Red flags you wish you'd noticed sooner?

[LonelyInAutumn]

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

@Queenie6655 Hopefully not a current relationship?

Ah yes, mine was still in touch with his ex fiancee. She needed his help (for what reason was never specified) and she was the only person who understood how to calm him down in bring him out of a downward depressive spiral. I couldn't possibly help with that She'd clearly left their joint home in a hurry as her things were still all over the place, e.g wardrobes and drawers full of her clothes, it was like she'd finally had enough and walked out one day. His excuse was that she had no storage space in her new home.

The nosey part of me would love to know what he's said to her about me because she blocked me on FB despite me never having met or spoken to her. Probably doesn't want us comparing notes...

Co-dependent relationship with his ex wife but being sold it under the guise of “ good co parenting”When continuously asked when he was going to divorce told it will happen when it happens even after multiple years. Past criminal and drugs record but “reformed” as now charity worker. Liking sleazy tattooed young women posts on Instagram (nothing against tats I love them but didn’t like my ex looking at them in a perv way!!) Angry abusive outbursts then love bombing. Being told “I don’t appreciate him enough”. Constantly told how much he did for my son and I. Looking back now it was hardly anything. Yes ladies of Mumsnet I am a complete idiot! But have completely broken free now.

Oh yes and two failed marriages behind him. And of course crazy exes and I am now obvious part of that gang 🙄

Ok here goes

it’s your job your a woman on about cleaning

it’s your job your a woman on rearing babies and kids

it’s your job your a woman on cooking

I earn you can stay at home

why are you working I ain’t babysitting err they are your kids.

no I ain’t paying half on childcare he paid eventually.

losing said job and didn’t want me working either like hell

next ex

love bombed me in the beginning thought it was sweet as I’d never had it before now I can see what it is.

I was fat and ugly no one will want you

I took you on with all them kids

this was constantly and I was a size 8/10 at the time then.. the pushing and shoving started and I still didn’t see it as a red flag then…

I didn’t hit you it was the door

why are you crying that wasn’t my fault, it was

I got out but not before I was a shell of myself.

I am married but wish I was single to be honest as he isn’t here in person when he’s sat next to me. Your talking to him and it’s like ooh I didn’t know you where bull so who do you think I was talking to myself or I wasn’t listening. This has taken 20 years to manifest itself.

called out everytime so now I just get on with life and if he bitches he’s told I asked you ignored me so I get on with it. Don’t like it well fucking listen.

I sure do pick ‘em

These are the immediate red flags I should’ve heeded at the time:

MAN A (2016-2018)

Knew he liked a drink or two. Was actually a violent verbally and physical deeply in denial alcoholic
Love bombed me
Always skint, asking me to lend him money. Found money for booze, fags and gambling though
His exes were unhinged, controlling and jealous. Some of these women assaulted him (I suspect the reverse)
Didn’t send me a Valentine’s card. Didn’t have the money for a card or a stamp
Racist and/or inappropriate behaviour to complete strangers
Frighteningly unpredictable behaviour when intoxicated (later down the line)
Excused these ‘episodes’ as due to mental health issues. I was accused of being unsympathetic when I became more and more exasperated
Didn’t respect my home, or furnishings
Used my debit card without permission and took £20 out of my purse (to buy booze)
More inappropriate behaviour by mowing the lawn nude in broad daylight, knowing that my neighbours could possibly see. Trying to get me to engage in sexual activity in public places.
WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!

MAN B (2019)

Utterly charming. Too charming as it turned out.
love bombed and future faked me
wanted to see me all the time
had split up with his GF only 2 weeks before (I thought it was longer) - splashed his social media with photos of the 2 of us, I was so flattered that he seemed so into me, but the truth was he was this, as he knew the ex was checking his Facebook, and he wanted to make her jealous. It worked, and when she snapped her fingers, I was summarily dumped. He did a full 180 in one day. Extremely callous.
I did get the last laugh though (I posted about this in relationships) he unblocked me and contacted me back in May as they’d split up.
I thoroughly enjoyed telling him to piss off…!
😂😂
I’m now 55 and single since Man B. If it means I have to be single now for the rest of my life, I’m ok with that. I’ve been back on OLD - waste of time and money!

