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

[OrangeCarrot]

I hear and read women often saying that their partner was amazing until a certain point (usually post kids) when they then turned abusive or horrible etc. I just don’t buy it. I can’t help but feel that these same women seem more likely to get into repeatedly abusive or toxic relationships.

I really feel that by acknowledging that all of us can often ignore the red flags when we are in lust would help to give us the insight to avoid future abusive relationships.

I agree with this. Either the woman who won't put up with it dumps him, or calls him out and won't accept his behaviour - the abusive man calls her "crazy" and dumps her.

So either way women who won't put up with abusers don't end up with them. The women who instead, accept the abuser's behaviour and blame themselves - the relationship then lasts.

@OhBling Women do call it out. We’ve been shouting about abuse for years and years. Change does NOT start with the onus being on women to do more - which usually involves educating men about their toxic behaviour. It starts with men and boys being taught about healthy relationships and mutual respect and consent. It starts with trauma symptoms in boys being picked up more, and being given help so that they do not normalise and continue the cycle of abuse. It starts with men calling out the sexist and misogynist behaviour of other men. It starts with men taking accountability for their behaviour.

I don't disagree, but it has to be recognised. Some women call it out - others don't even recognise it until it's too late.

And as for men... well, I couldn't agree more that they need to bloody well step up and take on a LOT more of this work.

But, I also think that in order for them to do that, they have to SEE it first and my god, they don't. Obviously, there are loads of situations where they DO but choose not to call it out, but there are just as many where men are saying, "oh, he didn't mean it that way" or "he's a good bloke really, just a bit old school sometimes". Or when they not so secretly actually DO think that women should do all the domestic labour while they work in their Big Important Jobs. Every now and again, even the so-called allies will slip up with some comment that shows they're never going to actually call out the shitty behaviour because deep down, they don't actually think it's a problem."

Easy to see the red flags in hindsight. Hindsight is 20/20 etc.

But is your partner working late because he's got a deadline, or is he secretly having an affair?

Is he blaming his "crazy" ex for his previous break up because it's true, or a red flag?

Does he have no social media because social media sucks, or is he hiding something?

I would accept all those things at face value initially. Only when things went horribly wrong might I see them as red flags.

I know of a long relationship where there were very few signs that it was abusive for years. Everything was great as long as the victim went along with everything the abuser wanted. And because the victim was easy going, loved them, and had very similar interests and opinions anyway, problems almost never showed up.

Only after many years did a difference of opinion serious enough for the victim to say no emerge. And that's when the abuse started. And in this case it was a woman abusing a man.

Yeah when I was single and doing OLD I ended up talking to this guy who was a single father. I don’t have kids so don’t usually date men with kids but this guy seemed smart and emotionally intelligent initially, so we clicked and I liked the fact he had his teen son most of the week (so not a deadbeat dad which is unattractive to me) I’m cautious about meeting with men so I usually feel them out over 1-2 weeks through text and phone calls.

This man’s true colours started coming out, his recent ex was “crazy” and after I grilled him a little he claimed she was violent to him. The details of the story were vague and didn’t add up though , so it made me wonder if he twisted the story.

I then asked him about his ex wife who he had divorced shortly after his son was born. He was evasive and wouldn’t answer.

By this point it was clear I’d lost interest and I declined his invite to meet up that weekend (some low effort walking date) . I was getting serious narc vibes from him and could see we weren’t a match but I was just going to let things fizzle out .

Meanwhile he had clearly viewed me as “hard work” and a “bit of a bitch” ie. He realised his charm wasn’t working and I was asking difficult questions and wasn’t going to tolerate his crap. So the next morning I saw he had blocked me.

It’s always nice when the trash takes itself out 😄 but yeah the point is sometimes abusers - whether they see themselves as that or not - are testing you and weighing up how much they can get away with.

It’s not by coincidence I’ve not seriously dated an abusive man for any longer than 1 or 2 months. When I see the signs I’m out!

But I do appreciate some men wear mask for longer. I’ve heard of men doing a 180 on their wedding night or a week after their first child is born ! I don’t believe that’s the majority though.

I didn’t realise I’d been in an abusive marriage until I’d been separated almost a year! Now I can look back and see red flags but I didn’t know it at the time. I thought he as everything I’d ever wanted in a man. I am late diagnosed ADHD and autistic. I saw a video recently that said neurodivergent women don’t pick up on subtleties so when they are love bombed it just feels like it’s all they wanted. Plus it provides dopamine!

I learned a helpful phrase recently: I did the best I could with information I had at the time
I have educated myself. I am working on my healing. I am forgiving myself for things I blamed myself for. But I didn’t know any better when I met him.

No I don’t agree. I think that abuse often starts when the woman has lost power and status - ie, when she is pregnant or on maternity leave. That’s when it becomes apparent whether her partner is supportive and a genuine partner or sees the children as hers to provide for, and her work in caring for them as negligible and a drain on the family rather than a major contribution.

My deceased husband love bombed me from the very beginning and I was vulnerable and quite isolated at the time so didn't appreciate the danger. He arranged my mobile phone contracts right through from the set up so has the passwords etc.He wanted to know my work schedule and pre mobile phone usage he would often have phoned ahead to my work appointment leaving a message or requesting a call back .He stole from me and controlled my finances.Eventually I got control back but this went on for decades.
When our oldest child was born he requested that no one but us were allowed to change her nappy.She was a much loved first granddaughter and her nappy was changed by an adoring aunt in the first few days.He said he knew by my face that I had let him down.
All bizarre stuff but so difficult to escape from.
The ultimate release has been his untimely death and that has also trapped me in a widow role because I don't acknowledge his coercive control to anyone.

