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There’s a lot of talk about red flags and I have to be honest – I’d been out of the relationship several years before I knew anything about them.
I think it’s easy to look back and say we should have ‘seen the signs’. But speaking for myself I had no idea there were signs to look out for.
For example, no one told me that while a partner may be pathologically jealous, I don’t have to put up with it. That if he cheats I don’t have to forgive him. That if he criticises me I don’t have to try harder.
I grew up reading Jackie and Blue Jeans and Mills & Boon, chock-full of girls battling to win the love of boys. Every story ended at ‘happy ever after.’ It’s farcical to now think of what kind of men these ‘heroes’ were and what the ‘heroines’ gave up to win them.
I studied how romantic fiction works for my degree so you’d think I’d know better. But no, I was still hoodwinked. I knew without doubt that men needed to be tamed. That their interests should become yours. That their interests trump yours. That their egos are fragile. That their jealousy is a natural trait.
That if a relationship isn’t hard work then it’s not worthwhile.
When do these things change from being ‘the way things are’ to ‘red flags’?
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Let me give you some real life examples.
When we found ourselves back in the UK, both unemployed and looking for work, I let him hog the one laptop. I reasoned that his need to get a job was greater than mine.
Early on he told me at length about his cheating ex wife and how he’d never marry again, his hurt was so great. Despite having no thought of marriage he set me up to prove myself better than the ex and worthy of his trust.
When we got together I was in my (detail removed by Moderator). I’d had a life before him but because his ego was so fragile he demanded the details of my sex life. He claimed it was his right to know if I’d slept with someone he might talk to in the pub.
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I think what I’m saying is that we can’t punish ourselves for missing warning signs which are not necessarily warning signs at all.
It’s easy for me to look back now and say ‘look! there was a red flag!’ But at the time it wasn’t one. It was just another hurdle in a difficult relationship. I needed me to do more, accept more. It was down to me to make it work.
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I received sex education lessons at school but that was it. No education on healthy relationships etc. We’re human the end of the day, we meet a charming caring man and have no reason to doubt that person. We believe what we see at the time. We’re not trained to deal with what will follow, when that behaviour changes and when we’re being accused of things etc. We just assume that’s how someone will act when they love you, they get jealous etc. It’s only when their behaviour starts to get very strange that you have a wake up and realise that it isn’t normal. And for some of us it takes some time. I think we don’t find them, they find us for whatever reason. Almost like they’re trained in manipulating and conning even the most intelligent people. X
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Most of us are busy looking after children, working etc that we don’t take that time to think properly. We miss the red flags completely but we believe we’re in love and believe that we won’t find ourselves in an abusive relationship. Whoever said ignorance is bliss is a liar 😂
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Sex education lessons, what a laugh! I vaguely remember a cross-section diagram of female reproductive organs, predictions of BO, pubes and boobs and instructions to wash ‘between your legs’. Periods were shameful and not discussed. Sanitary towels were popped into a brown paper bag at the checkout to save you from public shame. You could get the pill if your parents went with you to the doctor.
Relationship advice prevailed from the 50s as if the swinging 60s never happened – boys have needs but girls should hold out. ‘Nice girls don’t.’ One girl got pregnant while still at school. She married the schoolboy father and I wondered if they were happy to pay the price for their social faux pas and the embarrassment of buying condoms.
My first boyfriend would slap me when he got frustrated. I knew about ‘wife beaters’ and swore I’d never put up with that. But it wasn’t an actual beating and I wasn’t his wife so I rationalised it, hit back sometimes. I forgave him when he admitted to sleeping with someone else, because her boyfriend (his friend) had been in an accident and they were both upset. I allowed him to have sex with me when I was so drunk everything was spinning or I’d be asleep.
After I broke up with him I told my mum. I was crying, sad at the end of it. She saw my tears and asked if maybe I should change my mind.
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I had the full whack of sex education. The whole condom on the banana training 😅 we all liked this lesson because we found it so funny, no one took it seriously! I think at that age you don’t, maybe because we weren’t mature enough to fully absorb it all.
I’d I only I knew then what comes with that banana and condom I think I may of gone to live in a convent or something!
