Red flags you wish you'd noticed sooner?

[LonelyInAutumn]

For me, it was the unhealthy relationship he has with his mother (mama's boy)

My most toxic and emotionally abusive relationships were always the ones who said they "loved" me after about two weeks.
Thankfully they were also the shortest relationships.

Drinking Brandy before breakfast on the balcony of our holiday hotel room and being really pleased with himself for doing so.

His Dad was alcohol dependent.

Screwed his education because he didn't get his chosen subjects because of so much truancy so they gave the places to students who did want to work.

Not great with money. It seemed to panic him so he had to spend it as soon as possible. I remember marching round a museum so he could get to the gift shop and he didn't relax until he got there.

I had a past with him, not a future.

Exactly this. Except I stuck around for almost a year.

Also to echo previous posters, "crazy" exes, silent treatment, deliberately stressing me out at work and then turning the phone off so I can't call to ask why. Feeling like I'm treading on eggshells constantly. Drinking. Gambling. Making me feel uncomfortable in my own house. Being jealous of DSs dad. I could go on forever!

OLD has a lot to answer for, doesn't it. (Not all the same man I should point out!)

The fights he was involved in when someone "attacked " him for no reason. It seemed to happen on a weekly basis. Someone actually stabbed him once (he survived) the penny eventually dropped after a while when I realised he couldn't keep his mouth shut, he would goad people to the point where they would snap and smack him one.
Money would start to disappear mysteriously. To my shame I actually accused someone completely innocent of taking some money. The penny dropped once again when I realised it was actually him taking it. The "blackouts" when he claimed he didn't know what he was doing, smashing things up. Strangely enough it was only ever my stuff that got smashed.
Meeting his friends for the first time and them.telling me they were surprised that I was such a nice person , God alone knows what the hell he had been telling them.about me. I should have run fast after 3 weeks, sadly I wasted 3 years on this piece of shit

On my first date, he invited me out on a bike ride with a picnic. When we went to the shop to choose food for the picnic, he said, "Let's make this a frugal picnic." That was the first. The second was when I visited him in his room in Halls of Residence the drawers were all pulled out with clothes spilling out of them and there were dirty dishes lying around even though he knew I'd be coming. I should have tipped him back into the sea at that point, but I went on to waste most of the time I was at university pretending to myself and other people that he was a fundamentally lovely man who had just had a difficult childhood and needed the love of a good woman.

Having a rant at a call centre agent on my behalf for something that went wrong. At the time I thought he was fighting my cause but sadly, in retrospect, it was a case of failing the waiter test (you know when someone is nice to you and not the waiter they are showing you that they are not a nice person).

That when I said "Your sport is like you having a mistress, it's more important than me." and he denied it entirely and said I was bring unfair that:
a) this was the first and lightest of the gaslighting
b) I wasn't wrong. Four hours intense exercise every Saturday followed by a rest, eating, showering and then a nap, really was ridiculous
c) I should have listened to the actual words coming out of my mouth and not fallen for the gaslighting..which was the start of me losing all capacity to trust myself.

Jealousy of my exes, regardless of how long ago - he was driven mad by it

Getting furiously angry with me when he hurt me by accident, because my natural reaction (crying, saying "ow" etc - the usual stuff that happens without thinking when you get hurt, I wasn't playing it up at all) "made him feel bad".

With both of these I tried to explain to him why he was being unfair - sad now to think that I bothered. I was really sad when we broke up and it took a while for me to really realise what a horrible little man he was.

My dh mum has complete control of him. I realised early on when he disappeared every few weeks across the country to be with her. This has continued through 20 years old of marriage, three dc, but now he drives over 200 miles every week. It has only gotten worse. He’s only just told me that he went home every couple of weeks when he was at uni too. All because she demands it.

@BearGryllsDad my ex found a free valentines card online and only shipping needed paying for which was 70p. He asked me to send him the 70p

A child he abandoned.

First red flag - when my male friends phone numbers all disappeared from my phone. He denied I let it go.
I shouldn’t have
I now know it was him. Along with jealousy, control issues that have escalated

@Jewel7 it sounds as though you haven't left. I hope you're okay.

