Be honest about your ex husbands

[Raveon2000]

Just for those who have divorced or left a LTR with someone who ended up being an arse..... Were there warning signs at the start that in hindsight are clear? Or did the stuff just start years down the line?
For me there were definitely red flags from months in ie bad arguments that we used to have that I thought were healthy and that we were 'passionate' with.
Now would instantly be a deal breaker.
Although it was really after having children that the major problems became apparent and that's when I really began to go off him!
I don't want to make the same mistakes again for my future so I'm asking please share your experiences.

This reminds me of a situation with my ex and his best friend.

I used to stay over at exes house quite often. Sometimes his best friend (late 40s) would drop by. We never interacted much, spoke briefly on occasion. On those occasions I felt that there was something "put on" about him. He struck me as a mix of a wannabe priest/ college lecturer. Couldn't quite explain it.

I observed him to fold his laundry and iron his pants obsessively. He was very... Neat. He used to give advice on soft furnishings to my ex.

And then it clicked: my feeling was that the best mate is gay. I didn't say anything at the time but (not my proudest moment) later in some sort of disagreement I quipped that maybe my Ex would like to take some house-keeping advice from his dutiful gay mate.
Well, I was laughed out of the room! The mate's married to a cousin of my Ex! A father of three! Known him all life! I know nothing, maybe I should ask him to his face if he's.... Didn't have to wait long. Less than two years later the mate came out as gay. Quite a crap storm with him being married to my Exes cousin...

I'm just illustrating with this story that the lack of signs as perceived by an individual, doesn't mean a factual lack of signs.

I'm just illustrating with this story that the lack of signs as perceived by an individual, doesn't mean a factual lack of signs.

I completely understand that point, and don't disagree at all.

Often there are signs. Often very obvious ones.

My point is that in the case of highly manipulative individuals, often there are no signs even to friends and family and acquaintances outside the relationship who are entirely objective. Even those with a trained eye for these types of "red flags" because it's what they do for a career. Still not even a hint, and shocked by it when it happens. Thought this was a "great guy" etc. So please, blame the people who do these things, not the people who fail to spot signs that - very deliberately - do not exist.

In the case of most "normal" relationships yes I totally agree that it will be obvious if something is wrong.

But please don't make generalisations that this is the case in every situation because it isn't. I wish it was, because I would then have left before any damage was done. But it wasn't, there were no flags, so that was not possible. And I am not the only one. Not at all.

In hindsight the first red flag for me was soon after he moved in with me. He didn’t speak to anyone for around 6-7hrs. He’s quite a loud person too so it was always so obvious. I thought it was due to football - team losing so I said to him ‘is it going to be like this every time team lose’? And he gave me some dirty look. I wish I’d have told him to pack his stuff and go again. I don’t think it was the football in hindsight, I think he saw an old photo of mine or something as he was such a jealous person. An afternoon of sulking soon became a few days. Then he would just decide to speak to me again, brushing what the issue was under the carpet. I was choosy what I told him in the end, for fear of being ignored. Once he didn’t speak to me for 6wks. The end came because he started to give the silent treatment to my eldest son (not his bio child, we had 2 bio children together) - he was 16 at the time and did nothing to deserve it. Over a decade later he told me that he did it on purpose as he was insecure how he felt about me, so he decided to hurt me in the best way he knew. Through my child.

I have avoided dating anyone for the last 10yrs plus since we split. I am very wary of men, and have felt it’s safer to be on my own. My bio kids with him are 18 & 14 now. I have started to date someone though - very early days, I’m definitely on hyper alert for any red flags. He’s a single full time dad.

I think many pychopaths can present an impenatrable facade, if they could not then all would be exposed early on, I think it's easy to say there are always signs, in retropsect you may think that but I do believe there are people out there now who will never come unstuck, that their actions will be hidden till death and beyond.

I mean there are supposedly many murders that are never solved for example, who knows who we are sitting next to.

@NoRedFlagsAtAll I'm sure many of us on here could not understand the dynamics of your life and what you have had to cope with, no one on earth deserves that, I hope you continue to get the support you deserve, the professionals that help you as so many must not understand your world.

I have a friend who is writing a book about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the care home he was put into from an early age, a very strong learned man who talks of how he and others were chosen, some were not, his feelings of blame for why he was one of the chosen ones, pains him.
I have no answers the only thing I can say to him and you is "it wasn't your fault".

In hindsight, exH’s lack of patience and the subsequent lashing out was a very good indicative of his character.
We had many discussions about it, I was acutely aware of it and pulled him on it, however, this only ramped the abuse.

God I wasn’t expecting that. That’s just horrific for you and your girls

I am so sad for your friend. I have a childhood friend whose life was very similar to that described in "A boy called it". Totally heartbreaking and he never recovered. I knew him much later once he had a foster family, but it's just unimaginable, the things some people will do to others, even children. The care system in this country is a disgrace and never even features in politician's speeches because these children do not get a vote and nobody really cares. It's a shame on our society. I hope your friend is ok.

