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 completely agree with you. There is something quite gross about taking an inherently emotive topic and minimising it under the guise of wanting a ‘nuanced’ discussion when there is nothing whatsoever that is nuanced about the OP. Then of course the typical outcries of ‘people are so defensive!!!’ ‘Why are people so upset?!!!’ When posters call this out, and correct problematic assumptions in the OP such as women overlook red flags due to ‘lust’. It’s just tiring and concerning that people seem to enjoy hearing the details of others trauma. But all in the name of a ‘logical discussion’ of course.

That describes a lot of the posts on Relationships and AIBU boards.

Ah yes, blaming the victim instead of the abuser. I was in an abusive relationship where my abuser was abusive since day 1. But because abuser pick victims who have such low worth, the manipulation and gaslighting he done to make me believe the abuse was my fault - I believed it and thought he was correct, I did deserve it. Victims IGNORE the red flags because like with me, I was in a world of my own where I thought I was the problem, the victim act he put on I believed. Abusers make you question if you’re the abuser, they make you question everything.

I didn’t even want to be in a relationship with my abuser, I was 19 and he was 29 - the first day I met him he introduced me to his auntie and his ‘girlfriend’ and it felt like I was trapped from then. I was young, naive and innocent with low self worth and although it was riddled with red flags abusers choose the most vulnerable of us. You state victims often are in abusive relationships, that’s why because they’re vulnerable and abusers pick those who are susceptible to it.

Of course we should learn to look out for red flags. But that absolutely does not mean that everyone in an abusive relationship 'missed' a red flag early on.

Life just isn't as neat and prescriptive as you think it is. Not every situation is typical. Not every abuser is the same. Not every abusive situation starts in the same way.

People say that anyone could be the victim of a romance scammer, but as a stingy introvert who works in cyber security, I have to say I'm pretty low on the list of wanting company or parting with my money.

On the plus side, very unlikely to have an affair. Can't imagine choosing to go to all that trouble just to spend time with a different man!

That's an excellent article.

it can feel like you're being blamed for not seeing red flags with nobody asking who tied the bloody blindfold over your eyes in the first place.

I'm not from an abusive family - my father has always been very loving. He also has an explosive temper. He gets over it quickly and there's no malice in it. When I married a man who also had an explosive temper, I thought it would be just the same. It wasn't.

Life is anything but neat & predictable! Every abuser is the same, yet all are different individuals and so are their partners. As Tolstoy observed, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way".

I've certainly been in an interesting variety of abusive relationships, from birth through weird husbands and boyfriends, bosses, colleagues, flatmates and friends of both sexes. I had some red lines but they were so much further out than a healthy, balanced and secure person's lines, they may as well have been on a different continent. Glad I had them, though, or it's unlikely I'd be here to write this.

All the same, I'm writing from a very broken life situation which is no longer recoverable, and that is due to the effects of abuse. I spend quite a lot of time and what money I can spare on trying to help others avoid a similar outcome.

Emotionally healthy, balanced, secure and well-supported people have red lines that look totally unreasonable to the rest of us. I think this is why so many PPs have reacted so badly to the premise that there are always warning signs. It's not our fault that we didn't spot them, or chose to ignore them, and no-one has said it is.

Nobody needed to say it's our fault, did they? When you're used to being a blame-absorber, to being criticised and being 'wrong', to heading off bad consequences, you become hyper-alert. If someone's drink goes cold, you refresh it straight away although it's not your fault they left it by the window. When the away team wins, you start planning how to deflect your partner's anger. You train your eye to prefer the clothes he says he likes you in, your taste to choose his favourite foods; you see yourself as too fat or thin; you strive to be shape he wants. You anticipate, adapt, modify, excuse and anticipate some more.

We're so used to being held responsible for any and every negative, we automatically hear blame. Nobody said it's our fault we miss red flags but plenty of us heard it ... because we've been trained to anticipate blame. That's the thing to be angry about!

So what do these healthy red lines look like? Some PPs have illustrated (while, ironically, apologising for themselves). One off-key remark, one unreasonable request, one ridiculous outburst gets a very robust response - a clear, unequivocal statement of values. And part of that robust response is an ultimatum! Yes, an actual, boundary-setting ultimatum. No second instance is tolerated: the relationship is terminated.

Scary as it can be to even imagine, their approach is totally logical. If you don't want your life to feature X, Y, Z, then you don't bring those things into it. You don't bring them in and try to ignore them or continually argue with them, any more than you'd bring Ebola in and then argue with it.

This feels like a good place to re-post Reality's outline of healthy relationships 🤗
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/698029-Right-listen-up-everybody

And here's the value-setting Freedom Programme. It's only £14 online.
https://www.freedomprogramme.co.uk/online.php

Certainly were red flags all over mine but I was naive/chose to ignore them. Had I taken notice I would have spared myself 5 years of hell.

Hindsight is always bloody amazing.

I think this is very true. I ended an abusive relationship a few ago. My father was a genuinely good and decent man and I had a good relationship with him. I believed my husband was also a good man, just one who had a very difficult childhood. Interestingly, my husband's behaviour really deteriorated soon after my father died.
I think I'd recognise red flags in a relationship very early now because I know how bad a relationship can get. Being a much loved daughter made me look at men through rose tinted glasses.