Disrespect for service personnel

Red flags I have encountered in various relationships:

'Gently' or 'joking' sexist, racist and anti-semitic comments early on - of course, he was totally and wholly sexist, racist and anti-semitic, but I'd stupidly given him the benefit of the doubt.

Any reference to a 'psycho' ex - no understanding at all that it was his shitty actions which had made the exes behave a certain way.

Calling his mother a 'fucking bitch' - run, just run.

Questioning me all the time, eg I'd say I was thirsty, he'd ask me if I was sure/ tell me I couldn't be thirsty etc - now I understand gaslighting, this is how it starts.

Never accepting any boundary, from the simple 'I want to go home now' right through to 'I don't like anal' - any boundary was questioned and debated, usually by suggesting I had a character flaw eg boring, prudish.

Arguments were not simply differences of opinion, to be resolved by trying to understand the other person and reaching a compromise, they were always due to me having a personality defect eg argumentative, demanding, controlling etc.

Having a child and abandoning it - being delighted and crowing at not having to pay maintenance.

Not introducing me to his friends - our lives were never going to become enmeshed. Plus he told so many lies, he couldn't have anyone joining up the stories.

Him not having any friends/having friends who didn't go back very far/ seemingly very lightweight friendships, and then suddenly falling out with them for vague/unspecified reasons and cutting the friend out of his life.

Physical threats, intimidating behaviour.

Large age gaps where he's the older partner. No, he's not sophisticated and you're not 'mature for your age', he's just a twat who can't cope with a woman his own age who would want to be an equal partner, and younger women are not likely to have experienced enough male bullshit to spot what's going on.

Buying you generous gifts which always suggest self-improvement is required, eg teeth bleaching voucher, clothes in a size 10 when you're a 14 etc.

Always being late, especially early on - doesn't matter whether he always has a genuine excuse, why is your time not as valuable as his - basically you're being trained to accept his poor behaviour.

Porn/escort fiend.

Looking at this list, I feel sorry for my younger self.

Jealousy/insecurity, desire to control anything & everything, unpredictable rages/sulks, anger and/or shaming you for past relationships and sexual experiences, policing your social life, disapproving of your friendship groups … I could go on.

IME women are too often given the boiled frog treatment with this kind of shit. It gradually becomes so normalised that you automatically accommodate and work around it rather than actually asking yourself WTF am I even doing putting up with this?!

Red flag top tip: if you ever, EVER suddenly realise you’re treading on eggshells around someone - ‘managing’ their moods and reactions, worrying about their response to things, calibrating your own behaviour so as not to ‘upset’ them - run. Seriously. Run like stink and get the fuck out of there.

The lies & the fact you could give him a million pounds at 9.00am & he would still be skint by lunchtime.

He had posters of La Cage Aux Folles on his wall, dolly parton and various drag queens.

Turns out he was gay no shit sherlock !!

I was only 14 to be fair and I adored him anyway

Lovebombing, jealousy of exes/male colleague and me spending my time doing anything else. His crazy exes (and I'm sure I'm one too now). He said police had got involved with two of his exes for different reasons and he made up something and was threatening with getting police involved with me! (I was so scared they'd believe him and not me). No friends/life of his own. The way he spoke to a few people. The mess/stuff in his house/hoarding....I lasted a year and it's only looking back I can see he was a narcissist.

Lies. Even tiny silly ones. Massive red flags. His entire life turned out to be one.

Any narcissistic traits. Google them. Watch out for the smallest ones. They're like icebergs.

Misogyny.

Gosh this was my Ex, but only after a 5 year engagement. During the engagement I'd ask annually (so as not to pressurise him) about setting a date and he'd say marriage was just a piece of paper. I finally left when he said perhaps on our 10 year engagement anniversary!

Never apologising.

Sexually aggressive; he used to wake me up in the middle of the night for sex, knowing I had to be up at 5am. Would go into a huge sulk if I refused.

Falsifying his credentials (he told me he'd been to a certain uni), then feigning ignorance when I called him out (he said I never asked me if I finished; he actually only completed one term)

I didn't care about whether he went to uni or not, the conversation was just in a chit chat way when we happened to be talking about something to do with education in the early stages of dating. All he had to say was I didn't do a degree not imply that he'd graduated from one of the top unis in the country!