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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Red flags I should have heeded - share yours for womenkind

999 replies

ParsleyTheLioness · 16/04/2012 21:13

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.

OP posts:
Mealiepudding · 21/04/2012 13:37

RachelKarenGreen Yes to competitive tiredness, illness etc.

When I was pregnant he was rarely well. He was 'ill' every damned Christmas we spent together too.

Mealiepudding · 21/04/2012 13:41

lovesineffable I'll be a happy old (single) woman with cats Smile

I wouldn't recognise a 'normal' relationship with a 'normal' man if it jumped up and bit me.

susiedaisy · 21/04/2012 13:45

Think I'm more of a dog personSmile

lovesineffable · 21/04/2012 13:48

I prefer a pet free life, the fewer responsibilities I have the better! Grin

Sunnywithachanceofshowers · 21/04/2012 13:52

Rachel, my exH was very much like that. Unless it was depression, in which case he loved being 'better' than me.

My father was EA to my mother, and emotionally distant to me. My stepfather was violent to my mother. I was a parentified eldest daughter trying to support my mother. It's absolutely no wonder that, with those examples, that I went from one abusive relationship to another. I still struggle with self esteem issues, binge eating and drinking. But it's better than it was.

rubycon · 21/04/2012 14:03

abitwobblynow - he used them as an excuse for spending ages outside 'looking for hedgehogs' when he was on his mobile to his OW!

ThePinkPussycat · 21/04/2012 14:11

I am a mad old woman with cats. Unfortunately Ex is still here pending financial settlement.

He was all against getting a kitten, 15 years ago. The kids and I overrode his decision.

Mealiepudding · 21/04/2012 14:17

Good for you PinkPussycat.

I can't have animals at the moment as DS is allergic to cats and dogs. But if he ever when he leaves home, I will have one or two.

lovesineffable · 21/04/2012 14:23

cats appear to be almost compulsory..perhaps I'll end up getting one in spite of myself:)

carernotasaint · 21/04/2012 16:25

My Dogshitsshoes So everyone in your workplace sided with him? What a bunch of fucking idiots. sounds to me like most of them would be an abusers dream....especially for financial abuse. I bet a fair few of them end up in that situation. It seems to me that society enforces the fact that men shouldnt take responsibility for their own actions.
Poopooinmytoes Im afraid the withholding sex and affection thing IS common. You only have to look at the sexless relationship threads on here and there is a site called experienceproject.com where thousands of people have posted their experiences.
The only reason it doesnt appear to be common is because many women are obeying the unwritten rule of "dont tell"! Because the men who are doing this to their women dont want the myth of them being less than powerful busted wide open. They have a vested interest in not having this taboo smashed.

PooPooInMyToes · 21/04/2012 16:50

Carer. Oh! Never heard about that one much.

Mydog. It sounds like they just missed the point, massively! I think that happens a lot. Infuriating!

Milkandlotsofwineplease · 21/04/2012 17:59

Ex before the last one...

  1. Wanted to choose all my clothes. Would sulk if I picked something without his say so. I once bought a dress by myself gasp and wore it on a night out. I got LOADS of comments from people saying how nice I looked. All he could say was that the dress 'Did nothing for me'
  1. Wouldn't let me go to the hairdressers. He insisted on cutting my hair for me.
  1. Used to make me dress up on weekend nights. Even if we were staying in I had to get dolled up for like a night out. No matter how knackered I was from the working week. He called it 'Dressing up to stay in'.

Last ex...

  1. Really bad temper. Road rage, rants about everything constantly. He is notorious in his family for it.
  1. Incredibly jealous. Ruined a night out once because a guy I vaguely knew smiled at me in a pub.
  1. Appalling drunk, but not willing to do anything about his drinking. Came home and pissed the bed on more than one occasion.
marshmallowpies · 21/04/2012 18:16

Milk - yep, he'd pick out clothes for me which I hated, and nag me to buy them. I still own a pair of sunglasses I don't really like because they were the ones he wanted me to have. Just not got round to replacing them with ones I like!

Hair: he didn't cut my hair (!) but he always nagged me to wear it up rather than down. Once hassled me so much about changing my hairstyle we turned back from heading to a night out so I could go home & redo my hair the way he liked - we'd got about half way from our flat to the tube when he finally persuaded me to turn back.

Also shopping with HIM was a nightmare. I'd have to spend hours waiting while he agonised between 2 practically identical shirts & then he'd get angry with me for not having an opinion. I used to give up & say 'if you like both, buy both of them!!'

RachelKarenGreen · 21/04/2012 18:26

Oh cripes, wardrobe.

Okay. I worked with mine for a time, and he adores my work wardrobe. As do I. But heaven forbid I slob out at weekends. The look on my face if I wore Ugg boots or Converse. I also had to wear my hair down.

