dysfunctional/abusive relationships and Red Flags

[healthyhopes]

Hello!

 

Looking back at my two failed relationships, and this one ex FWB that I was hung up on for a while (up until two days ago, yesterday, but now I feel as if I've magically moved on... hmmm), I find that I'm attracted to dysfunctional or otherwise abusive relationships. Generally, the men are narcissistic or otherwise just plain arrogant, cocky, overly prideful... And by this, I mean that they are so full of themselves that they don't have room for me in their hearts, either.

 

I honestly haven't dated for a while, given the issues that came up with my last two relationships, but suddenly found myself in trouble in a situation where emotions weren't supposed to be involved (fwb). But they were. But I suppose that's human nature, and he was very intent on my emotional investment, anyways.

 

I was thinking that perhaps it's being addicted to that feeling of slow heartbreak / seeming resolve that these situations tend to place you in. It's a rollercoaster. It goes up, and then down... It's dizzying.

It could also be that I don't like opening myself up at all, so it's often much better and easier to focus on the other person instead of the self in these situations. This is a very negative thing that has to be changed, I think.

 

 

Does anyone else get drawn into these situations?

I always am extremely critical of red flags when I meet guys now. But at the same time, I'm always questioning myself and these red flags because I feel that perhaps, I'm being overly critical....

 

So what are some red flags that you guys have found/always watch out for? What draws you into these relationships? What takes you out of it?

 

 

Some red flags for me would be:

-if I don't feel comfortable around them

-if they have strange eye contact, as if they're not really listening to you, or they tend to turn their head away to prove that they aren't

-if they are rude to waiters, etc.

-if they don't use their blink signal or other very easy and normal respectable things

-if I find myself seeking validation rather than respect and love (and by this point, perhaps it's a bit too late! Then ya gotta cut em off, go no contact for good...)

-find yourself competing for stupid things (debates instead of discussions, the like)

-when they only look for you/seek your attention when they know they aren't guaranteed to have it (ex: when you finally pull the no contact)

the list goes on...

Edited February 2, 2016 by healthyhopes

[Jersey born raised]

The only one I though as a red flag was a lack of respect for people in blue collar jobs, or lesser white collar jobs. In short using others as a measuring stick, and demeaning those as lesser then himself.

 

One of the Marx brothers once joked "an club that would have me, I don't want to be a member of" I think you feel a need to join any club that will not accept you.

 

Please posts a few more red flags.

[Buddhist]

I was thinking that perhaps it's being addicted to that feeling of slow heartbreak / seeming resolve that these situations tend to place you in. It's a rollercoaster. It goes up, and then down... It's dizzying.

 

Does anyone else get drawn into these situations?

 

I did. The thing is, you can have a list of red flags as long as your arm and still end up in one of these relationships if that's what you are subconsciously choosing in a relationship. Narcissistic individuals give you a feeling of immediate intensity that normal people lack in early interactions. And it's actually quite natural (if you are starved for love) to get drawn in by that. You won't see it as a red flag, especially as many people in very healthy relationships will talk about their own relationships in very similar ways. It's incredibly difficult to distinguish between the two until the devaluation stage begins to play out. That rollercoaster you were talking about.

 

The better thing to do is to fix what's inside of you that's starved for love, then you will no longer be drawn in by these people. Actually their attention will feel quite smothering, once you are no longer emotionally needy.

[testmeasure]

Before Hand:

- Had no idea what love was, said she had never experienced it, wasn't sure whether to believe it was something that really existed.

- Was afraid to have kids because she was abused so badly, she didn't think she could be a good mom.

- All past relationships failed and ended in abuse.

- Some day she was going to quit her day job, change to a very prestigious field and become world famous.

 

Notes: By all appearance she had overcome her past. I was naïve and had no idea what the before hand signs meant.

 

During the good phase:

- Socially awkward (Blamed on Asperger's)

- Learned social skills (Blamed on Asperger's)

- Emotions and reactions a little "off" (Blamed on Asperger's)

- Things seemed too good to be true, year after year.

