What were your green flags?

[Bobbiepin]

We all talk about 'red flags' in relationships, but what were your green flags (things that made you think you had a keeper)

I'll start - my DH used to drive halfway across the country to see me almost every weekend for two years but also gave me a piggy back home after a night out rather than let me walk barefoot. He fed me chips the whole way!

Big one for me was everyone who knew him said what a great guy he was. Previously i’d only been out with men that If I said their name to people they would take a sharp intake of breath or go hmmmm yeah I know him or worse tell me to stay away from them! But DH got a glowing report from everyone.

I got really unwell about 4 months into our relationship. He never once complained that our dates got cut short, or we couldn't go out at the last minute. He stayed up with me while I was ill in the night. He went to hospital appointments with me. He accommodated the changes I had to make in my life to get better, that affected him too, without complaint.

He was respectful of his ex - I only found out a while later from someone else, that he finally dumped her because she smashed a teapot over his head!

He came from a family I knew well, and had appropriate relationships modelled to him from a young age.

He went out of his way every day to show me how much he liked / loved me and how lucky he was to have me.

He still does the same, 5 years and one toddler down the line.

One of the main things that made me want to start a relationship with dh was how respectful of me he was. All the boys/men I had come across would always stare at/comment on my big boobs, make rude jokes, leer at me etc. Dh never did any of that, he was (and still is) just so respectful, sadly that was so unusual to me at the time. Also I loved that he was crap at flirting because it made me feel confident that he wouldn't go around flirting with other women 😂

I was really really down and could not stop crying even over the little things. Ex would have ignored me and just told me to stop crying. DP sat with me, cuddled me until I stopped, listened to me talk, then distracted me and made me laugh until I started feeling better.

@MoobaaMoobaa I'm glad you found him too, and you're doing well.

It seems as though there's a running theme of being respectful to women here. Shame that's something we have to look for and not something that comes as standard, so to speak.

@fromthefloorboardsup DH always makes me laugh, it's one of my favourite things about him. He made me laugh in labour, when my Dgrandpa died etc. Laughter is the best medicine.

@nevernotstruggling obviously 6 years down the line theres no requirement fof him to walk me home and nowhe brings flowers home rather than sending them from working away! Everyone sings his praises at me still though, and tell me how much he talks about and 'worships' (their term not mine) me bless him!

Lovely idea for a thread OP!

From various boyfriends:

Travelling miles to see me every weekend
A 2 hour commute just to live together
Love notes in my packed lunch
Just because I love you flowers
No ex bashing
Not needing to spend every waking moment together or in communication
Openness with phones
Celebrating my career success always

My dh was the first guy I ever dated really who genuinely always kept his word. If he said he’d come over to my place after work at 6:15, he was there at 6:15. If he said we’d plan a weekend away next month, we did. He never had a habit of re-scheduling me because he got ‘busy’ or better plans came up. He always did exactly as he promised to and he still does. He’s the same with his friends and family as well.

Also it sounds odd maybe, but the fact he had several good female friends (genuinely friends, they never dated, he has always always been friends with their partners who he met through them). If several other women thought he was a true lifelong friend and their partners also thought he was a genuine trustworthy guy, I felt I had to have found a good one, which was true. Thankfully, we met when he was 21 and the timing was very fortuitous as I don’t think he would have stayed single for long.

He genuinely liked all the old women in his family, his mother, his aunts, his great aunts, his god mother. I thought it was a good sign for when I'm old.

I had a big milestone birthday a couple of weeks after meeting him, and he had no problem at all coming as my boyfriend and meeting my entire family, extended relatives and friends in one go... millions of others since then, we're together nearly 10 years now

Thanks GrassIsntGreener Bobbiepin

I was hesitant about posting, as it's was quite extreme.

We have been together over 20 years now. He's always thoughtful and supportive and I'm the same with him. We've had a bad patch in the middle. but mainly smooth.

We'd been together for a couple of months when I went to stay with my mother who had dementia. He came over to meet her, and spent a couple of hours patiently looking through her old photo albums and listening to her stories of her young life. She had no idea of who he was, of course, but she told me later that her (late) brother had been to visit .I thought it was lovely that he impressed her in that way . She felt that comfortable with him. I knew then that I had a good man on my hands.

It seems as though there's a running theme of being respectful to women here. Shame that's something we have to look for and not something that comes as standard, so to speak.

Definitely that. Also he'll just hug and only hug. Often he just wants to hug. After we'd been on a couple of dates we were both going to an event, separately, something that was organised before we started seeing each other. I'm used to be very independent and so was quite happy to get there and back on my own. Except he texted me a few days before to ask if I wanted a lift. I said I was fine to get there on public transport but could I have a lift back. He was fine with this. Except when we were at the event and chatting and he asked how I'd got there, he realised that the public transport option was a pain in the neck for me. He seemed quite hurt that I hadn't accepted his help.

I know it's a small thing. But the fact that he wanted to help make my life easier, in a way that no-one really has before, was a complete game changer for me. I mean he genuinely wants to, not that he offers but doesn't mean it, or feels obliged to. He wants to be there.

Bobbiepin, completely agree with you about how a lot of these are about respect.

I think that's exactly what it was with DP. He just respected me. As a partner and a woman. And I didn't have that with my ex-partner.

DP doesn't feel emasculated because I earn more than he does.
He encourages, and really actively supports me in pursuing my interests. Not just his own.
He is an equal partner when it comes to the household stuff and domestic duties.
He makes a cracking cup of tea
He adores his mum, and really looks after her as she's got older and got sick.
He's worked so hard on dealing with issues from his childhood, and continues to work on them. I don't need to fix him, he's fixing him.

After the first time he met my parents, my mum said "now, that's a man who'd give you his last Rolo."