Dressing up for sex too. I like it, but not EVERYTIME!

Oh and my (good) job, the one that pays his rent isn't real work. He has always worked harder than me (except he hasn't).

If I didn't reply to messages because I was in a meeting, I was accused of shagging my boss.

ThePinkPussycat · 21/04/2012 18:32

Mine was not so much controlling as a refuser to do anything. With the clothes, an early red flag was that his mum bought his, I thought this meant I'd be able to get him to wear what I thought made him look good - wrong! He had a lovely slim tall body when young as well Sad

In recent years he just looked a bit like an old tramp - a complete turn off to look at.

fuzzywuzzy · 21/04/2012 18:45

I was not allowed any hobbies/pastimes as anything I wanted to do was a waste of time. I wasn't allowed to read- for ten years I was not allowed a book in the house, so I did what any insane person would do I would buy books from charity shops and hide them in places he'd never look, like the kitchen in cooking pots, in my san pro, in my childrens nappies...
I did once point out that he read newspapers online so why couldn't I, apparently it was because he read the serious articles and I'd just be reading the useless ones Hmm

I wasn't allowed to listen to music, so I used to wait till he went out and I'd listen online, once he came home, let himself in thro the back door and nearly gave me a heart attack by standing peering in thro the back window at me trying to see what I was doing...

I wasn't allowed to eat what I wanted, because my choices were not good for me. altho I was the one who cooked from scratch every single day come hell or high water.

He'd bring about ten friends home and expect me to lay on a feast for them.

Whatever I cooked his family were better at it than me, then one day I was having a conversation with my exMIL and she told me she couldnt cook or even knew how to gut a fish or any of the dishes I cooked.... so next time twatface told me his mother made better xyz than me I told him that wasn'ttrue his mother had informed me she could not cook xyz, to which he replied she must have forgotten Hmm, I had to win that argument so I told him his sister had also told me her mother could not cook at all and she (SIL) learnt to cook with her in laws....that shut him up. He'd basically invented an childhood for himself!

He was very very ungracious about accepting gifts. I'm very good at giving gifts, I love spending time and thought over gifts so whenever I present a gift to a friend/family member I know they will love it as I know they've wanted it for themselves but would not buy it for themselves IYKWIM. He used to reduce me to tears and make me beg him to accept the fucking insanely expensive gifts, then he'd make me return them and exchange for trivial reasons eg colour etc. In the decade we were married I got nothing from him as a gift. But woe betide me if I didn't have a gift for him on special ocassions.

He always suspected me of lying even over the most trivial things, so conversations would be incredibly exahusting as we'd talk about whatever then move on to another subject only for him to bring it back to the original subject from a different angle because he wanted to catch me out, he'd do this incessantly trying to get me to bring up details I had not previously mentioned so he could then accuse me of being a whore (I really really wish I had slept with more than just the crap lay that he was).

He would pick an argument with me late at night about nothing, then argue and argue and argue till morning, he'd do this the night before I had something important on like exams or a new course etc. So I'd be a wreck the following day...amazingly I managed to still get a decent degree.

He would tell me I could go out (on the rare ocassions) and then have a massive row with me right before I was about to leave, which would leave me so upset I would cancel the trip at the last minute, then he'd express surprise and concern that I had not gone.

He would be horrendous to me and then expect sex every night, if I refused he'd claim to all and sundry that we never had sex ever...despite this I have managed to miraculously conceive two children!
He would also claim that everyone had more sex than we did and it was my fault as I was some kind of frigid bitch...it was bizarre I believed him till one day I read a light hearted thread on here and it turned out (according to that poll) that apparently we had more than average sex per week.

Over the years I so completely lost myself having to conform to twatfaces ever changing and increasingly ludicrous demands, when I got divorced I decided one day to bake cakes and I was hysterically delighted with the results, I rang my mum to tell her I had made heavenly cupcakes because of my amazing oven(!) to which my mother replied quite calmly 'well of course you bake amzing cakes and biscuits you used to when you lived here dont you remember'...I so didn't I had totally forgotten who I had been.

beatenbyayellowteacup · 21/04/2012 18:49

Oh and another a few more things:

splitting the bill, right from the start, everytime (walked off on me once for not buying him a drink - that was the last straw), despite telling me how generous he was
talking about how wealthy he was and how hard he worked, and how well respected he was in the community
showing a guest around the house, including the bedroom, whilst I was asleep in the bed
telling me I couldn't do a triathlon because I didn't have a body like (then pointed to a very slim, toned woman)
calling his mother a fat arse who pigged out (80 yo and used a zimmerframe)

RachelKarenGreen · 21/04/2012 18:52

fuzzywuzzy your post brought some realisations too.