- Nothing could go wrong

- Love had a pedestal like quality. It felt like we were on a pedestal together.

- All her happiness and positive emotions felt like they had pride as a component

- She had a Facebook shrine to herself and to us as a couple

- She felt superior to everyone else at work

- Any time we both gave advice to someone, it felt like we were on a pedestal. She didn't overtly talk down to anyone. There was just a weird vibe that I don't get when I give advice on my own.

- Claimed to have an extremely high IQ

- Claimed to have a photographic memory

- Claimed to be able to speed read at what seemed to me an impossible speed for any kind of comprehension

 

Notes: Using Asperger's as an excuse threw me off of a lot of things I might have questioned more closely.

 

A lot of the rest I dismissed as she deserves to feel a little proud of herself, given her history and what she has overcome. In retrospect, maybe all that she was feeling was pride in herself and pride in us as being a perfect couple. It's possible I projected the normal range of positive emotions on her pride in herself, and that's why any positive emotion she had always seemed like pride was a component. It's possible that I projected love on her pride in for us as a perfect couple, and that's why her love had a pedestal like vibe to it where she was putting us on a pedestal. Not being in her mind, I don't know if there is an external way to tell the difference.

 

She was very intelligent, so I gave her a pass on the IQ and superiority at work. Things seeming like they were to good to be true and it seeming like nothing could go wrong both went on year after year. It still felt that way years later, but past some point I just accepted it.

 

The only 2 that I was actually skeptical of were the photographic memory and the extreme speed reading. Any time there was a question of where we had put something, how we had done something, whether we were going the right way on the way to a friends house who we had only visited a couple times, her memory always seemed completely ordinary to me. She claimed to be able to read books basically as fast as she could turn the pages. I knew the ideas in these books were too complicated to understand that fast even if you could experience the words that fast.

 

When her narrative or false self became completely broken for an entire year and she went into a Narcissistic rage for a year:

- Constant anger and a hostile tone. Anger and disgust. (Note: She didn't lose control and yell or throw anything.)

- Constant blaming

- Playing the victim

- Nothing could go right. Not a single positive thing could be said.

- Resorted to complimenting me on things that were accidental or unintended consequences so that she could claim she wasn't negative all the time.

- She could find something wrong with anything I did.

- She claimed she was upset over things I did, but I could never predict which things I was doing beforehand that would upset her.

- If she was upset and I talked, I was "yelling". If I pointed out that I wasn't, she would say I looked angry, so it was the same thing as yelling. If I was quite she claimed I was being passive aggressive. If I tried to work on something and made any noise at all, I was banging things around out of anger.

- Constant no-win situations

- Demanding that I find "something" wrong with myself that could explain all of her reasons for being upset and fix it.

- Eventually having to resort to ridiculous criticisms in order to find something wrong with what I was doing, to the point that it becomes obvious she can find something wrong with anything I do.

- Re-writing of history in a distorted delusional manner.

- A growing sense that she doesn't even perceive things the way I do as they happen, almost like her perception is distorted.

- Delusional about how 3rd parties perceive the situation. Thinks they believe all her distortions.

- Finding myself in growing state of constant fear and anxiety, never knowing when I'm going to get in trouble again.

- The feeling that I'm dealing with a deep, dark, un-movable object or unstoppable force that can't be reasoned with.

- You can try to defend yourself, but nothing helps because words have no meaning anymore. You will just be accused of arguing or yelling no matter what you say or what your tone of voice is anyway.

- If you go to hand them something and they reach left of it, and you adjust to the left while they are adjusting to the right and they miss again, this is a horrible thing that you just intentionally did to them, even if it's dark in the room and hard to see.

 

Notes: I started out this phase willing to accept blame for and try to fix things that upset her. The harder I tried, and the more I did, the angrier she got. Eventually it was obvious that something was very wrong. I even suspected it was related to her childhood abuse. But, I thought that I would never be able to understand or explain what I had experienced. Months after the fact, I accidentally ran across Narcissism.

 

 

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Edited February 2, 2016 by testmeasure