Do you ever "know" someone's a wrong 'un without even meeting them?

[Spiceup]

I'm taking about friends' new partners. I've got two examples currently:

• I was out for a run with friend who was excitedly telling me about how wonderful her new man was, but she seemed anxious to be back on time to meet him, really worried about being even a few minutes late. It didn't seem like a good place for a new relationship to be to me. A few months later it was clear, eventually even to her, that he was horribly controlling. In that time though they had a child together and he uses contact and child support to manipulate her.

Colleague, single for a long time after a horrible marriage deliriously happy in a new relationship. She's said a few things anout how "Fred" likes this or Fred wants to do... and I've thought I hope you're thinking about what you want too, he seems to have all the authority here. Other colleagues who are closer to her and have met him have just been really pleased for her though, until this week when her best friend has confided in me that she's really worried he seems just as controlling as her ex husband and that she seems to be running her whole life to keep him happy.

Is this a thing or did I just guess right on these occasions and have likely been wrong just as often?

My default assumption is that all my mates’ new men are garbage until I’m proven wrong. I’m
Always happy to be proven wrong (some of them have turned out to be lovely chaps), but most men are terrible.

So, yes, you guessed right, but the odds were in your favour.

I'm very intuitive about things and get accused of being negative at times but I'm really not just get feelings which have sadly never proven wrong.....

I'm in v long term happy relationship so no reason to not want others to succeed.

Yes... often it's more blatant than that though.

"Oh, my new boyfriend, he's great. He just moved back to this city. I just barely ever see him, he's working two jobs because he has to help pay his mum's bills."

20 minutes later it transpires he stole a car as a teenager - but he turned over a new leaf. Six months later it all came out - yeah he was paying off his mum's bills - because she got into debt bailing him out of his own stupidity just before he was forced to move back to his home city!

Anytime there's gaps in the story, someone's turned over a new leaf, someone is terminally unemployed or very unlucky with jobs, alarm bells are ringing. Very occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised. 99% of the time I'm not.

No I never have any idea about anyone. When I was a kid watching TV I thought Jimmy Savile was particularly good at talking to children, and thought Terry Wogan had a really creepy vibe and was probably a wrong'un.

A friend of mine gushing about how Mark had sooo much to teach her…

She married him; he shared her opinion as to his general superiority and he dumped her and said horrible things about her weight and attractiveness when doing so, He thought he’d be leading a bachelor life fighting off the ladies with a shitty stick.
All “their” friends stuck with her because he is dull as well as unpleasant and the ladies unaccountably failed to flock to his door. She lost a lot of weight due to the stress and he decided he might like to come back.
She did wobble, but ultimately resisted. She’s been happily married to husband number 2 for donkeys’ years. I don’t know what Mark is doing.