Do you have a red flag list?

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Yes, edited now

To add something new - Getting rid of pets. I'm a firm believer pets are commitments for the animals entire life. I'm weary of people who get pets and then casually get rid of them, like they're furniture. From my experience, people like that tend to be very selfish and self-centered. It also says a lot about how they respond to responsibility.

People who harp incessantly about their exes.

Someone who doesn't communicate openly and leaves you wondering or guessing about things. Especially if they seem secretive or avoidant, or can't give a straight answer to a reasonable question.

Based on my admittedly limited experience:

(1) Anyone who says they don't like feminism.
(2) Patronising people, especially those who come with a habit of psychoanalysing you, getting it completely wrong, then rationalising your denial as social conditioning/lack of self-knowledge/some other reason you can't possibly argue against.
(3) Men who think phrases like 'I am kind and respectful' are some kind of magic password to get into your pants, then get shirty when it doesn't work.

It goes without saying that any signs of controlling behaviour are definite red flags for me.

I just started reading a book called The Verbally Abusive Man, by Patricia Evans. It's really interesting and kind of gives me a different perspective on how and why abuse happens in relationships. She writes from her experience in counseling couples and shares a lot of client stories.

She says when men become abusive, the change usually happens very suddenly. It's brought on by a trigger that makes him feel secure in the relationship, such as becoming engaged or married, or having his wife stay home to raise a child.

She calls it "the switch" because it often happens so suddenly and dramatically. Things could seem to be okay for years prior to this, then suddenly the relationship begins to deteriorate rapidly. It sounds like the warning signs just aren't always there to look for.

I would be similarly turned off by someone who constantly wanted me to try new things I wasn't interested in or didn't want to do.



I hope you understand, people who have rigid diets usually have a reason for it, like a medical/health reason.

Reading this gave me a sinking feeling, "the switch" is something I can relate to.

Yes, I can too. Really most of the men I've had any kind of involvement with have "switched" at some point...and not in connection with a deepening commitment, as that book suggested is likely to trigger it. My experiences have followed a different pattern. But reading the book is the first time I am realizing that "the switch" is a really common experience. As in, it's common for men to exhibit Jekyll/Hyde behavior in relationships...not just those who are blatant psychopaths or narcissists, but simply men in general. The author ascribes this largely to being a cultural problem.

Anyway...I used to think it was just me...I thought there was something about me that attracted this sort of thing. I thought maybe I was just really bad at reading the warning signs. Worst of all I actually blamed myself for causing it to happen...I thought there was something about me that could make a kind man suddenly become cold and hateful. Oh, I will never think that way again.

I just read the available chapters on Google book, if the switch is a common occurrence then how to avoid men out of touch with reality/looking for the dream woman/trying to fill a void, I mean what would that red flag even look like?

If they insist that you lose or gain weight, change the style or color of your hair, what clothes you wear, how you walk or talk ... in other words, men who treat you like a mannequin that they can "customize" to suit their own tastes. They are trying to re-make you into their ideal woman

In this book the premise is that the type of behavior you describe happens after 'the switch', for example getting engaged, married, having children, a point where the verbally abusive person feels like they have irreversibly secured the relationship.
So how can you recognise this potential in a person?

I think in terms of what the book talks about, it would be more important to find out about their background, than who they are "now" per se...what kind of upbringing they had, what their family was/is like and so on. The basic premise is that these men are prone to becoming abusive because they were brought up to deny so much of themselves, their natural feelings and emotions and even physical sensations like pain. They were told to toughen up, don't be a girl/wuss/fag, etc.

In general they were brought up not to be "feminine" (whatever traits were considered feminine) so they have a lot of unlived, unexpressed, unactualized parts of themselves they don't have an outlet for. And because of this, they feel they need a partner to live out for them, quite literally, the other half of themselves that they are unable to express and actualize.

I think a lot of this goes back to what wilburforce was saying earlier in the thread, about people who have outmoded or toxic ideas about gender...I guess the real caveat though is that it's not always apparent what people really believe about gender. Especially in terms of what the book is talking about - a man who was brought up to deny his real self and his real emotions will have a carefully cultivated persona (which is dropped very suddenly when "the switch" happens.) Part of that persona might be that he respects women and believes in gender equality...but under the surface, he may have rigid ideas about gender, what a man is supposed to be, what a woman is supposed to be.

This is true. A lot of people will make an effort to sound PC because they know that is what is acceptable, but not because they actually believe being sensitive and decent to others is the right way to be. Anyone who complains about "PC police" or that "PC culture has run rampant" etc. is suspect to me for that reason. I mean, if you have that much of a problem just learning how to talk to others with decency without getting called out by "PC police" then you're probably an as*hole. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who complained about such stuff who wasn't actually a bigot and just wanted to be able to say bigoted things openly without getting called on it.

So if there isn't a specific red flag, really it is trial and error, paying heed to hints of outdated gender notions as it isn't possible to be certain how the childhood environment will have impacted on the real self.

You know what...I've been trying to figure out how one would possibly identify this problem before getting in deep enough to risk allowing it to happen. But honestly I can't quite imagine it, because I've never had any relationship be all that "normal" to begin with.

The prospect of not finding out how abusive someone can be, until you're already married, is really scary and depressing to me.