If you ended up in a bad relationship, what were the early warning signs?

[Destinysdaughter]

Not just talking about abusive relationships but ones where you ended up unhappy, you realised you were fundamentally incompatible, or he was selfish, didn't make you happy, was unfaithful or lazy, un attentive etc. I see so many women talking about unhappy relationships they are in and I wonder if, with hindsight, there were moments that revealed his true character, but you just didn't pay attention to them?

• The first time I stayed over at his, he apparently had to have at least 2 days notice "So I can tidy up - you know how slobby us men can be!" Apparently tidying up didn't extend to washing and airing the bed, which he had wet the night before because he was so drunk. Also the tidying consisted of throwing everything into a cupboard and slamming the door shut, as I discovered when I tried to make a cup of tea!
• Burst into tears when I left him a note on the table saying "Off to work, see you later" because apparently his ex had left him a note to say "This ain't working, goodbye" and it "brought it all back". He'd been seeing her for 4 months, 2 years previous.
• Earned twice as much as me but frequently asked to borrow money.
• I didn't fancy him, but was persuaded by friends and family "Give it a go - he's a nice bloke, the spark will grow!" It never did and we both ended up cheating on the other because we had no sexual compatibility at all.

7 years I stayed. 7 fucking wasted years.

It wasn't always a bad relationship but looking back , some things that became extreme at the end were there from the start.

Being a bit holier than thou sometimes turned into considering himself a better person than me all round.

When we were around strongminded people he would suddenly change his opinion to theirs leaving me the odd one out. This turned into a complete lack of loyalty.

Not being hugely thoughtful about what might be inconvenient or uncomfortable for me on minor occasions turned into complete disregard for my interests and thinking I was unreasonable if I pointed it out.

Warning signs I should have seen, being irrationally angry about little slights from others /lecturers, it should have been obvious that later on he'd get angry at me over nothing.

Effectively bullying a uni housemate, I did tell him I thought he was being a twat, but if we'd meet a little older, I'd have been the one living with him and he'd have been treating me like that. It was easier to see from the outside that he was the one in the wrong.

Being superior to others; he was super bright, and so supermarket jobs were beneath him in uni/uni holidays, better to be funded by parents (who couldn't afford it) and loans, was annoyed I'd got an office job for uni holidays, he should have been noticed for that sort of work. Declined an oxford offer because the rest of the students he'd met at interview stage were "posh twats" - realised later it was because he felt threatened by being surrounded by people just as bright or brighter than him when he'd built a personality around being "the clever one" in his northern comp - should have been a sign he'd have struggled with me doing well/better than him academically or money /job wise.

He did try to manage my finances for me - I just refused, had an all mighty row and our relationship ended shortly after. Can't help thinking I had a lucky escape to meet him when I did, there was a limit to how much control he could have.

songbird that sounds very familiar, especially the 'generous to an audience' thing. My (now dead, suicide) ex made a big show of paying for everyone's dinner when we went out with my parents in the early days. Then asked me for the money later. Funnily enough, money-meanness didn't feature that much later on, but mean spiritedness certainly did.

Years later he would offer his time to do someone a favour and then complain bitterly about it in the run up.

But the biggest and most dangerous thing about him, for which there were no warning signs, was his complete lack of empathy. Like, none. Even when he had cheated on me for a year and humiliated me in front of everyone who works for me he didn't seem to understand really that this was fucking awful for me and would take a long time to overcome. He just wanted to know when he could move back in since he'd 'told the truth now.' When I suggested he own up to our employers about the affair, as he had lied outright to them too, he took great umbrage. Why should he? It might undermine his career and people would gossip about him when it got out.

Another ex didnt seem to slag off exes but all of his relationships seemed to have ended in him cheating or by his bad behaviour. His life was so dramatic, there was always something going on in his life.

He was always in a mess at work, all the fucking time. Always complaining, always on the edge. Always on the brink of a nervous breakdown over very very little.

Moods were terrible too. He once went into a foul mood and took it out on me and then blamed me as the cause of his mood.

He has some kind of deep seated rage I think.

My family didn't like him

I didn't like his family. No hostility but their values were completely different to mine. He and they had no concept of living within their means, delayed gratification etc.

Full of big plans for getting qualifications and training to get a decent job, but got bored of the courses and never finished any.

