To think there are always missed red flags early on in eventual abusive relationships?

Id love to see the focus on why are so many men a walking parade of red flags? And where are all the men outraged at this and trying to raise the standards for themselves and others/ calling out others?🤷🏼‍♀️

More often we see society telling women to not trust their gut. To be nice and give second chances. Women face a awful lot of shame and judgement no matter what they do in these circumstances.

You didn't suggest any complex reasons though, did you? You suggested only one - lust. You started the thread by stating that there were always red flags but women ignore them due to lust. An interesting choice of word, given its association with 'sin' ie, blame. This shows a singularly poor understanding of the motivations and behaviour of women, and indeed of abuse, and will obviously result in you being corrected by those with experience of something you are merely speculating about.

@Bumpitybumper I disagree, it is absolutely victim blaming and if you or the OP wants to educate themselves on trauma you can read the empirical research and evidence widely available. I have already posted at length and addressed your points which are overly simplistic and reductionist.

I think most people would agree that in many many cases there are red flags that are missed. But blaming women for this "oh, why didnt she leave before she had children?" "why did she let it get that far" is the bit of victim blaming that gets people's backs up.

Because the reason she didn't spot it or didn't leave is complex, with many layers. In SIL's case she'd been told by her parents for years that she was too fussy, that she kept letting "good men" go because she had ridiculous expectations. They told her over and over again that she was getting old and if she wanted children she needed to get on with it and stop ending perfectly good relationships. This is further complicated by the fact that she has always been seen as the irresponsible, silly, unreliable one - even though she's the one who bends over backwards for her family. On top of that, she's a kind person and exBIL presented as someone who had experienced a lot of trauma and just needed some love and understanding to build his confidence. So between that and her family, she felt she deserved his behaviours. And I don't thik it's a coincidence that she only FINALLY started making moves to end it after PIL finally started to see what he was really like and supported her (and quite honestly, that only happened because I lost my temper and pointed out some home truths to them a few times).

So yes, we need better education. we need men to step up more. we need to all stop accepting shitty behaviour or saying things like, "oh, what are men like? haha". We need men in the workplace to stop getting away with both the obvious and not so obvious sexist, misogynist statements and activities (and lots of abuse is based in sexism and misogyny - which is why I think we see it more from men to women or women to children: it feeds into society's existing expectations of power and what's okay etc). We need popular culture to make it clear to teenagers and others that the drama and controlling behaviours are NOT a sign of real love.

And it's not always easy. I'm that woman who calls out things and can SEE people rolling their eyes at my "rampant feminism" or whatever or I get told that I'm too sensitive or I'm seeing sexism where it doesn't exist. And yet, on our school run there are plenty of men doing the school run - brilliant you think? Except I've spoken to many of these men and many of the women and you know what I've noticed - the men only do school run if i's convenient. I've never ONCE heard one of these men say, "yeah, it's a bit tricky because I have to be a bit late on wednesdays as I'm doing school run, but Mary absolutely can't be late on Wednesdays so I have to suck it up" and yet it's something I hear from women over and over and over again. It's such a small thing but it' s asign of the imbalance and different expectations for men and women.

@Edingril It is really not as simple as that. Many may experience sexual abuse within relationships and pregnancy is a vulnerable time for women where abuse is likely to escalate. Same as when a woman attempts to leave the relationship.

There needs to be better systems in place to prevent women from abuse in the first place, and more support to leave abuse. Importantly men should be held to account for their behaviour.

I still don’t think that saying people miss red flags is victim blaming. I’m not saying people are willfully missing them or trying to get into abusive relationships. I think we can all appreciate there are complex reasons why they would be missed.

Saying that there are always red flags missed is victim blaming as it’s suggesting that there must have been an opportunity for them to see it and they didn’t.

That is simply wrong. In many cases there are no red flags to miss.

I disagree! I think that it's totally possible to accept somebody's lived experience that they weren't aware of any red flags before the abuse began and also accept that there were objectively some red flags that some people would have spotted.

I have had a few friends that have suffered through abusive relationships and all of them without fail have had partners that other people were concerned about before the abuse started. I have met several of these men and on a few occasions I have instantly known they were capable of being abusive without there being any obvious, tangible sign. It's hard to articulate but I genuinely believe some people are just more attuned to this than others. It's not victim blaming to acknowledge this, it's just fact! In the same way we acknowledge that some people are just naturally better at spatial awareness or maths or anything else. Some people are better at reading people and can pickup extremely subtle verbal and non verbal cues that other people can't.

@OrangeCarrot All you need to do is a cursory google search on the psychology of trauma and abuse, which will make you ‘doubt your initial viewpoint’. Your viewpoint is born out of ignorance.

My AIBU was about how I felt red flags were often present early on.

Your thread title says “always” not often so some folks will be responding to that.

Always and often are very different viewpoints.

Some people do miss red flags, but that they are always there is completely victim blaming and downright wrong.

