What were the red flags you missed?

[ferriswheel]

I'm purposefully not posting in relationships because its late on a Saturday night and I'm in need of your wisdom. My stbxh moves out this week leaving me on my own with three very young children.

Whilst it is clear to me my marriage has to be over I can't stop going over and over and over and over how it was when it was good, and how much he changed when we became parents.

I guess there were red flags at the start. I just don't understand why I didn't flag them up.

1. He played computer games too, too much.

1. He didn't take days off work.

1. He always chose what we watched on tele.

Go and make me feel better. Wgat were yours?

First time he came to my house he picked holes in it with comments like its not very big, that kind of thing. I was 21 and had bought it when I was 19.

Hit me before we got married, many times.

Cheated twice.

Pointed a gun at me.

He liked to kill animals.

You will be fine op.

He "love bombed me". I thought it was great, actually, it was a sign of how controlling he was.
His ex was a psycho. According to him. Actually, he was the psycho.
Jealousy.
Obsessive about order/cleanliness
Racism.
Money-obsessed
Didn't really like animals
Everything had to be about him and his needs.
Funny relationship with his family.
Workaholic.

Oh yeah and tried to get me to change the way I looked/dressed/ate/drank/spoke.

Rude to the waitress is a cliché but he was

Declaring it was love at first sight for him

Moving in within four months. He had a "plausible" reason

Telling me what his expectations were from our sex life or else he couldn't be blamed for cheating.

Losing his rag in a heartbeat as soon as we got in from a night out. Going from volatile to calm as fast as...

Deciding I couldn't cook so took over meal planning...which led to him controlling my food intake. Incessantly complaining that he did "everything" for me.

Taking my wages, and then taking over my bank account as apparently he could manage it better...to restricting my ability to buy clothes, books and giving me an allowance, which ultimately became "performance related pay" because I couldn't be trusted to spend money wisely.

Hating my friends. Interrupting me when I talked because I was so boring.

He left fifteen years later. I was heartbroken. I still hear his voice putting me down but I am recovering.

The only thing I accept he was right about...I CANNOT trust myself to be a good judge of character.

Obsessed with his own looks.
Anger/aggression although didn't actually hit me.

Oh and had a first wife.... Who he treated with contempt.

Apparently every single one of his ex's was a 'head case' (his words not mine)
He would claim good friendships with pretty much every single person in the city we lived in.(long term goal claiming people were his spies)
Nothing was ever his fault or responsibility

Looking back almost every single thing he did was designed to get cash out of me it's hard to explain what I mean but there was a huge amount of forgotten wallets or you've run up my electric bill by leaving the heater on that's going to cost about 400 in electric despite me not touching it that sort of thing.

The early red flags were:

• Hardly any money, constantly borrowing money and never paying it back

• Couldn't hold down a job

• Bad things would always happen to him and be someone else's fault (constant roller coaster of really bad things making me live in fear of what would happen next)

• Critical of others in a mean & uncalled for way

• Arrogant/egotistical externally, yet underneath had a fragile self-esteem

• No relationship with his family

• Physically forceful in a weird way (e.g. instigating play fighting that was very rough/hurt and I didn't want to do - inappropriate man on woman basically)

• Lived a fantasy-life in his mind so he was constantly dreaming/future faking and actually believed it

• Compulsive liar

It just got worse.

" I still get upset about that connection couples have (even tonight I had a cry because I had nobody to talk to about eurovision blush) "

Bless you AddALemon. I know exactly what you mean. but the thing is, you wouldn't have had that connection with him. I am constantly having to remind myself that the end of my relationship isn't a good guy disappearing into the sunset - the good guy wasn't here.

You will meet someone lovely and you sound really lovely yourself.

I know my standards were too low and I sort of in the back of my mind knew it all along. But I have my dcs now and they're precious.

My parents have something amazing, they really have each others' backs and I think I didn't realise when I was younger that that was special. I think I thought that any man who wanted to be with a woman would have her best interests at heart. I realise now that just because some guy wants you doesn't mean he wants anything good for you. I don't know why I was so stupid about this.

Tons of stuff really. Big red flag being that I was unhappy with his behaviour a lot but didn't feel like I could say anything / felt like I should just accept it.

Cheated on his ex, lied to another about me for months. We slept together as 'friends' for a few months before becoming a couple and he vehemently lied to his ex that nothing had happened. Unfortunately I now know what it's like to be gaslighted like that and I feel awful I was a part of it happening to her in the first place.

oh yeah the slagging off the house thing. my ex moved into my flat when he had nowhere else to go. I didn't want to ask him to. Back then I still thought I could get married from never having lived with someone. that mattered to me. But he tried a move that didn't work, lost all his money by not keeping track of it, and by completely unrealistic sense of what things cost, and ended up with nowhere to live, no deposit, debt, and no savings. So.... I took him in. And I had to tell my mum I was living with a man, and she was devastated. And I had to carry all the bills. For ages, he didn't offer me rent, council tax, bills, anything. When I suggested he contribute, he was furious and staged a huge row (barricading himself into a room to suggest I was violent).

