When your gut feeling was spot on

[marriedwithhounds]

Feeling an intense mixture of emotions and hoping that others will relate in some way.

When I was little (maybe about 10?) I remember telling my mum that my great uncle had touched my bum when he had his arm around me. She said she was sure he hadn't meant to and not to worry - but not to hug him any more if I didn't feel comfortable. I never hugged him again after that and he never tried to hug me.

I always had a bad feeling about him. Fast forward 20 years and it's now confirmed that he is a pedophile with a penchant for young boys. My gut instinct was right about him.

AIBU to ask you for similar experiences? DSis thinks you can't trust gut instincts but I defo feel vindicated.

So sorry Parkheadparadise. I remember when about 10 playing cards alot with this sweet old man everyone liked at the pub. My mom use to work there. He asked me to go to his house anytime I wanted! Felt a bit strange so avoided him and my mom stopped working there. Never told anyone. 7 years later her was in paper for rape of a minor and abuse!

Another positive gut feeling one - worked in a shop when I was 18. A girl of my age walked in and I just knew she was going to be important in my life. She ended up getting a job in same shop, 20 years in we’re still best friends and what’s weird is she introduced me to my husband and me to hers! The the moment I saw her I knew she was going to be really important in my life and no offence to her but she was very ordinary looking, not loud etc, to this day we all think it’s quite strange!

Many years ago I walked into a pawn shop to browse while my boyfriend checked out the record store next door. As soon as I clocked the older man (70 ish) behind the counter my hair stood on end. As I was looking at some jewellery he asked “are you on your own?” I replied no, boyfriend is next door. Couldn’t get out of there quick enough, saying to bf “that man is seriously creepy”. Months later I was reading a Woman’s Day mag & there was an article about him being sentenced for raping 2 young ladies who had gone into his store.

I knew my now DH was the one within a month or so of meeting and getting together. I was only 18, and he was 23 so we were still very young but I just knew. He wanted to “take a break” about 9m later and I wasn’t worried at all - I knew we’d get back together. We did and 20 years later here we are.

Around the same time I met an older couple in our church. I had just started attending when I moved there for uni. They were adored by everyone (inc my husband) and were very much seen as stalwarts of the church. I didn’t get a good feeling about them - particularly the woman. I just had a sense that they weren’t as perfect as everyone made them out to be and that maybe there were ulterior motives or a selfishness or arrogance underneath the public persona. I never clicked with them at all no matter how much I tried.

20 years later and they are still very much the same people and still held in very high regard in the church, but they showed their true colours to us over the last few years with deeply hurtful, gaslighting behaviour. My DH’s eyes were definitely opened and a few close friends and family who know what happened have had their eyes opened to. I wish my 18 year old gut had been wrong about that one - they have caused so much pain - but I was right all along.

A more recent one - we had a couple view our house. My DH thought they were delightful and could be a good fit for the house. I didn’t trust them. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but I just didn’t. They declared their interest in the house and we proceeded with the sale. It was all due to be completed next week and they pulled out yesterday. I wish I could say I was surprised but I’m not.

People only remember the times their "gut feeling" was right, not the many times it was wrong.

The whole "trust your instincts" thing is what causes witch hunts and leaves socially awkward or non NT people isolated and reviled. This has happened in our village and I'm ashamed that an innocent yet socially awkward person felt he had to move on.

Of course sometimes the gut instinct is right but most of the time it isn't, we should bear that in mind and not isolate those most in need of support.

One of my best friends from school, not long after we met when we didn't know each other well yet I ran into her in the school dining room and immediately felt that something was terribly wrong. Had no idea what it was, I just felt like if I let her leave something awful was going to happen. So I stuck to her like glue for the rest of the day and didn't let her go until it was time to go to bed, and even then very reluctantly and with a promise that we'd meet up the next morning.

A few months later she told me that she'd been planning to kill herself that night, had the method all ready. I've never doubted my instincts since. If something doesn't feel right then there's a reason, even if you can't explain why at the time.