As someone who had an abusive childhood and went on to have abusive relationships, I would 100% agree @OrangeCarrot that there are red flags that are missed. They are missed because abused people more often than not have no idea what a red flag is, or they do but only on a superficial / intellectual level not on a deep emotional level of what is healthy behaviour in a relationship and what isn't.

It takes years to unravel that shit and then learn healthy new behaviours - I speak from experience. Until I had proper long-term therapy to address the abuse I had endured in childhood, I understood very little about what a healthy relationship looked like - let alone how to behave in one myself.

So, whilst I agree that red flags are absolutely definitely missed, I also think it is a limited way of looking at what is going on and doesn't really get to the "why", which is actually the more important question.

No women are not to be blamed for men being abusive but if men are abusive before you are pregnant it is a bit odd and irresponsible to keep on having children with him.

Men and Women are responsible for letting children grow up in that environment, and both responsible for bringing new abusive partners into their children's lives because they don't want to be alone and put themselves first before what is best for their children

It’s just the fact that you are so disbelieving of VICTIMS that sometimes there are no signs of abuse. I had no indicators in my relationship. I’ve spent many years beating myself up about my choices and analysing every detail of our earlier relationship. There was nothing to suggest the person he became. His friends who have seen his behaviour change are convinced he has a brain tumour or psychosis because they didn’t see it coming either.

But what a reg flag is depends entirely on whether the it escalates - not the behaviour itself. Example I know of bevaviour of non-abusive relationships I know of:

DH doesn't bother staying quiet in the morning when going out early to allow wife to continue sleeping until alarm goes off.
DH doesn't bother helping wife empty car when arriving at second home (they also have young children so lots of extra crap to unload)
DH calling wife to 'make sure she's safe' if she has lunch in a different location.

None of these behaviours are abuse in themselves I think is reasonble. Or is this abuse? All these are well paid professional couples both man (FT work) and wife (PT work) and invested a lot of time and energy into their relationships before DC came along.

These could all be seen as 'red flags' IMO should the relationship become abusive. They are not yet red flags as the behaviour hasn't escalated (yet). So yes, if their relationships become abusive then the red flags were there. If the relationship does not become abusive then there were no red flags. The red flags are only there when the abuse starts.

A lot of domestic abuse starts or gets worse during pregnancy so if it starts during pregnancy a lot of the time then how would the women know before hand? There aren't signs in a lot of cases. A lot of domestic abusers are charming and appear lovely to work colleagues/ neighbours etc so they are very capable of putting on a front. So no there aren't always signs and blaming women for "not spitting the signs" is very damaging as abuse already makes the victim feel guilty and as if they are to blame and they are more likely to stay if they feel shame for leaving and admitting they have been in an abusive relationship.
In other cases there are signs but the victim isn't aware that they are signs.

As a teacher, though, I'm always struck by the naivete of posters who think that schools are somehow separate from the rest of society.

Totally agree with this!

It’s not the same as that though, and again by giving that example you are showing your ignorance.

Trauma and abuse is complex and cannot just be reduced down to ‘spotting red flags’, as my previous post, and many others, have illustrated.

People aren’t hostile. We are sick and tired of these sorts of threads, that are inherently victim blaming but under the faux guise of ‘nuanced discussion’. You’ve not put forward anything new or fresh or ‘controversial’ - you are just wrong. It is akin to those threads which doubt peoples experiences of racism - that’s just a ‘nuanced discussion’ too of course.

Relationships are certainly covered in PHSE in all school stages.

As a teacher, though, I'm always struck by the naivete of posters who think that schools are somehow separate from the rest of society.

Mostly female teachers. Often rather young. Often managed out or feel forced to quit once they have their own families (more women in their 30s leave teaching every year than the total number of men in teaching). Some in coercive or otherwise dodgy relationships. Mostly men in the management structure. Significant gender pay gap.

What are you on about?

Women are not to blame for men being abusive. End of.

Victim blaming much?
Just like when people say, “well you must have loved him, you had x children with him, it can’t have been all that bad!”
As others here have said, behaviour is excused by women especially in families particularly if they have excused that kind of behaviour themselves.
Kneejerk reactions to some women trying to leave their controlling relationships can often be “stay with them until the youngest turns 18” and doing the opposite is perceived as a slight against them as they might have put up with misery themselves because “that’s just what dad is like”.
Some controlling individuals can be insecure yet from a wealthy family so use that as a weapon against the woman trying to leave, particularly SAHMs with no income or family wealth to assist with legal aid.
And yet the men still paint themselves to be the victim and it continues for their subsequent relationships. I especially believe there must be red flags for those new relationships, unless they have had a lobotomy.

It's not a one size fits all issue. Some women are more accepting of bad behaviour than others from the outset. We all have different tolerance levels.

I'm guessing that he's always been like this and she thinks it's a sign of love. I doubt this is his only concerning behaviour.

IMO, there will be signs early on. It's very unusual for a respectful, considerate, empathetic man to start visiting strip clubs, doing coke and expecting his wife to skivvy around after children.