Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Red flags you ignored that got worse?

44 replies

Annieanniee · 08/04/2023 13:28

I have two examples-

1 boyfriends friends constantly asked me how I coped with his dirty home. It was somewhat messy but not too bad. Turned out he was making a massive effort at the start for him and he was a pig in reality

other boyfriend before him- he told me right off the bat he could be jealous. He ended to being massively jealous, controlling bad possessive

OP posts:
IAteAllTheTomatoes · 08/04/2023 13:33

A partner with an overly involved mother. You kind of tell yourself at the outset that people can't chose their family and try to seperate things but weird messed up family enmeshment.

It seems to often happy where the father died young and the mother sort of uses her son as a stand in partner.

Run like you stole something. Long back story but I learnt this the hard way!

HerRoyalStressHead · 08/04/2023 13:35

When the mother tells you you've stolen her baby from her when you get pregnant Hmm stayed for 12 years and it only got worse and worse. She hates me and my kids even though they're her grandkids. She even tried to claim the younger two weren't her grandkids.

Beanfield2023 · 08/04/2023 13:45

Always trust your gut . If something is off it is . I wish that I had listened to it in the past . Would have saved a lot of trauma. Aldo a red flag for me is people being over friendly . Usually they want something from you .

Spottycarousel · 08/04/2023 14:24

My ex walking out in a strop because I took the hamster out of its cage instead of giving my ex attention.

Mt ex getting calling all my friends when I'd gone out and getting upset and angry that he couldn't find me.

My ex needing to be appreciated and getting very upset if I didn't thank him enough.

So many more. I wish I hadn't been the insecure young girl I was then.

80s · 08/04/2023 15:04

Before I even got together with my exh, some of us were cooking. I grabbed the nearest tea towel to wipe my fingers, and another girl gave me a dirty look. He saw her give me the look and quickly made a comment to her about how I should be using the hand towel. I thought he was a bit of a dick for trying to get in her good books. Obviously it was just a tiny thing. But it struck me so much I still remember it decades later.
Turned out over the years that this initial impression was entirely correct - he was always on the side of the person he admired most in the room, quickly revising his opinions to suit theirs and happy to throw me under the bus so he would look better. In the end he'd openly deny ever having liked or done things we used to enjoy together, if someone else made a negative comment about it: it would be me on one side and him and his new friends on the other.

Thisisworsethananticpated · 08/04/2023 15:08

An ex who really was on bad terms with his ex . And disappeared 👻 a lot

it got worse and worse
he continued to disappear and I can see why his ex hated him

DoctorMartin · 08/04/2023 15:08

Men who describe their sisters as their best friends. You'll always be second best, competing for attention. They will always love them more than they love you.

IJustHadToLookHavingReadTheBook · 08/04/2023 15:11

"I really don't like being bossed about" he said at the start of the relationship. He meant he didn't like doing anything at all that wasn't entirely about and for him. Including watching a film that I fancied but he didn't. Or eating in a chain restaurant that was more
My thing than his. Or having a fan on at night if I was hot and he wasn't.

I wish I had listened. When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

beachruns · 08/04/2023 15:12

Mine was going to get a DVD from blockbuster (yes I’m old). We chose a film and agreed snacks then he hung back from the counter so I’d pay.

he was awful with money but I didn’t tackle it in the early days.

DustyLee123 · 08/04/2023 15:14

Used to lie to his parents about when he’d visit them and stuff, then I realised he was lying to me too.

WhiteClover · 08/04/2023 15:19

'I can be manipulative. I know how to manipulate people'.

😐How to waste 10 years of your life.

FictionalCharacter · 08/04/2023 15:26

@80s My ex was like that and it didn't sink in for a long time. Always took someone else's side against me even in the most trivial ways, and used to mock me in front of other people, which he clearly thought they'd find funny. I could see people's confusion and discomfort sometimes. Of course it was always "just a joke" and "lighthearted" and I was ridiculous if I ever objected.

Puffinchops · 08/04/2023 15:27

Tiny little lies, that seemed inconsequential...except they led to a complete lack of trust and therefore lack of respect, and ultimately bigger lies...which nearly meant us losing a house because he'd taken out a loan that I didn't know about and so hadn't declared it on the mortgage application.