Not all the same bloke

one was either besties with his ex’s or they where ‘nutters’
they either went on a few dates but realised they where not going any further (he can be utterly charming) or they dated him for a while and realised he’s one big walking red flag,and called him out on it

he claimed I ‘locked him in the house’ and ‘he couldn’t get out’
i shut the door (I’m 5’7 and he’s a 6’ bodyguard who has fingers-he wanted me to open the door for him)
‘I got pregnant to trap him’
he refused to wear a condom (I lost the baby)
he cheated on me with endless other women-all my fault as I was a nutter
Gaslighted me until I thought I was going mad

other one was insanely jealous of anybody,male or female,as I was going to shag them
i had an insane sexual appetite apparently (I don’t)
i went to the shop-I was shagging the shopkeeper
did the school run-I was shagging everyone on the way home
i went for a coffee with a friend-I was shagging her
i went to work-I was shagging the customers/my boss
i was on my own at home-I was shagging the postman

One just had to ruin anything that mattered to me
he destroyed endless things I owned and his mother would excuse him with ‘you shouldn’t have left it lying around’
same woman (who thought the sun shone out of his arse) refused to have anything to do with her grandson as he wasn’t a girl-she only wanted my dd (he was the same)
i put my foot down-both or nothing
she went with nothing and ran round telling everyone what a bitch I was for not letting her see her grandchildren
years later,my dd was with her cousin and they saw granny and father so they went over to say hello and build some bridges
both went mental at her-telling her to fuck off and they wanted nothing to do with either of us among other shit
then both are still running round telling everyone what a bitch I am for stopping adult grandchildren from seeing them

one was obsessed with his ex wife
shed left him due to dv (‘I only hit her once’)
our first date was spent going for a coffee and buying a tracker to put in her car and endless texts to say he’d fitted it and even more time wasted with him telling me all about her,showing me very personal photos and telling me that ‘I make love to you,like I did with ex’ (no bloody wonder she left-the sex was shite)

I picked my self esteem up off the floor and am now with an amazing man who’s not obsessed with any ex’s,friends with one who’s lovely,has never accused me of shagging anyone else,loves my kids and is just an all round top fella (when he’s not putting dirty clothes in the basket,just after I’ve put a wash on-drives me insane!)

Oh and my son
(I have permission to share this)
hes 6’ tall and again wide-he’s a big lad who’s as soft as shit but can look very scary
his ex was 5’2 and a size 6/8

i didn’t like her-I can’t put my finger on it but there was something I didn’t like

turns out,she’d spend all her wages on shite and then start on his
she refused to pay bills as it was his job to support her
she refused to sit with the dog-after saying she would while he was at work-with minutes to go before she was due to sit,she’d text to say she wasn’t doing it,leaving him with no doggy care-and would charge a tenner an hour if she did do it (while he was supporting her)
shagged other men behind his back
told him that if he didn’t do as she wanted,she’d blackmail him and ‘ruin his life’

this went on-red flags all over the place-until he had a friend to stay over the weekend
he went home after spending all weekend with them both,and she suddenly went skidding to the police,saying he’d beaten her up

no injuries,no witnesses,no noises made (he lives in a flat-nobody heard his belting the living daylights out of her),the friend would have gone for my son if he’d laid a finger on her and she claimed she was pregnant

she hounded me for over a week,saying that if I gave her 1k,she’d drop the charges and walk away with her baby-I gave her nothing
she tried the same with my family and my my other kids-they all laughed in her face,so she went to hospital claiming she was having a breakdown (she wasn’t-they let her go after a couple of hours) but she still claims she had one

it all got dropped,as there was no evidence at all,but doesn’t stop her saying he did do it-and oddly no baby ever appeared

mud sticks and he’s taken a lot of shit for this (thankfully he’s also got amazing friends)

anyway-she was with another bloke within 3 days-and she’s just done the same thing to him-and when I did a bit of digging,she’s done the same thing to every bloke she’s ever dated

not so much a red flag-as a whole bloody string of them

Mine told his friends and family that I borrowed substantial amounts of money from him. What actually happened was that I borrowed the £5 train fare to get to work the day before payday. I was getting the train as he "needed" my car for a jolly as his own pile of shite was off the road ...

Going silent on me. Never making a decision, ever: blaming me when he doesn't make a decision. Telling me when I do make a decision they're terrible ideas but then going on to never making a decision which has resulted in huge financial losses to us over the years.
Lying about the most silly situations such as hell ring me from the shop saying do you want anything I'll say yes get me some chocolate and he'll say something like I thought you have chocolate already and then come home without it, lying the whole time about I didn't make it clear I wanted it.
So tedious but he's stolen all my money fucked my life and now I'm trying to rebuild it behind his back before I get out with my dc.
Confidence behind low but my anger is what keeps me going. J

Hating his mum, yet still getting a lift to work every day from her

frequent, major fall outs with other family members

all ex girlfriends are psychos

2 children he didn’t see and 1 for whom he didn’t pay maintenance (to be fair I have no evidence he paid for either other than his word)

a third child where the mother claimed the child was his then it wasn’t, he neither pursued a DNA test for his own peace of mind/to be a father or paid maintenance just in case! He just let this all go and never saw the child again

lower level violence to start with, throwing towels, hitting doors in frustration later hitting me!

no long-standing friendships only more recently met friends

no real social life or hobbies, spent weekends alone

if headed claims to sleeping with over 100 women as if I would be impressed/to emphasise I should be grateful to be with such a popular man

admitted to being an ex coke user

insanely jealous of exPD

blocking me on social media if we had an argument

the list goes on! I am embarrassed to admit I was with him 1.5 years. I was very vulnerable and in honesty stupid at first and then later beaten down and scared of him!