When DD came down with Noro, DP and I had only been dating for a couple of months. She was in bed and we were having a snog on the sofa when we heard god awful gagging sounds from upstairs.
He stayed, he cleaned, he reassured, he loaded the washing machine, he came down with it 2 days later and he stayed with me. Any bloke that can do that for a child that isn’t his is a winner.

I like this thread!

DH and I met in the fairly early days of OLD. I'd moved to a new, big city far from home, which I'd never even visited before, and after a couple of years of not knowing one single person who wasn't a colleague, AND still not knowing anything about the city, I made a profile. It said, right at the top, that I was not looking for a relationship but for friends with similar interests, but that I had no idea where else to meet new people.

The first green flag was that he contacted me with genuine questions about myself and what I was looking for and interested in, rather than the "uuu wann hot sex chats" I'd gotten before. He wanted an interesting conversation and a human connection, not just a one night stand or whatever. And he wanted to help me out!

The second was that he was fine with just being friends and simply helping out a newcomer. He told me about things I could do in the city, even when there was basically nothing in it for him. He told me how to find what I was looking for, where to go to meet people, because he is a lovely person, and it just so happened that he had the skinny because we had the same interests/hobbies.

The third was that there was zero pressure. He never begged to meet up nor showed up somewhere he'd let me know about. He respected that I wasn't looking for love (tho he admitted later that he was disappointed

He always turned up, never cancelled, almost never later and never late without letting me know what was going on. It made me feel as though I mattered to him. 20 years now and he's no different.

In 15 years, he's only once not turned up when he said he would, and that one time was because he'd been involved in a serious car accident and was unconscious. And even then, when he came around and saw his mum at his bedside, he made her call me so I knew he hadn't just ditched me.

He is a very straightforward person, but in a very respectful way. When we hadn't been dating for very long we bumped into my abusive ex who immediately became aggressive. DH (barely dp at the time) didn't get angry but very calmly and confidently told him to leave me alone - and he did!

When we met and got to know one another, he told me he didn't want to guess what I was thinking and didn't want to make me guess what he was thinking. He kissed me and just outright told me he liked me. After abusive, game playing ex, it was amazing not to have to wonder.

Biggest green flags for me:
When he first passed his driving test, he used to pick his Nan up with her food shopping every Wednesday after college so she didn't have to get the bus.

He absolutely respects his mum and appreciates the sacrifices she made
For him. He now helps her out as much as he can but isn't tied to her apron strings.

While waiting for me to get ready he found my sister getting upset because she had a lot of money in change and due to being dyslexic she couldn't work out how much she had to spend etc (she was only 14).
He swapped loads of her change for notes, then bagged up coins into money bags and labelled them with a tally so she could work out how much was in each one.
So simple but he helped her without making her feel stupid which hardy anybody did back then.
He thought it was no big deal but dsis has loved him in a big brother kind of way ever since (and he is now dnephews favourite person in the world because he's taken the time to get to know him and feigns interest in computer games and wrestling).

You see not long ago I'd have written a huge list of my Dp's green flags.

He was one of the good guys (or so I thought). Never spoke bad about ex's and stayed friends with them, not a player or always with a different girl. All our joint friends said what a good guy he was/is.
I was suddenly ill a few months into us dating, he rushed me to A&E, kept my mum updated and when I was in recovery he drove a three hour round trip to collect my mum so she'd be there when I woke up.
When I was short on money to go travelling (due to my dickhead dad) he gifted me the money I needed via my mum as he knew I wouldn't take his money. Found out when I returned from my trip and my mum told me.
Always the little stuff, favourite chocolate, flowers, coming to meet me from work with a McDonald's when he knew I'd had a crap day and no time for lunch. Before we lived together he'd drive past my house on cold mornings just to de-ice my car for me.

In hindsight I see it was part of his controlling behaviour, which really came out after Ds arrived.
He was the perfect boyfriend, because it's harder to break up with the prefect boyfriend isn't it? And all those little nice things meant he was kept in the forefront of my mind. Even the things I didn't know about at the time, the money and collecting my mum, they meant she was on board and so when I had those hmm, I'm not sure wobbles my family and friends were like, but he's so perfect.

And sorry, I don't mean to put a downer on your thread Op. But I just wanted to put it out there that not all green flags are really that. Just incase there's another 'me' reading this who's wondering if their perfect partner is really as perfect as he seems.

Great with animals and small kids. Just as crazy about dogs as I am. Always praised me and made me feel like the sexiest woman alive (and continues to even after almost 2 decades together and DC).

A few weeks after we met he drove me over an hour to a job interview, revised for the exam with me in the car and then waited 2 hours for me to do the exam and interview then drove me back while listening to me rant on and on about how awful it was.

After being offered the job he helped me work out the pros/cons and told me why he thought I should take the job. Turned out he was right and I'd have been daft to turn it down as I planned.

When he researched ASD and dyspraxia before even meeting DS1, then made him a homemade weighted wristband with an Audi badge on it (DS1 was crazy about Audis) to help with his handwriting because 4 yo DS1 was stressing about it.

When I needed a lot of time and patience and gentleness after being a human punch bag for XH for years, he gave it. Without question.

When he didn't judge me for being autistic, and loved me for me.

When I realised he made me laugh more than anyone ever had.

When my mother told him he'd run a mile when he saw the real me, he politely replied, "I'll be the judge of that with all due respect."

When my dad shook his hand.

He ditched his pre booked, pre paid boys weekend trip to attend my 21st birthday party, we had only been dating for 4 weeks.
We are still together 17 years later and married for 9.

I can remember 2 things from the first time I went round dh's house - he had a poster of Ayrton Senna on his wall (this was 1992) who was my favourite racing driver, and I saw how he was with his cats. Couldn't love a man who didn't love cats!