Red flags I should have heeded - share yours for womenkind

[ParsleyTheLioness]

There were various red flags that meant I should have headed for the hills, but I was vulnerable at the time, and he only upped the ante several years and a child down the line. I will share mine, in the hope that someone may take it on board, and hopefully others will share theirs too.
In no particular order: very early on in our relationship, he would throw a strop for no reason that I could discern, and looking back, still didn't know what had triggered it. I just knew I felt bad afterwards.
He was always unaware of personal space, and would frequently invade mine. Eg in the car, he would suddenly lurch accross me to access the glove box, without any warning. His car, his space.
Subtle undermining tactics. I am very particular about the perfume I wear. Anything else is a bit of waste of money really. He knew this, but would always try to 'convert' me to another one.
There were many others, and things got worse, with lots of EA, some dv, but I am just thinking of the things that had my Twat Detector been working, would have encouraged me to get out before I had emotionally invested. Please feel free to add. I'm sure I shall think of lots of other things later.

Hmm Pity Carmela missed out one thing which is just as important. That if a man can go completely the other way and withdraw sex and affection and then refuse to get any help or counselling etc then blame you for going elsewhere for it years down the line.
See what Carmela has done is a good example of the problem. We tell our young daughters that men are "only after one thing" Then later down the line when a woman ends up in a sexless marriage with an asexual or with a man who simply refuses to address the problem,she ends up confused and hurt because we are never pre warned about this. And so she doesnt know what to do and often keeps quiet thinking that she is the only one going through this. Which wouldnt happen if we werent constantly fed the stereotype of men as rampant stags. So you did miss one very important issue off your list Carmela.

The first time he put the phone down on me in anger about something completely trivial. I remember being open mouthed in disbelief and just looking at the phone.
I should have never spoken to him again
But then I wouldn't have my beautiful little boy.

And then a million other things
Lying, cheating, not meeting his friends for ages.

Lueji you are right, many of them keep a lid on their behaviour for a lot of the time. Mine did, for 20 yrs. There is a book,about 'Too good to leave, too bad to stay' I think. Haven't read it, but sounds likeit probably covers my situation. It was only when he really upped the ante, and involved my teenage dd in the gaslighting that I had to get him to leave.
Carernotasaint you make a very good point. I think the myth about men and constant sex is about men wanting power, not sex per se. Many apparently 'very sexy' men IME are scared of female sexuality.

A childish attitude to bathroom stuff , ie , doing nasty big farts like a child would
Poor personal hygeine
Needing lots of sleep and naps

Caser. Well i suppose she couldn't mention every possible scenario and i don't think withholding sex is a particularly common one. I have one friend who doesn't get as much as she would like because he has a low drive but that's out of all the people I've known (and that's a lot!)

Also, "To pacify the pig, give him manual stimulation instead" - er, no! You don't have to do ANYTHING if you don't feel in the mood!

I think the article/letter is tongue in cheek though and she does come from a different generation - I thought it was great :)

I'd just started dating my first boyfriend when my grandma was dying. The last thing she said to me was "Don't you go chasing that man, now." :)

Part of the problem, I think, is that we fall in love with what they present initially and we hope that they go back to that and the twatiness is just a "phase" or think it's something we caused.

Ultimately they feed off our love, and keep it going just enough that we don't feel we should leave.
Funny how often they wait until we have invested quite a lot before becoming more openly abusive. Get married, have children, financially dependent.

At least most women don't fall for obvious twats and hope to change them, I don't think.

I think you are right Lueji. But they do drop hints as well, and it is these that we need to take very careful heed to. I mean, my H was a complete catch! Rich, goodlooking etc.

So how come none of the sisters of his friends went for him? Because .... they had a better sense of self than me.

Abitwobbly - I think it's often a combination of wanting them to really be that lovely person that they initially appeared to be and a lack of self-esteem or similar on the woman's part. I don't think I ever tried to change any of my abusive exes but I always hoped that the bad bit would go away and the real nice part of them would come back.

Perhaps this was also wrapped up with a misguided belief that love would conquer all. If I loved them enough then all would be well.

Ridiculous looking back now. I was so deeply in denial about the truth and that's something that I've seen in other people in abusive relationships.

There were certainly signs at early stages in all these relationships that they weren't treating me right which I chose to sweep aside or ignore - with a belief that somehow that wasn't the true part of them or there was a reason why they behaved like that (bad childhoods, abusive parents, etc). The question is why? And why do so many other women do that too?

In my case I think if my upbringing hadn't been so dysfunctional and if I'd had more self-belief, then I wouldn't have put up with any of this stuff. But is that always the case? Several women on this thread have said that they didn't have poor self-esteem so in their cases perhaps the twattishness was better disguised?