We still get no support, no help at all, despite all of this. I fight for it but I wonder whetherit's a waste of time because just fighting for it takes up so much of my time, and nothing is forthcoming. Rejections for any therapy for the children from CAMHS, social services.

I have funded some privately but can't keep doing that unless I take a job that gives me even less time for them, which I think is mot what they need either. It is all horrific. And yes, hard for people to comprehend, even our own family, they are not really supportive. So it's just me. Thank you for being kind. It's so, so hard to see your children destroyed like this and despite working so hard for a professional job and a good life not being able to help them, not really. I can't take this pain away and nobody will help us with the support they need. It breaks my heart, seeing their pain and not being able to do anything but hold them.

And then, we read here how there must have been signs, I should have spotted it. If there was anything to spot, I would have. 😔

Would it help to put your story down, I know my friend has found this helpful for him. He didn't intend to publish at the beggining but decided he then wanted to let others to know his story.

I can't pretend to know any of the answers for you, I hope you and your girls may one day find peace. x

Yes he loved to play mind games, winding me up about things, playing on my insecurities. Once we split up he ramped them up, told me that one of his family had reported me for something that would get me fired at work. I spent every day terrified when the office door opened or my manager went to a meeting that the men in black would turn up at my desk to impound it & march me out of the building. It got so bad that after 3 months I went off sick & never went back. That was as well as raping me & telling the police when he was arrested that I had threatened him with telling the police he had raped me just so I could get him out of the house & trying to burn the house down the night I told him I was leaving then getting a family member to clear up & remove all the evidence.

I guess though doesn't it depend on what you mean by should have spotted the signs? As in signs that he was a paedophile? Or just more general signs that something was "off" before he left?

Obviously there's no way of knowing what went on before, but the huge gambling debt that was sprung on you while heavily pregnant is a giant red flag.

Understandably you chose to work through it, and thought you had covered all bases. But I would say that the gambling debt - even if there was nothing else - would be a huge indicator towards risk-taking behaviour. You couldn't have guessed that it was disguising a psychopath, but I would very gently say that in retrospect, the gambling could very clearly be considered as a "sign".

Without disclosing too much on here as I haven't NC, we've had difficulties with a family member being a paedophile and I understand the deep distress it causes. So please don't think this is about victim-blaming because it's not. We didn't spot it either.

Hindsight really is a wonderful thing.... 😔

Lots of warning signs looking back now, very secretive about past and love bombed from the start. 12 years on I wished I'd never met him although I'm thankful for my two beautiful DS. Never did i imagine I'd be trying to divorce a controlling man who to this day still just thinks it's Ok to try and negotiate no strings sex with me to meet his needs 🤷🏼‍♀️ entitled twat!

I thought he was wonderful , and he was amazingly good in the sack. But he always had a lot of female friends, not so much male friends ( in fact only a couple of male friends ).

My mother told me that she thought he was a "casanova" but at the time I just thought he was attractive to women and that I was lucky that he liked me .

Twenty years of marriage taught me that he really was a casanova, who loved being with women but had little or no respect for them . He wanted a family so he married someone he thought would be a good housekeeper / child care person. Unfortunately I was that person. I divorced him after 24 years , and I'm lucky to have my children who are wonderful , and who are nothing like their father.

As someone who has never found romantic relationships with men particularly life-enhancing, your stories are convincing me to stay alone. How rare are these situations?
Many thanks

Errrmm... Saying that there are always signs (and there really are! ) is not to any extent victim-blamey!

My dear grandad organised private lessons in a creative discipline for me when I was 9 - 10 years of age. The lessons were with his very close life-long friend and neighbour - an elderly man in a wheelchair. That man abused me.

Did my grandad know, did he see any signs? Of course not!! He'd probably kill the man had he any inkling. I don't blame my grandparents at all there - they were not his target after all. They wouldn't have known. The signs were reserved for me.

I do sometimes wonder if now, with an adult capability of understanding interactions and conversations would I be able to foresee this danger?
In hindsight - would my Grandad realise that there were signs all along with this man? Some unusual interest in being around children... Something. Would my grandad even wish to contemplate the signs? The reality of finding some would be too hard to bear via unfounded guilt! But I bet, I bet my top dollar that there were signs.

One can eat a pack of chocolate buttons and get away with no signs (quite some effort still 😁)
It's impossible however to have a whole another disgusting, evil, manipulative personality without it showing somewhere. It always wants to show because it's thoroughly enjoyed.