And I didnt even know about ‘woman beaters’ at that age. I came from a home where my mum wore the trousers but my parents totally loved each other in an unabusive way. I wasn’t prepared for what was lying ahead.
I had a couple of boyfriends before my abuser, just normal relationships. You’d go on double or triple dates with friends and if was very textbook normal. No control, no name calling no pushing and shoving etc.
I suppose really the warning sign was there all along, the too much too soon thing was a huge red flag, I just mistook it as love. This person is moving so fast because they love me and want to be with me forever. Fast forward a few months later and it’s like a horror story, very far from the love story it started off as.
The only think I can take away from it is experience, and enough to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The things you experienced with your then abuser would be considered very serious crimes now. Its a shame that this level of abuse still happens.
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I always question myself as to why I’m in this position. I’ve always been quite a confident, happy go lucky kind of person, never got into trouble or drank or smoked and suddenly found myself in a situation like this. I think what the problem has been is he’s taken kindness for weakness for too long. I’m the kind of person that just goes with the flow and my abuser definately saw me coming. X
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Hi Turtledove
Abused women are often strong-willed and confident. I was. I supported myself, was well educated, had a successful career and good friends. Maybe that’s what my abuser wanted to destroy. (I don’t know if I could call myself good though – and even if I could I’m not sure it would have saved me.)
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We’re taught about red flags? LMAO!! um, no, we’re not. That’s not the way it goes here on planet earth at this particular time in history. Pity that but it’s the way it is. Of course we didn’t pop out of the womb with a handbook on how to see our predators coming. Quite a few other species on this planet have it deeply imbedded in their dna but oh no not us. We’re the newbies here, have so much to learn……before we destroy ourselves…….
We have to learn as we go and learn on the run while bleeding profusely doing it. Wonderful little experience. I’d like to not do it or repeat it but, it seems to be the way we learn here. Hate that.
Soooooooo we do have to make use of the red flags when they do wave. I’ve dismissed a great many of them in my lifetime and paid dearly for it. But the red ones are actually more about your inner intuition and radar than anything else. A good book – The Gift of Fear.
The one best friend you have in this lifetime is your own radar and gut. You can treat it like it’s a redheaded stepchild if you want to but it’s your very best friend so that wouldn’t be smart. We might think and feel like it’s the real thing but our gut goes…….eh, not liking this, can we just not go there??
But ‘feel goods’ are the predators and the con artists way in. Whatchawant……I got it all in my pockets here girlie! What you want to make you feel good?? They are so willing to please if you got the time and want to be sold to! It’s your dime and your time.
Trust……..your own intuition. If you don’t, I can tell you that, you will have that moment in time and it won’t be pretty where you say……omg, I heard it, I should have listened. Some have that moment to reflect about, other ones are not that lucky.
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I guess it’s a generational thing. I’m sure I’d laugh at the banana/condom demo too, especially if there were boys there. Imagine sex ed where there’s separate classes for girls and boys. I’ll never know what they said to the boys in my year. Probably to wash under the f******n, don’t get girls up the duff and too much w*****g makes you go blind :-0
I’d hope that these days there be mixed groups and discussions on respect and consent. But then they there was that series of public information films telling teenage girls what abuse and control is. And there’s the porn that kids see as soon as they get phones. Yes, what I experienced with my first boyfriend all those years ago was abuse. But at least there were no videos. No d**k pics. No messages going viral saying who’d done what with who.
My beloved grandmother was born in the 1920s and used to speak of chaperones on dates. That didn’t protect her from violence in her marriage either.
None of what is taught, past or present, protects women from abuse. It’s always centred on the sex act and the preservation of morals. No one addresses what happens after ‘I do.’
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Hi Braelynn I agree completely about trusting your instincts but rarely do we know we were right to do so. It’s only when it turns sour we can say ‘ah! You ignored the flags!.’ These days I have my ‘f*ck off’ barriers well and truly up and that isn’t right either. Where’s the middle ground? Give ’em an inch or give ’em nothing. I don’t have the answer.
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Hi Camel,
I love the way you write 🙂
I grew up with Jackie and Mills and Boon too, so I guess we’re of a similar age. I used to love the M&B stories; the way the woman always fancied the man, and he fancied her, but then each of them would say something that would make the other think they didn’t like them, or indeed hate each other, the sexual tension of it all and them finally getting together and of course, the happy ending.