Finding hidden final demand letters around the house for things he told me he had paid.

I knew even before i ended it that i didn't want to be married to him. It taught me a lot about wanting a relationship that was fundamentally a trusting and equal partnership.

Where so I start? Looking back there were a whole bunting of red flags. In my defence I met him when I was twenty (and so was he) with no idea about relationships. Unfortunately it took me another thirty years to walk away.

Some of the highlights in the early days were:

Weird relationship with his mother - almost like boyfriend and girlfriend. She threw a huge jealous tantrum the first time I stayed at their house which I thought was strange even at the time. He used to spend literally hours on the phone to her.

Saying to me the morning after the first time we had slept together "I'm not sure if I like your hands" WTF quite apart from this being rude - what was I supposed to do, chop them off? - surely it's the person you look at, not individual bits of them.

Zero empathy, everything had to be about him ALL the time.

Massively hung up on appearances and would periodically bully me about my looks and weight. Not surprisingly I ended up fat and with zero self esteem.

First one:

• Kept turning up unannounced
• Kept saying about how he was better than me at everything
• Kept telling me to shut up in front of people
• Kept telling me to stop being so stupid when I said things he didn't agree with
• Was constantly around me so that I couldn't interact with other people

This quickly escalated into full-blown emotional abuse and I had zero friends anymore.

Second one:

• He's in the medical profession and I should've realised at the time but oddly I only clocked a while later but, it appears he had read my medical record as he asked me for my home address; I was at uni at the time (said he wanted to send me a Christmas card, but really I think he just needed it to be able to access my medical records as I was registered at my doctors under my home address not my uni one. I never received a card but the next day I received this question; "have you ever self-harmed?" with a concerned look on his face, like he knew the answer. The only way he'd have known is if he had read my medical record. Anyway I was so taken aback by this I lied that I was just doing it for attention as I really didn't think it was an appropriate thing for him to be asking me and I didn't really want to talk about it. He shouldn't have known anyway!!!
• Kept cancelling on meeting up with me; something always came up or he was suddenly ill. #bullshit
• Came up with some bullshit about how he'd remembered the smell of my perfume and had gone out to try and find it so he could remember how gorgeous I smelt (I know right, WTAF). Flattery was his thing.
• Never wanting to please me in the bedroom.
• Wanting to watch me on the toilet in a sexual way. Not sure it was a fetish so much as he just knew it made me uncomfortable and he liked the power of seeing me in a vulnerable position.
• Always boasting about how he always knew he was going to be successful.

Kept cancelling on meeting up with me; something always came up or he was suddenly ill. #bullshit

Hell yes I had that one. I realised it meant that they were sleeping around with others and that this was the reason for last minute cancellations.

For me it was realising that I'd started to 'edit' what I told my friends about him so that they wouldn't 'get the wrong idea' about our relationship. Of course, they would have got precisely the right fucking idea about him and known I was a mug for staying.

I love what Tigermoll says. Brilliant observation

For me it was more about my behaviour than his that was different to any other happy relationship I'd been in:

• not wanting to have sex ever
• flinching when he tried to touch me
• being moody and irritable with him (I'm normally neither)
• feeling depressed all the time
• feeling trapped and held back

He also didn't have any friends in the city we lived in, would be understandable as he only just moved there but he had no interest in making any.

Never made any plans for us; he would have happily sat and watched
TV his whole life if I let him.

Didn't make me feel loved or attractive, the dynamic between us was just all wrong (friend zone not relationship).

Didn't stick up for me to his family eg when I wasnt invited to his cousins wedding and it caused a huge fall out.

Ignored what I was saying a lot of the time meaning I felt frustrated that he wasn't listening to me.

Massively stretched himself financially to buy a nice car meaning he had no money for the two of us to do anything.

Not motivated throughout his life eg dropping out of uni, being unemployed for a long time etc.

Treated me very strangely and almost childlike; talking in baby voices, being annoying on purpose. Sounds odd but I think our dynamic was wrong.

I've been struggling with our split as I ended it but have been thinking maybe I should have been more appreciative of his good qualities.
This has really helped me reaffirm things in my mind!

