Listen to what your body is telling you, particularly in the early days when you are falling in love. This can be feeling nauseous, tense in your shoulders or stomach or unable to swallow food without getting a dry mouth. I fell for a guy, whom I thought was amazing, kind and considerate, all the usual love bombing traits. But I felt sick each time we were alone together. He subsequently became more abusive and bullying. This was in a work environment and I had to report his behaviour for my own sanity.
Read the book, the body keeps the score for some more info. This book describes how our body retains trauma when we are unable to openly express our emotions.
If something doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t. But our brains are quite good at convincing us otherwise, which is why we often stay in these unhealthy relationships.
Reading the posts here are very useful for confirming whether or not your gut instinct is right or not. Thanks to you all for sharing some very traumatic things. Together we are stronger 🙂