Slimjimtobe · 08/04/2023 15:27

one was minor but he started talking about marriage early on but I felt he was genuine (and probably was) but looking for a replacement mother as he was still living with his (this was 15 -20 years ago and he still is)
The day I decided to end it was after him telling me what time he likes his morning biscuits and tea and complaining he wouldn’t get his main meal til I was home 😂😂😂😂🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭
He was hinting I could stay at home and give up my job like his sisters did

kikidee101 · 08/04/2023 15:31

Wouldn't introduce me to his family until we were about to get married. left me on my own on Christmas Day to spend Christmas lunch with them and didn't invite me even though they were local. 'It's not my fault your parents got divorced and you don't have your own family to spend time with. It's unfair of you to deprive me of my family'. Yes, I had low self esteem and made excuses for him. When he got back he just fell asleep. Didn't make an effort even though I'd been on my own all day and it felt difficult

Ollifer · 08/04/2023 15:35

Little lies. Just turned out he lied about absolutely everything

GG1986 · 08/04/2023 15:36

I was with my ex for nearly 3 years. He asked me to marry him after only 6 months and stupidly I said yes. As soon as he had that ring on my finger it was like a flick switched and he was like a different person. Emotionally abusive, coercive, tried to distance me from family and friends, cheating, controlling with money. I stayed for some reason thinking he would change and that maybe he was right and I was crazy! But it got worse and worse.I finally saw the light and left, best decision ever! He has had 3 or 4 engagements since me,he is a walking red flag and I feel sorry for any woman that has.to endure him.

sheusesmagazines · 08/04/2023 15:41

Said to me "are you really going to wear that?" early on. Turned out to be incredibly critical about everything I did and didn't do eventually.

wherearemyEastereggs · 08/04/2023 16:46
  1. Speaking badly of the ex wives or partners of his male friends. "She was a cow" "She was controlling" "She only married him for status and money"
2.Terrible attitudes towards people with disabilities and minority ethnic groups.
  1. Boasting about how many nights in a row he and his mates drunk themselves stupid over one holiday.
  2. Suggesting I move in with him after 4 months.
  3. Moving big amounts of money back and forth between his bank account and his parents. Lots of agreements with them about what he and they owed each other. Never with any input from me.
  4. Speaking of his own exes in bad terms.
  5. Throwing a bottle of formula milk at the wall when the baby was aged 4 weeks.
  6. Telling loudly me to stop panicking when I was trying to stop my toddler running into danger.
If I'd noticed these red flags and taken heed, I wouldn't have been so blindsided when he suddenly upped and left me stating that he was "unhappy" after 12 years of marriage.
NotRightNowNo · 08/04/2023 16:56

Not being supportive when I was briefly incapacitated after an accident early in our relationship. Turns out he never once looked after me in any way despite 2 pregnancies & post partum periods of vulnerability, a couple of surgeries and some general run-of-the-mill periods of being under the weather.

NotRightNowNo · 08/04/2023 17:00

Plus not having good relationships with anyone except his mother and slagging off the ex all the time. Having a child in another country. Having absolutely no money at all, ever. Frequent bad moods and spending all his down time stoned.
What a catch. I was so blind.

Fedupofdiets · 08/04/2023 17:14

Lying about his age on his OLD profile. Lying about past relationships. Accidentally sending me a message for a woman on IG telling her how sexy she was. Finding his profile on an OLD site saying he was single when he was very much married to me. I should have listened to my gut and walked at the first lie and saved myself a lot of agony.

thecatsmeows · 08/04/2023 18:04

@kikidee101 I had the same with ex husband. He wouldn't introduce me to any of his family until it was 6 months before we married...by that point we'd been together 5 years! Also didn't tell them we were engaged for a year...we were engaged for 18 months, to this day they still think it was only that 6 months. We all lived in a small town so they knew all along he was dating me. He's still weird about his family, he's been with his current girlfriend a decade and she's still not met any of them!

He also ruined Millennium Eve (the year before we got married) by sulking because I wanted to go home at 2am after wandering around in the pouring rain trying to find a bar that was still open. We'd been drinking since 6pm...he picked a fight, I made him leave my flat (he still lived with his parents, he was 31) and he then urinated all over my front door. I then didn't hear from him for 4 days...

I stupidly still married him...we should have split up instead.

thecatsmeows · 08/04/2023 18:07

@kikidee101 I also spent the 5 Christmases before we married totally on my own. He used to come around to mine in the morning, go off to meet up with friends at 11am and then back to his parents for the family Christmas Dinner. One Christmas Day his mother rang my flat at 1pm, angrily demanding to know where he was ...even though I told her he had left mine 2 hours previously and was probably still in the pub with his mates, I got the blame for the late family Christmas Dinner...

Lilyofthevalley23 · 08/04/2023 18:36

Yes definitely

Ex1 - Overprotective = possessive and controlling

Ex2 - very sociable out drinking every night = alcoholic

Swipe left for the next trending thread