And - AND. While he lived in my flat, IT WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM. He slagged it off. While having nowhere else to go, and living on my generosity.

I was not violent. he was, though. In the end. he was pushing me around, sometimes in front of the kids. The one I really remember was when I stumbled when toddler dd was on my feet and I sort of staggered backwards from her, losing my footing, and she wrapped her arms around my ankles, as if to hold me up, and I thought: this is wrong, this is so so so wrong.

Physically forceful is another one here too. Constantly hurting me by accident while play fighting, yet never easing up on how rough it was and always slapping me so hard on the arse as a 'joke', often in public, so hard it actually really hurt and I asked him so many times not to but he still kept doing it.

When family and friends who previously been welcome at the house are made to feel unwelcome and then gradually drift away. 2. When he demands steak meals not caring about the financial aspects 3. When bills are not paid and money is borrowed but never repaid. 4. When he decides that he will live in the house but single parent benefits are to be claimed. 5. When child does not want to be left at home with this person. 6 When family will no longer lend or give money 7 When a family member sees right through but is not listened to.

Looking back almost every single thing he did was designed to get cash out of me it's hard to explain what I mean but there was a huge amount of forgotten wallets or you've run up my electric bill by leaving the heater on that's going to cost about 400 in electric despite me not touching it that sort of thing.

I know exactly what you mean NeedsA. It is so hard to explain, but mine was constantly having crises that I became involved in which required me to hand over money. In the end, I was so abused I just used to give him the money to shut him up so that I could get rid of the anxiety/panic feelings his crises created within me. He got me into terrible money problems and didn't pay back a dime. It's taken me a long time not to feel foolish, guilty, to blame for all that. It was like I was drugged or hypnotised something.

Didn't want to do anything I wanted because it cost money, whilst the things he did, didn't. Go to the cinema - costs money....shooting and fishing were apparently cost-free!!
His hobbies were must-do and I should come as well.
Anything I did was met with complaining or just fucking off and sitting in the car.
Never wanted to do anything as a family.
I went out to work and when I came home in the evenings, he would spend the whole time on the phone with friends while I cooked dinner.
By the end of our marriage, he had plenty of friends and outside interests and hobbies and surprise surprise, I did not.

lay down laws on what a relationship should be like. then slowly change them to suit them.

Oh and my personal favourite, was when he got a speeding ticket and told me I should pretend it was me so he didn't get the points. Eh?
I was at work, so not even in the car with him at the time. He actually got angry because I said I wouldn't do it!!
Looking back, this was when he already knew he wanted to leave, so in my books made it an even shittier thing to try.

"hen he got a speeding ticket and told me I should pretend it was me so he didn't get the points."

Just a resource. what is the point of living with a woman if she doesn't step in to take things like this away from you?

I often wonder what I was thinking when I was 17 and going out with a boy the same age - if I wouldn't do something sexual that he wanted to do, he would say "if you won't do it, I'll go to (other girl's name) and she will"

God my list is actually identical to ChickenVindaloo2s.
Ex DP (female):
Love bombed me in an extreme way
Made out all her exes were "crazy"
Hated animals
Jealous of anyone else who was attractive or popular
Bad mouthed anyone who was successful at work to make others dislike them
Extreme cleanliness obsessions (didnt trust dishwashers to clean properly and went mad if one was ever used!!)
Alcohol and drug abuser (hid it well, it took me a couple of years to really realise)
Very weird relationship with her family who still think she is some kind of saint

Oh the list is endless. She very nearly destroyed me and i havent managed another relationship since.
The only vaguely good thing to come out of it was I learned a lot about fashion and dressing well....

to you OP and everyone who's been hurt by people like this.

Reeeeally tight with money, thats another one..

My ex would always rant about how he liked curvy women that he could have a kebab with. It made me feel so inferior. He would always talk over me and once when I was singing, he sung loudly over me. He just couldn't bear anyone else to be the centre of attention just once. He would also put my opinions down too. He was also a thief - would just steal newspapers rather than buy them. I got rid of him nearly 17 months ago and my life has got so much better without him.

He had doted on first wife. She cheated with one of his friends. Desolate, he went on a week's holiday solo. Spent the week randomly starting fights in bars and absolutely beating hell out of each man. (!)
Each relationship that followed was abruptly ended by him due to various odd reasons. He lived with them (and associated kids), then left with little but his clothes. He suggested that they were psychos due to their efforts to understand the situation.
I tested him to see if he would leave. He returned, so I could breathe more easily.
We had a child, married, were very happy.
Until I pulled him up on a very unpleasant situation that I walked into. Not infidelity, not divorce worthy, but something that our children would have been affected by.
He lied about it, then wondered why I made a fuss. When I insisted on honesty - off he went.
That was it. Barely saw his daughter for months, whilst sleeping with anyone available.
He's now onto the next woman, whilst I put my children through counselling.
Selfish, stupid man.

Lies. Big lies, small lies; lots of lies. Controlling behaviour. Secretive behaviour. Using sex as a distraction (from talking). Unreliability. Making out that entirely reasonable requests were excessive and selfish.