1.5 years free and still grateful every day and hope karma comes and bites him!

Temporaryname I read your list and it’s scary because my ex did all the same things 😞So many evil bastards out there.

@Inamess2022 its is scary. My list is a fraction of what he did. I hope you are feeling better now you have escaped. I do, but it has changed me and I still think about it daily and think I probably always will. He killed the innocent, trusting totally happy go lucky me

I guess for me newly out of it I can only describe what I feel as being traumatised, having lived in fight or flight mode for ages it’s like I don’t know how to “be” anymore. My parents and friends are great and I’ve just started counselling but I also feel emotionally scarred and the idea of having another relationship again is beyond me. Which at 42 seems quite sad 😞 I want to take a lot of time now for my son and I and get used to living on my own again.

I actually wrote them down at the time because I wanted to finish with him (but he was so abusive that he always knew how to win me back).
Every time I make a plan to do something with it he changes it because he doesn’t like the plan
He never confirms when we are going to meet, what time or location, until very late so I am often left hanging
He can’t take hints, suggestions or nuance and will blindly continue a conversation late into the night even though I’m knackered
He has no interest in meeting my friends or going out socially
He has a very dismissive tone and often sounds contemptuous at things I say although he says that is just the way he speaks
He’s jealous of me but then boasts about how many women want him
He doesn’t allow me to post any photos of him and me on social media as he ‘hates social media’ yet is permanently on it
He didn’t allow me to mention him, being in a relationship with him on social media as he’s ‘intensely private’
His ex was crazy, he had a child he 'wasn't allowed to see', his mum was crazy
He laughed when I told him someone had had an accident at work and lost their leg
He would swear blind I'd done something that I hadn't (apparently I requested to be his ex's friend on Facebook)
Lied about photos that appeared on social media of his dog with another girl (I never went to his house because he said 'why do you need to see my cushions to know more about me?') but I had met his dog so I knew that this was another woman
He tells me I'm sensitive when I say that something he has done hurts me. He laughs at me in front of others, putting me down. He always makes a massive scene at a time when it's really challenging for me (e.g. I was running an event, and he decided to phone in the middle to tell me a joke and when I said I couldn't talk, he them dumped me).

Stuff of mine would go missing. Or get broken. If he broke something of mine he would never apologise or replace it. If I broke something of his by accident it was a different story.

Yes, this. And I'd say 'I feel a bit down today' and he would say 'well what do you want ME to do about it??'

I shan't go into my ex's red flags because the man is basically a red flag factory outlet, but I'd say any time it feels like a man is daring you to be tough/put up with him run for the hills. Also: sulking, inability to apologise, 'mad' ex, no old friends, preening, enjoying others' misfortune, hollow sex, only giving you gifts with people watching, fake smile

Oh so many in hindsight.

1. Told me so much personal stuff on date 1.
2. Said he loved me after a couple of days.
3. All his exes were psychos
4. He used to put the phone down on me frequently

Once things started to get ready really bad he

1. Gaslighted me to within an inch of my life
2. Told me I was controlling most days
3. Told me all his friends couldn't understand why he was with me
4. Several times during an argument he threw a drink over me
5. I'd apologise for things I knew I hadn't done

10. He could ignore me for days on end 11. He hit me across the face but said it was "only a slap". I never dared to raise my voice again and started planning my exit. So many flags so early but I was young and I forgive myself as he made me feel so special early on that I was hooked. The bet thing I ever did was leaving him and I consider myself a survivor and now thriving. The only time I actually think about this stuff is when I'm on here and I've recently helped a friend leave her abusive marriage. It can be triggering at times but if I can help someone else out of a life of misery then I always will

So many similar red flags. I wish I'd read some of these before I was in two different bad relationships but so often you can't see them at the time. @totallyoutnumbered you said you were young. I wasn't - I was in my 40s and then again in my 50s - they get you at any age no matter how wise and mature you think you are!

Inability to take even the mildest criticism without turning up the temperature to maximum despite being extremely free with criticism in the opposite direction.

Made me keep my opinions to myself which in the long run wasn't good