He expected me to tidy his house, which like a twat I did. I didn't mind that. I did mind that I wasn't allowed MTV on while I did it.

Every argument was 'you're just like [his exes name]' Of course, all his exes were unreasonable bitches. Every now and again I'd highlight that he was the common denominator.

Said I was a shit cook, whereas he was great. He never cooked once, I did it everytime.

I hope this trip down memory lane isn't unacceptable. I just need to catalogue everything.

susiedaisy · 21/04/2012 19:06

God did these idiots all come out of the same mould!

I was chatting to my mum the other month about my exH and cooking came into the conversation and apart from the odd bacon butty (which he made a huge fuss about making me ) he never cooked anything ever, not even for the kids when I was at work, they had to survive on jam sandwiches crisps and yogurts mainly when I was working, or he'd drive to KFC it wasn't until I said it out aloud that it dawned on me!
He would even make just himself a cup of tea and not ask if I wanted one even though I was just in the other room or upstairs sorting out washing, and if I heard the kettle and shouted that I would like a cuppa it was meet with grousing and muttering about me being a pain in the arseConfused never in 18 years did he put enough water in the kettle for anyone other than himself!

Mealiepudding · 21/04/2012 19:13

Not unacceptable at all Rachel. Things we've blanked out, dismissed or excused are now proving to be relevant.

This thread really is cathartic.

malinkey · 21/04/2012 19:36

I'm trying to think of more early red flags, not as serious as some of the later abusive stuff.

He told me early on that my friends were all jealous of me (er no) and I was so nice that people would be tempted to walk all over me - I wondered what on earth he was on about and didn't realise he was talking about himself of course.

A lot of his stories were about how other friends had looked after him in particular circumstances. I thought he'd had a run of bad luck and how nice his friends were. I realised later that he was really needy and liked to be looked after and there was always some drama, usually self-made, that meant that he could persuade someone into looking after him.

He made lots of comments about ex-girlfriends, usually about how A had nice tits and B had great skin or whatever - often after having sex with me.

He liked to be seen to be generous and would buy flamboyant presents for me if other people could witness it or buy enormous bunches of flowers if he'd upset me, especially if someone else might be around to see them. Not things that I would want really but that was irrelevant.

He would never apologise for anything. If he did manage to ever say sorry it wouldn't be at all heartfelt and would be 'sorry you feel upset' rather than 'sorry it was my fault'. If he bought me a present I would have to keep thanking him and he would keep asking me if I liked it. But if I bought him something that I'd spent ages trying to get exactly the right thing, I'd be lucky if he said thank you without pointing out something that was wrong with it. Same if once in a blue moon he cooked for me - something quite basic that he hadn't really spent much time on - I'd be constantly having to say 'mm, really delicious' etc. While whatever I cooked usually had something critical to say about it.

I'm sure there are more. This really is cathartic isn't it?!

RachelKarenGreen · 21/04/2012 19:42

I'd be lucky if he said thank you without pointing out something that was wrong with it.

THIS.

And manners! Behaved beautifully towards strangers...nice to waitresses, holding doors open, helping women with buggies on the bus. Behind closed doors, totally different.

Mine texted asking for £20 to go in his bank account, so he could visit his mum (presumably to get more money off her). He didn't even say please. (I said no).

susiedaisy · 21/04/2012 20:11

Someone (sorry can't remember who) said a phrase 'street angel house devil' to describe someone who is charming to the outside world but different behind close doors and it really struck a cord with me!!

Leverette · 21/04/2012 20:30

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molepom · 21/04/2012 20:34

Oh. My. God.

Most of these are ringing so true...why the hell disn't I see them before now? and we split up 2 years ago!

YY to spending the last few pennies on me and then getting a face on because I was more concerened about the bills than being grateful.

Belittling me to his mates.....in a jokey way so he didnt mean it. TWAT.

Telling all of his "mates" a different name, and not giving them my real name, so he" would be able to find out who gosspied."

DEBT and credit cards...oh my word I could go on and on about those which I'm still dealing with. All of which are my fault apparently even though I have never owned a credit card in my life

He spends money loaned to him by his parents, then tells them I was the one who spent it....I had no idea about this until after he left.

Another one who's ex all cheated on him and he was always the victim

Ignoring any solutions I may have to certain problems but when his mates say them they are the best ideas ever despite the fact that I was the one who bloody told them to say it

He can stay out on a night out as long as he wants but goes ape if I'm not home by 11....as for going away HA!

the more I type on this, the more keeps cropping up...

and the beauty.....

"you can leave whenever you want but I'm having the kids and I will get my "family" to hunt you down and beat you, then take the kids from you" and other variations to that effect

I'm only on page 4 of this thread at the moment, but will post more later xx

Thanks for the thread OP.

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