I believed my husband was also a good man, just one who had a very difficult childhood.

So, somehow, you'd internalised a belief that it was your responsibility to mend a dysfunctional male? It'd be interesting to hear if you know how that happened.

I know this is not the point of this post, but if you are in financial/personal difficulty you do not need to be putting quite a lot of time and what money you can spare into helping other. It is nice of you, but you are ok to focus only on you right now.

Same in pretty much every regard. My DHs behaviour was impeccable - he was the perfect DH - until my father died and I was pregnant with number 4.

Some very insightful posts here. @Garlicwest Yy to internalising blame as part of the dynamic. (my parents both blamed me for getting into the relationship, making clear how hard it was for them, and also supported me getting out of it). And if you've had garlic names for a long time, your posts helped me many years ago when I was leaving.

Oh, that's really nice to hear, :@bibliomania! Thank you 🤗

I'm not sure if I exactly believed it my responsibility to fix him so much as I instinctively believed him every time he said he was sorry and wanted to change. It took me an embarrassingly long time to accept that his behaviour was getting steadily worse and give up hope that things were going to magically be good again.
I definitely plan to go to therapy in future and work through it all properly.
I plan to spend a long time being single because I feel that now I would be constantly looking for red flags in a new relationship. I don't think I could trust another man.

I think the OP saying that some women will repeatedly get into toxic relationships is very simplistic. I'm sure that it does happen, but also I know that there are a lot of women like me who will have reflected a lot after leaving a bad relationship and will be much more wary afterwards.

Nobody needed to say it's our fault, did they? When you're used to being a blame-absorber, to being criticised and being 'wrong', to heading off bad consequences, you become hyper-alert. If someone's drink goes cold, you refresh it straight away although it's not your fault they left it by the window. When the away team wins, you start planning how to deflect your partner's anger.

I think this explanation from @Garlicwest is so good. And not just because it describes the way the victim acts but because I think it highlights this weird dicotomy we've talked a little about on here already where many of these men are not necessarily intrinsically bad men. My DH is not abusive. But I have absolutely no doubt that in a different relationship, he would display abusive behaviours. There's no EXCUSE for that, but I think as some people have pointed out on this thread - it's not just about training women to spot these, but actively training men not to do them. Things like the drink going cold and blaming someeone else, or not putting any effort into monitoring or controlling your behaviour rwhen disappointed.... those are things that I think many many men just grow up thinking is their right and they have to be told that it's not, and they have to listen. And that's true even for the good ones. DH was the golden child, the boy, the perfect son... and let me tell you, his parents did him (and me) no favours by that. Luckily he's also an intelligent, educated, caring person (I guess I can thank his parents for that too) so he's done the work to challenge his own assumptions and behaviours. But in a different world, in a different relationship... well, perhaps not.

Teaching my DS about taking responsibility for himself, his actions, his behaviours, his impact is practically my most important task I feel. Just like he's always been bigger and taller than the other children (he's currently almost 5ft10 and he's only 13!) so i started teaching him about a version of "consent" when he was 2 - I didn't want him accidentally hurting someone or pushing boundaries without realising it.

This is uncanny. This is exactly me. I don't think I will ever trust again. Not only potential partners but frankly anyone. I'm wary and cynical entirely closed off to forming new trusting relationships with anyone. I will work cordially with people and have social relations but I don't trust even my friends. I am open only with my own children because they are the only people I would be happy to be happy at my expense. If someone genuinely thinks that an abuser is not capable of hiding signs ('red flags') from their targets then they are potential victims. My ex is still hugely popular, charming, well-liked, trusted (he doesn't struggle to find woman how can see a future with him -he loves to fake a life to get sympathy and sex from woman) - if there are signs of being a shithole then everyone misses them I'm afraid to say. Which is why I won't trust anyone no matter how well I know someone.

That's a brilliant post, @OhBling. Thank you for highlighting how good men can be potentially abusive, simply by virtue of their unconscious male entitlement. As you say, it could only take an overly pleasing or 'blame seeking' partner to set up an abusive dynamic that may have been avoided. It's a powerful argument for strong, uncompromising boundaries.

So pleased you're raising a young man to be aware of his privilege and thoughtful of others! There is hope for the future.

Thanks for posting this. I have always believed that if I’d had a good, strong dad around I wouldn’t have been treated so badly. Clearly it’s not so simple.

Yeah I find that that’s an interesting take as the prevailing wisdom is usually that it’s women who didn’t have decent fathers who struggle more because of their lack of a good role model and “desperation” to fill whatever hole their father. And that’s how you get the stigma and stereotypes of the girl with “daddy issues” (hate that phrase!) I’ve even heard of men who specifically target women who have an absent/crap Dad because they think they’re easier to manipulate and mistreat etc. disgusting!
.

I would say anecdotally though that all my friends who got happily married at age 25-30 to great men and are still with them are almost all from homes where they had great fathers.

That said I know plenty of women who also had decent fathers that bounced from one toxic partner to another.

I'm struggling to think of many women I know with bad fathers, who had the kind of simple married by 25-30 to a nice man of a similar age with an uncomplicated back (no previois kids etc) type story.

It is complex as with all these things