Horrible post OP.

No ACES in my history. No red flags. In no way a domineering person. Then one day, totally out of character, the first swear word appeared in frustration...after 12 years together. I didn't choose the man he became.

Where does it end? Is all assault the fault of the person who was out after 10pm?

I think there are often signs but sometimes the victim doesn't recognise them, it can be subtle and couched in terms of him being caring and concerned rather than controlling. For example, I had a friend who's partner would call and text multiple times when she was staying with me. She read that as his being so in love with her and missing her. If I went to stay with her he would be moody and sulky so eventually she would only invite me when he was away. She was gradually indoctrinated into keeping the peace with him by doing what he wanted. He was never threatening or violent but he used emotional blackmail. It's insidious and wears you down over time.

In my experience you are right. I was in a couple of abusive relationship abd looking back their were red flags. I just didn't notice them because I was young and niave and both relationships were very different and abusive in different ways to each other.. so I didn't learn to spot the signs from one iyswim as the abuse presented in a different way in the other.
But from the very beginning there wee classic signs. Boundaries immediately crossed.

However that's just my experience.
I'm sure there may be people who end up in abusive situations where there were really no signs of it at all at the beginning.

You're failing to take into account the manipulative nature of so many abusers. Many have one or more of the cluster B personality disorders and are experts at pretending to be decent and normal, and sucking people into their orbit.

Do you ever wonder why men ignore/miss their behaviour becoming toxic/abusive/violent?

Do you ever wonder how they miss the the red flags and why they don't leave their female partners/wives/children before they end up stalking/abusing/raping/murdering them?

No? You don't ever wonder that?

You don't see the OP's post as victim- blaming because you are also victim-blaming

The focus should be on men not abusing, not whether you can spot a wife-beater at 100 paces.

I agree, however, the subjugation of women is part of the means by which men (as a group) maintain their dominance. They won't give it up willingly!

This.
I had shit parents who I think singled me out. I can now see that being conned into marriage by an abusive man had a lot to do with my upbringing.

I've only had one abusive relationship in my life. I was hyper aware of it in relationships because I was removed from my parents at 7 because of their abuse.

In my exes case he wasn't abusive until I'd given birth to our twins. The first time he was an absolute dickhead to me - the very first time in the 6 years I'd known him - was when they were 3 weeks old.

There may sometimes be red flags,but it's not a given.

I was very naive.

My exh on one of our first dates told me his whole family shouted a lot but it didn't mean anything. Weird thing to bring up.

What a bunch of hysterical drama queens. Especially him and his dad. Assholes.

I don't buy it, either.

People let their immediate desire for boyfriend, marriage, kids, whatever, override the obvious red flags. Just ask their friends and family.

I might not say always, but I would say often.

Some people have poor judgement and can't see the problems, that can be due to their own background, or even just being an easily led personality.

Some will accept problems because they think it is the only way they will have a relationship.

Some have problems of their own and men with problems feed into that in some way.

There are a few clever predator men, but in a lot of cases even there, you see certain friends may see the guy is not trustworthy. There is something off. But these ones are harder to spot.

It’s so difficult. I moved to a foreign country with my abusive ex and he began discouraging me from leaving the house without him because it wasn’t safe. This wasn’t entirely untrue, but it allowed him to limit my movements while pretending it was sensible. If i wanted to go out with friends he would pretend to be ill and go to bed so i needed to stay and look after him. If someone had said to me ‘do you think he’s pretending to be ill to keep you home?’ I would have said that’s ridiculous how can anyone be such a psycho? So yeah, once I had the benefit of hindsight these were red flags, but initially it’s hard to tell

Sometimes it starts off so very slow and insidious they aren't even pale pink flags even to more cynical viewers, and then it becomes normalised so it progresses slowly to another stage up and so on, until you are so used to it, you couldn't see it when it was pointed out.

Don't underestimate a manipulators ability to do things slowly and with love and affection thrown in to distract their victim.

We are all susceptible too, no one is perfect.

I don’t think it’s victim blaming - it’s true there will likely be red flags, but for whatever reason the target misses them, or doesn’t act on them. I got together with my exH when I was 20, he was 4 years older and there was a slight power imbalance there.

The physical abuse was slow and insidious (starting with smashing things, then pushing, pinching, working up to hitting over the course of 15+ years) but there were plenty of signs of him being controlling and having an anger problem if I’d bothered to notice them. I came from a high conflict house where shouting was absolutely normal and bad behaviour by men was minimised by my mother, so my boundaries were just all over the show.

I think back now and I remembered in the early days,exH telling me (a) he’d once crashed a car while drunk as a uni student with his ex gf in the passenger seat, who he was cheating with on his current gf (b) he once broke the nose of another player on n a schoolboy rugby match (c) he once spat into a taxi because the driver had taken him the long way and overcharged him 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

Just revolting. None of it to me but all 🚩🚩🚩 and the woman I am now at 43 would run for the hills if a prospective partner told me any of those things. 20 year old me was completely naive and unboundaried and thought he was a sensible and promising young lawyer 🤯