When the girl in Starbucks commented that I always bought coffee in the branch where we are regulars. That he won't go in there now but is pretending that it's an ethical consumer reason. That he was cross with me for not saying anything back. It was fact, and I was embarrassed.

That he is allowed to fart and shit in front of me, but he mocks my occasional breaking wind.

That his chosen form of pest control for mice in his house was an air rifle.

That he watches The West Wing and The Kennedy's and thinks he will be US president. 30, not involved in politics, unemployed. Not a US citizen.

That I need braces. I will be stunning then.

That 'you never do anything for me'. As he stands in his house that I paid his rent on, wearing clothes I bought him.

I will be back with more. This is cathartic.

Great, thoughtful comment Malinkey. Yup. We are also not given great role models.

Rachel. Get rid. Seriously.

My friend did this (paid for everything). So he had his WHOLE salary to save... He joined a share club, bought shares over a period of 10 years, told her the stock market tanked. She believed him.

She never got it. Until the divorce when he bought her half of the house. She now lives in a small house in a bad area, he has the cars, the watch, the house.

Please take care of yourself, a half life is so not worth it.

My self esteem is low in some ways, healthy in others.

But my most recent relationship is repeating some patterns.

When I was a child, my school bullies were my friends.

My mother was abusive, would turn arguments around on me and I would be apologising to her, for things she had done.

Thank you abitwobblynow

I'm up to my credit limit, and coincidentally, he's buggered off to his mothers. I'll be ok long term. I just need to get through this. He needs 'space'. I suspect come 9pm tonight when he wonders if I'm out with the girls - when I might talk to men - he will stop wanting space. Even if I'm not with him, he texts me to tell me to go home to prove I love him (I don't do it).

He says he will sabotage every relationship I ever have. I laugh at this. I managed to have a three month fling last summer, which was healthy but ran it's course which he never knew about (we had broken up).

It was with his friend. I'm glad that happened, because otherwise, I would believe him.

Ooh yes, constantly being asked: "What do you actually do(for me)?"

I think he was trying to point out that he thought I was useless. I worked all through our r'ship and trained during the latter half. My money supported us both, as he was unemployed; although I suppose his stealing of bacon and toothpaste ("shouldn't have to pay for that stuff" ) helped.

He used to make up words too. Had a massive chip on his shuolder cos I'd been to university, so whenever 'we' argued, he would throw in random words he'd made up to sound clever. I was never, ever able to pull him on it, because that would have been me trying to show how superior I was.

I think his friends saw more than I thought too. I remember getting a phone call in work, on the work number from a friend who'd witnessed Knobhead's drunken ranting at me one evening. He pretended he was looking for Knob, then casually dropped in that he and his wife were always there if I wanted to talk. I barely knew his wife.

A couple of years ago (long after I'd left) I was approached by another friend who asked whether Knobhead'd ever been 'not nice' to me, as he was worried that KH's current girlfriend was having a hard time. She is/was a fair bit younger than him too.

Is competitive tiredness/depression/anxiety a red flag? I feel like anytime I experienced this, and told him, I was told his was worse than mine and when I was so depressed I was suicidal, he told me I was 'wrecking his head'. I question myself and wonder if opening up about my dark thoughts was EA on my part.

Oh yes competitive tiredness/illness/birthday celebrations/weight loss/ one time I happened to mention that I fancied havin a small tattoo but couldn't decide on one and would give it some thought, by the end of the week he had told loads of people we were havin 'his n hers' tattoos together as he thought that would be nice the competitive pettiness was endless and he frequently 'played up' on my birthday until he had either ruined it or completely dominated it!

This is such an amazing thread and I think it would be so helpful (so much more helpful than those 'This is Abuse' ads with the bloke abusing his girlfriend and himself watching from a window in shock at his behaviour.) if a book was available or just more recognition of what these Red Flags are. Because the same things keep coming up over and over and over.

What Abitwobblynow said about thinking we can change twattish men- SPOT ON. And I think we are subtly encouraged to think that way - mainly in those godawful celebrity magazines. Remember when Beckham was 'alleged' to have had an affair and Posh was blamed in some quarters because she wasn't travelling with him or there or something? As though it was her job to control his sexual behaviour?

And we often hear of 'wild behaviour' ie shagging around from male celebs and the said mags breathlessly ask: 'Can so and so tame him?' Or 'tame his wild ways'?

It's not up to the man to stop behaving like a twat - it's up to us to stop him behaving like a twat

Thinking about it - in my early twenties when a man asked me out I didn't feel I had the right to say 'No thanks I don't want to.' Where on earth did I learn this shit from?