SoThatHappened I think you are right. I think I also paid for him to meet up with another woman as well, inadvertently of course. He told me he had a lecture to go to at university, but my friend saw him walking the opposite direction towards the train station (after I'd taken £20 out of the cash machine for him because he told me he didn't have any money on him to get home afterwards).

tigermoll You are on the money!

Looking at other women across the pool on our first holiday in a sneaky eyes to the side fashion. WTF. Think me then: Brooke Shields OW: Doris Day
Apparently had a thing about women who he thought were dirty which I found out 20 years later had progressed to frequenting brothels.
Idiot.

Crying and saying 'I need you'. (Two boyfriends.) Yeah, it sounds all in touch with your feelings and sensitive, but what it pans out as is not good.

My ex fabricated a mental health issue to blame his bad behaviour on. I wasn't allowed to be annoyed at any of this behaviour because 'you know that I can't help it'.

He also took control of both of our finances, which essentially meant I was working a good job but unable to buy anything without permission. He did this under the guise of it being common sense because the way he told it, I was bad with money (I'm not).

Those were some of the earlier signs of him being abusive.

In a non-abusive relationship I was in, he just didn't seem to be growing out of teenage habits. It got to the point a few years down the line where I'd go out to work all day and come home to find the dog still needed walking, all the housework still needed doing and he'd still be in his boxers playing video games. I should have left much earlier but always accepted the explanation that he was just taking a break from uni work. By the time he was no longer in uni it was just the status quo.

PregnantAndEngaged

Doesn't it make you feel sick? We got cancelled on. Not top of their list :(

I have thought about it many times. i think flying off the handle for no reason leaving me feeling - this happened quite early on, then very apologetic afterwards. Few male friends, but friends who were women, played on my insecurities a bit (eg by going to lunch with them etc) and made me generally doubt myself. Very very nice though at times. Generous and intelligent, but thought himself special and superior to everyone else. Isolating by for instance saying one of my friends fancied him Moved in quickly and things generally went too fast at the beginning. I had low self esteem when I met him, and low expectations

Coming to my home for lunch and when asked what he would like to drink with his meal he said 'Vodka, it doesn't affect me'

He constantly talked over me, and never listened when I did get the chance to speak. One of his favourite things to say was 'mememememe, that's all I hear when you speak', then get huffy when I told him that he was being rude, as it was 'only a joke' and I needed to get over myself.

He belittled me in front of people constantly, and if I dared stand up for myself I was told I was being 'snotty' and ruining everyone else's good time. Ditto general sexist jokes and comments.

He, in the entire relationship, never met any of my friends, or showed any interest in them at all; in fact I don't think he ever knew the name of my best friend. I lost contact with a lot of people because I stupidly put him first. He basically refused to acknowledge that I had a life and interests outside of time I spent with him.

He was always making decisions for me, and didn't trust me to do anything. Holidays were a good example of this; I never got a say in where we went or how much money I was expected to pay, and he didn't deem me capable of booking anything in case I got it wrong.

He was the personification of mansplaining, once very carefully explaining to me how a map works, and having a massive sulking fit when I firmly told him that I am well aware, thanks.

Expected me to wait on him hand and foot when his mummy wasn't around (we both lived with parents at the time).

This all happened within the first three months, btw. Stayed with him for eighteen years...

*eighteen months, not years!!! Fucking felt like eighteen years though...

Another one here who saw the signs early but ignored / covered up for them for over 30 years. In particular:

Awful temper (only with others then) but worryingly easy to switch on and off
Petulance
Mummy fixation
Absolutely no friends - like literally none at all

Warning signs I ignored and regret
*Yelling at me on our second date. I was so shocked I nearly ran off the road. I should have put him out of my car right then and there
*Constantly checking out the backsides of other women. He would fly into a rage when I called him on it
*screaming at me down the phone when I dared wake him up once
*Arranging to cheat on me when I was 9 months pregnant with his child. I happened to find out when the OW sent a message to his computer I was using at the time
*I became unable to drive because of a medical condition during my pregnancy. He agreed to drive me to places but only if I gave him petrol money. Pregnant with his child, working part time...He was employed in a position making three times what I made...

The list could go on. I am so sad for myself and my children I should never have allowed this man into my life.

He was the English equivalent of Jesse Pinkman but I was to naive to recognise the signs of heavy drug use and just thought he had a cold all the time.