So there was I, in my late teens and early twenties, waiting for this handsome man with the taut, flat stomach, flared nostrils, square jaw and perfect teeth to come along and sweep me off my feet. I’d end up with someone slightly flabby and bad breath!
During my abusive relationship I also missed the red flags, along with missing my own insecurities and reasons for putting up with such s**t. Lessons on healthy relationships and behaviours would certainly have been beneficial in my earlier years. It was only after I ended the abusive relationship and had group counselling through a DA service that I fully understood the red flags, my own behaviours and responses to abuse, and got educated. This information should be available to ALL women from a young age, not abuse victims after the event.
Like you, I am now very aware. Too alert probably; a slightly pink flag will have me bailing out of something. To get to my brick wall they’ve got to get past the electric fence and the moat first!
To be honest, I’m perfectly happy on my own, my motto is
A man is to complement life, not complicate it.
I love my uncomplicated life, and until Mr Taut Flat Stomach And Flared Nostrils comes along, I’m happily single 🙂
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There is no middle ground with predators and abusive men. Not sure why we think there is. Hollywood maybe…..?? It’s all a lie. You either have boundaries or you don’t. It’s this or it’s that. Actually when we trust our instincts it’s not rarely that we know that we were right. It’s pretty up close and personal that we were when we do. Sometimes, eh, maybe you thought I should turn right and you don’t and you don’t know what you just avoided. Okay, will give you that. But overall, when your instinct says don’t do this because red flags are up and running……..we all know that one. We can deny we do, but we do. It happens, we smack ourselves and we know we shoulda listened and we didn’t.
You don’t have to have a code whereby everyone is just outed either but you have to know what you want and what you won’t allow. If you don’t then write it out. Know what it is because you asked yourself what it is. Otherwise, the guessing game as you go along doesn’t work does it? Hasn’t worked so far, right?
You don’t let other people dictate what you want because guess what – they will. You teach people how to treat you as well so if you’re a blank slate – they will just fill in all the blanks. And no, you can’t operate on I’m either just totally naive here OR I am loaded for bear and the door is totally shut. You don’t strike a happy medium here or shades of gray – you know what you want and what you don’t. No gray in that, no happy medium in that. You either know or you don’t know and if you don’t know you need to figure it out.
Like I said, if you don’t, someone else will figure it out for you and force it down your throat soooo…….be about it. I want women to be proactive here and smart. We don’t need to sit around at the bus stop and wait for something to come by. That’s what our predators and our patriarchs have taught for like eons now! (detail removed by Moderator)
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Hi Braelynn
I think that most women who have escaped abuse will find it difficult to immediately know their expectations and boundaries. Personally I had to rediscover simple things – what I liked to wear and eat, the tv I preferred, whether I wanted to sleep in, socialise or be a hermit.
If I start a new relationship would I be right to throw in the towel if he said he preferred my hair when it was darker/longer/straighter? Is this the sly start of control or just an honest throwaway comment? That’s my point I guess. Boundaries are fuzzy not fixed.
I think all survivors look out for red flags. But pink flags? Where is the line between downtrodden woman and eternal spinster?
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I work as a (detail removed by Moderator) professional. It still took me nearly (detail removed by Moderator) to recognise/admit that I was in an abusive marriage. And still questioning myself now after leaving.
You’d think a (detail removed by Moderator) degree and abuse training would allow me to spot it in my own relationship, right?! -
None of us are prepared for these kind of ‘men’. And most of the time they start off so charming that when we see/recognise things that aren’t quite normal, we sign it off as a bad day or we are too busy with our own lives that we don’t look into the behaviour or recognise the cycle that’s slowly forming.
From my experience it took for me to loose my grandmother and it hit me very very hard, I found myself so down and having panic attacks etc. My dark place suddenly became even darker. I realised there was something more to my grief, and it wasn’t just grief then I started recognising my own red flags. Why I had a heart burny feeling when he was on the way home, why I felt so unloved and worthless etc. As soon as I put my own pieces together that’s when my eyes were fully open to what had been happening. Researching and educating yourself on these kind of ‘men’ has helped me alot and also learning coping mechanisms. X
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