@Xiaoxiong he ‘love bombed’ her from the get go. Posting ‘I can’t believe she’s so amazing’ posts all night long about their first date. Everything was OTT displays of affection and big gestures. He stated calling her ‘the Mrs’ too. Things moved so fast, they let each other’s kids after a week, got matching tatoos (the wording was creepy but I can’t say what as it would be very outing), he moved in after a couple of months and we’re engaged by 3, of course the wedding had to be small and as soon as possible. He alienated her from some friends and family, while charming others. Poor SIL has had a difficult time of it and she thought she’d found the perfect man, but that’s how these people work.

DriftingLeaves

I think what you are describing isn’t about instinct but more mass hysteria.

Someone takes a disliking to someone then persuades others that there is something not quite right and then the hysteria spreads.

Gut instinct is something really personal and only happens a few times in your life.

It isn’t something that a mass of people actually think at the same time

We had our first property on the market and it had been on for a little while. Someone viewed and put in the full offer the same day. I don’t know why but I just refused to accept. DH and both our parents thought I was mad. We ended up taking it off and 6 months later put it back up and sold for another 40k. I don’t know if that was why but I also didn’t get a good feeling about her. She ended up buying the flat above us and was the neighbour from hell for the next 6 months.

Curious how we all assumed that 'Gut Feeling' meant negative.
It usually does. I have a positive one though.

When I was a child our cat disappeared a few weeks after we moved house. Everyone else thought we would never see her again. I knew we would get her back. I don’t know how or why, but I knew which is especially unusual for me as I am generally a pessimist. 9 months later she was found several miles away at our old house and we had her for another 10 years after that.

I think what you are describing isn’t about instinct but more mass hysteria.

It begins with one person's gut feeling.

Another incident - I was living in the middle of a big city, and there was a corner shop that was open late that I used to go to all the time. It was nighttime, I was hungry and didn't have anything in the flat that I wanted to eat, so I was going to go get some fresh pasta from the shop. Got as far as the hallway and was putting on my coat when I felt a sudden sense of dread. It was weird, I went to that shop at night all the time, it was less than 10 minutes walk away, but for some reason I was suddenly seized by this feeling that if I went then something bad was going to happen. Hemmed and hawed in the hallway and ended up deciding to stay in and have a ready meal instead.

Was watching the news the next day, saw that someone was stabbed on the route I would have taken to get to the shop. That was normally a pretty safe area too as big cities go but for some reason that particular night I just knew that I shouldn't go out.

I'm pretty glad that I didn't brush that feeling aside as the result of some sort of unreasonable prejudice towards awkward people. I wasn't thinking of any particular person at all, it was just a sudden sense of danger that was connected to the idea of leaving my flat and walking to the same shop I'd walked to dozens of times before (and did again afterwards).

Re cats, mine got out when she wasn't supposed to and DH and I went out to look for her in a panic. Mid search he suddenly decided to go back to the flat and check there and there she was sitting on the couch (we'd left the back door open), rang me to tell me he'd found her and to come home.

He always seems to know where lost or scared animals are hiding actually.

Does anyone get the impression that you have lived moments before and know exactly how they are going to play out.

Almost like that scene in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray is in the cafe and telling Andie McDowell what is going to happen next, eg someone says something then someone drops a plate etc

DriftingLeaves

As you said someone takes a dislike to someone through gut instinct or just because they don’t like them or are just a bully but the rest are like sheep joining in.

I freely admit there are 2 people who deep down in my gut creep me out.

I have known them for years and to everyone else they are really nice people but to me they put my heckles up.

I have managed to put them at arms length and avoided them for years but I know at some point I am going to have to bring at least one into my home possibly in the very near future.

The thought brings me out in a cold sweat.

I hate them but I cannot pin point why I should hate them, if that makes sense.