My bullying dad and my PA mother of course.

And whoever said that they have been trying to get their friends to sling their useless boyfriends - good on you. And as for being alone with cats - I always remember when I was trying to go to Relate to sort out problems with the ExH (Oh yeah - he stopped going because he didn't like the counsellor and felt it was me with the problem. He walked on fucking water) - well I saw a poster of a double bed and the couple both on either side of it,turned away from each other. In the space in the middle was written:

The Loneliest Place in the World.

It really helped. I started to think that the loneliness I felt in the relationship was ten thousand times worse than being alone. And what was wrong with being alone anyway? And why does our culture persist in viewing single women as 'sad' when every mental health check going states that married men are far far happier than married women and single women are much happier than married women with children.

Friz'And why does our culture persist in viewing single women as 'sad' '

because 'the patriarchy' (being slightly facetious here of course!) has a vested interest in women continuing to believing that their best chance of happiness and fulfilment is devoting themselves to a relationship and keeping their man happy.

Being single (I find) is glorious, but the mad old woman with cats stereotype is invariably invoked in response to a woman who chooses to remain single for any length of time

In the 16 months I've been divorced loads of people have asked me 'so have you got a new man?' or ' have you done Internet dating yet? Or they say ' oh never mind you'll find someone soon' ' only two or three have ever asked me if I'm enjoying my new found freedom, people seem astonished if I mention how much happier i am being single, it's as if they can't really believe it !

Everyone thought my stbXh walked on water.

They all constantly told me how lucky I was and how jealous they were.

Looking back I actually did spot some of the red flags but was told I was being petty/unreasonable/didn't know how lucky I was.

This thread really is bringing back an awful lot of things I had completely forgotten and also making me see things from a very different angle.

I used to let him drive my car. One day he drove me to work as he was borrowing it for the day, no problem there.

My parents drive is a pain in the arse and countless people have scratched their cars getting out. As we were pulling out I was telling him exactly how to do it. Not because i'm a controlling arse but because it's bloody difficult and you have to position the car perfectly to get out in one go.

He completely ignored me, as I kept saying "slow down, follow the wall around" he carried on doing it in the way he thought he should. Result? He scratched the shit out of my new (to me) car.

I was fucking fuming, not because he's scratched it but because he'd been so arrogant as to completely ignore me.

We drove the rest of the way in silence. He was clearly embarrassed but also pissed off with me for being angry with him. That is what pissed me off the most. How dare he be angry with me, he is the one who fucked up yet i'm a bitch for telling him so.

Anyway, I was obviously still fuming when I got to work so was ranting about it to every unfortunate sucker who crossed my path! Not one person said "what a shit" every single one said ah well accidents happen, he's probably really gutted don't be so horrible.

He then turned up at my work to say he'd been for a quote to fix the damage and it was £250 so he couldn't afford it. He'd bought me a rose to say sorry.

Every single one of my colleagues went ga ga. They were literally swooning and saying how lovely he was, how. sorry he looked and how much of a cow I was to have been cross with him.

No mention of the fact that I was stuck with the repair bill. Nope, he was really sweet for buying me a rose and "looked really sorry". I was, in fact, an utter cow and they would all gladly take him off my hands if I was going to be so vile to him.

He still drives far to close to parked cars and has zero spacial awareness yet still refused to listen when I ask him to slow down or move out. He actually smirks at me because, in his words "christ shut up, I know what i'm doing".

He has damaged my cars countless times finally writing the last one off. I'm getting properly riled thinking about it now!

susiedaisy thank you for the reminder!!! Birthdays!!! I didn't get a present, and he loves a drink any time of day normally and on my birthday didn't want to get pissed because it was midweek. Honestly, it was like a toddler acting out on their siblings birthday. So obvious. It was a 'big' birthday for me as well. Bear in mind, his effort is like the sodding jubilee!

*birthday not effort. Posted too soon.

Sorry if I keep posting randomly. I need to collect my thoughts.

Rachel same here, my exH birthday celebrations could go on for days with various nights out with different groups of people, a family BBQ which I had to organise, a meal out, a shopping trip to buy new outfit for said nights out, it went on and on and cost a fortune, don't get me wrong everyone deserves being spoilt on their birthday but his was expectations were outlandish, it took us weeks to recover financially!

"he is the one who fucked up yet i'm a bitch for telling him so"

This has caused the majority of our rows, because of course nothing is ever his fault, and he can never just say "Oh yes, I'm sorry. I fucked up there", but has to manufacture an argument about something entirely different to punish me for my temerity.