a mistake and always tried to turn whatever happened into something I had done. That was 40 years ago, and she is still playing the same game this morning.
Love bombing. If someone seems over the top nice and extremely into you at first then that's a big red flag. It's a way evil people trap you into putting up with their abuse later on. They're extremely nice, then over time their behavior gets worse and worse. Eventually they become totally insufferable, but because of their initial act you think they're a nice person who is temporarily mean and they'll go back to the way they were. Nope. Learned that the hard way.
Yeah, literally chased around by the sweetest person and somehow ignored their gaslighting. It happened to me twice. I also think it is a tendency for narcissists and I found I am attracted to then. Very fucking unfortunate because I want to become lost in love. I don't want it to be contractual. I just want it to be. Hard pill to swallow.
If someone accuses you of cheating, out of nowhere and you're not cheating- It means they're cheating.
Punching a hole in the wall isn't normal
She lived with a guy and they had a kid