I was at work when I got a horrible feeling but I couldn't put my finger on what. I called my ex's sister who was pregnant at the time and she was fine. I got a call from the police a few hours later - my ex had wrapped my car around a bus stop whilst drunk. Luckily the school run from the school opposite had boarded the latest bus or there would have been dozens of children and parents stood there

I just KNEW that my DC would be the sex they were born. I was washing up one day and said "it's a girl". No reason, it just occurred to me. Similar with DS. We maintained at each and every scan that we didn't want to know the sex(es) and I'm rubbish at judging scans anyway. With DD it was around 11 weeks anyway so we wouldn't have been able to discern anyway.

Jimmy Saville is the common one but I would refuse to watch him as a child, he made my skin crawl and I'd rather read a book or even stare at a wall than watch him.

People only remember the times their "gut feeling" was right, not the many times it was wrong.

True. Like the way believers report a positive reading from a cold-reading, so-called 'medium' while ignoring (or not noticing) all the misses - only remembering the hits. And how the one baby pulled out of an earthquake is described as a 'miracle' while the other 300 dead, injured, and missing are lumped together in the category of victims ie 'not miracle' and get less-noticed (as individuals) by the media.

People have a tendency to retrofit their memories too. Emphasising things that were insignificant to them at the time but in retrospect were important. It's unconscious and natural.

Like the way 'predictions are often reported AFTER the things they claim to have predicted actually occurred. "I knew that was going to happen! I had a dream about that last night."

Yes, I knew a man as a big who turned out to be paedophile. He was always wicked in his nature if you see what I mean. Mocking, teasing, competitive, would put down other children, was never told off, there was not one kind bone in his body. I hated him. And still do.

Boy*

What's fascinating about Saville is how many people found him creepy. To the point where you almost wonder if he was pushing it on purpose to see how obvious he could get away with being.

I don't think it's retrospective either, I remember the first time I showed a photo of him to my non-British DH and he was all, how did anyone not realize?

I'm not sure I've ever had this but I'm finding the stories fascinating.

I felt strongly the moment I met xh that I would marry him (shouldn't have, in retrospect) but it was more a wanting that came true, not a gut instinct.

I'd like to have gut instincts, could be very helpful!

A lot of people knew about JS. I remember being very little and he was the subject of a conversation one of my family was having with a guy who knew/worked with him.

I think times have changed hugely since the 60s.

Back then as a child if you said anything to the police about another adult you would get a stern telling off by a policeman, told you were lying and then marched back to your home where you would get a beating from your parents for bringing the police to their door.

It was a very different time and the gut instinct was probably born out of the language and actions he used and agree that it appeared that he was trying to see how far he could go until someone said something

I was driving to work and drove past an ambulance heading the other direction. I still can't figure out what my thought process was,, however I turned my car and followed it - to my grans house, she had died suddenly. It was certainly an unexpected death so I can't explain why I decided to follow that ambulance.

OK, I am going to pour cold water all over this thread.

yes of course sometimes we get gut instinct and it is right, and I would always say we should put our own safety first if there is any doubt or unease.

BUT there have been cases where 'everyone was sure he was dodgy' and some poor innocent bloke has been targetted, house trashed, attacked etc when it wasn't them,.
there was a murder case in Bristol where this happened, the guy upstairs was a bit eccentric and a teacher and the community basically decided he had done it, after the police questioned him (as they questioned everyone who lived in the building)
It was a family member, the guy upstairs was entirely innocent, but his name was dragged through papers etc.

Secondly, you should never rely on gut instinct alone. I do safeguarding training and one of the shocking things is that men who abuse are often extremely charasmatic and clever and good at grooming people, not just the young people they are targetting. Hence the scout leader who 'everyone loved' and couldn't believe they had done it.
My friend was married to a paedophile for 13 years. None of us knew, none of us suspected, he was Mr Nice Guy, perfectly ordinary guy next door. No suspicians at all. Then the police knocked on the door.
You CAN'T always tell

Yes, we know all that. Instinct is a potential tool - a tool, not the only tool.