All those docu-series like "Who did I marry?," Evil lives here"... always signs. Even though families still claim there were literally none. There was a whole library of signs, you just didn't have the dictionary. Or context, or hindsight (always helpful 😐)

Maybe I'm just a cynical old biatch and read into everything and explore all the negatives and then ride the wave of the confirmation bias (even a broken clock is correct twice a day). Maybe that.

@NoRedFlagsAtAll @TotallyFloored I just wanted to say how sorry I am that you are both going through this. And also to say how utterly brilliant you are to be coping so well, being so amazingly strong, and moving heaven and earth to look after your kids. You really are incredible and I'm using the word properly.

(a bunch each).

My ex is an alcoholic. Looking back I can see signs from the beginning. I met him in a pub! Back then I was a teenager so drinking and going down the pub quite a bit. When we had kids I stopped drinking. He didn't. He drank every night. Not much at first, but it got worse and worse, until he was in drunken stupor most nights. Then most days too. I should have left him 10 years before I did, but I'm autistic and the thought of change terrified me. I was so scared of doing it all alone. Until I realised I'd been doing it all for years. The relief when he left was immeasurable.

With hindsight definitely lots of red flags. Love bombing, possessiveness initially then picking fights, winding me up for sheer pleasure. Lack of empathy.
I think I brushed earlier signs under the carpet because he ticked boxes that previous boyfriends hadn’t.
We were married a long time and he made it very difficult to get out. Now in a new relationship but don’t think I will ever properly trust anyone again.

Whe we were dating at 18 he use to turn up at the nightclub when I was out with my friends. He would get angry if I went out without telling him, I wasn't allowed to wear certain clothes, I remember wanting to buy a short pink dress from top shop and getting talked out of it by his sister. He hated my friends and my sister. Eventually I stopped going out and we just spent our time with his family. We were together for ten years, I was called every name under the Sun, he got us into debt. I never went anywhere other than work and with him and kids. I remember going to Disney land Paris, I'd pushed for it , we normally did caravan sites. I thought if we can't get through these 4 days without him ruining it I'm leaving him. A couple of days in he screamed at me infront of the kids over something and nothing and that was the end for me.

Unlikely. The thing is, all men called 'vulnerable covert narcissists' display this same set of behaviours, as though they are all working from the same life-instruction manual. These people are spread across the world and don't know each other, yet act the same way.

But to respond to your query, was your one heavily into restoring vintage motorcycles? If so perhaps he is the same man. He's currently got another woman under his spell. A sassy and successful businesswoman, whose empathy he has exploited.

My story is no way as bad as others on here. Some of these are truly awful

There were signs, but I was young and naïve and ignored them. We were young teens when we met. He'd often have mentionitis whenever a new girl would come on the scene, at college or work or wherever. I found text messages from girls which were suspicious but this was before text messages were in a conversation so I never got the full context. He met up with a friend of mine once. She told me later that he'd wanted someone to talk to and that he was going to split with me.
We split when we were 17 but got back together shortly afterwards. We married and had 2DC and when the youngest was very young, found out he'd been having an affair with someone he'd had mentionitis about. I'd like to think he's massively grown up and that he won't do it to her.

No signs for many years, until I got pregnant and it all started to go wrong, though very subtly. By the time Dc was 5 we'd separated, but there was a dreadful amount of stuff that happened to get to that point.
My solicitor called him a narcissist and I suppose to an extent he is, but I think essentially he was just a spoiled, spoiled man and could not bear being the single most important person in my life.

He told me all of his exes were ‘psychos’ . No suprises that this theme continues.

drinking was of paramount importance, when we were young I didn’t realise how excessive it was.

he couldn’t hold down a job.

his dad has the same old fashioned opinion of women that I found out he inherited.

aleays look at the relationship with his mum & between the parents. If no mum or parents, then the other close family & friends. This is who he’s learnt what is normal from.

Very moving thread which resonates with me. Sending 💐 to the PP dealing with terrible situations.
I am convinced my ex is/was hiding something. We're divorced now. Very similar description to @NoRedFlagsAtAll in that he was totally charming, kind and a good parent. Everything changed a few years ago with very little warning. We're now divorced and he remarried within a year. A real bolt from the blue to me, the DC, friends and family.
I feel stronger all the time but even now, 5 years on, I wonder what made him change. What made him throw everything he had away? He spent money like water and during the divorce process I discovered he had spent tens of thousands of pounds over the years. I'd love an answer to what he spent it on. Whether there's a dark secret in his life or whether he's just an entitled shit who could do all this and not care.
Definitely no signs here.

yeah, there were signs I think - but at the time they seemed petty. Well, except for the extremely rough sex, which I dismissed as passionate. But he love-bombed, and later, did his level best to isolate me and trap me.

If there's one thing I'm finally learning, it's to maintain high standards and note settle for close enough - if you have to let stuff slide at the beginning, just imagine how it's going to be in 15 years.