What "red flags" did you overlook with your ex

[paleblue]

it was a good thing you got along with his ex for the kids, that is a healthy thing. you are spot on. it should be like that. him getting upset over that just goes to show how mental he is. he was most likely just trying to hide more of his lies.

 

I soo totally know how hard it is to get over someone you have feelings for!!! even if you know someone is bad news for you. but just keep going. do what you need to do to keep making progress. you sound really smart, you have your head on striaight, and if that is your pic, than you are a cutie too! I guarantee you will have no problems attracting better.

 

the only problem I see, is him, down the road, continually contacting you. like after a period of time. that is the most dangerous time, because you think things are better, but all you do is just get sucked right back in to the same old same. and get set back and waste time.

 

as far as i am concerned nothing changes the second, or third time around. its always the same.

[angelboots]

I have done the second, third, tenth time round with this one already lol i know for a FACT it doesn't get better, i have hes routine so clear in my head that i will be amazed if he doesn't try to message me today, It will be some sort of "hey i had a meeting today" message..... if the cycle has gone full circle and he doesn't i will be grateful though. I really am ready to get off the merry go round that was life with "J".

 

I guess for me i believed hes victim act and with hes illness they have a way of "mirroring" their victim so you think you have found your "true other half" everything between us was " you like, think, feel or have experienced that? ME TOO!"

 

Reading the lists I have made shows me how little we really had in common, i couldn't be one of the things he is, its not in my nature and thank you that is me in the profile pic, i think i deserve better then he was too

[davisc123]

This is a good thread. I'm not really sure how many of these are meaningful in relation to our eventual downfall but here we go anyway:

 

- She was overly clingy and always needed reassuring as to whether/why I loved her.

 

- She would get obsessive about her weight to an extreme, even though she is a slim and beautiful young lady. And despite how nice and reassuring I was she would shoot a disparaging remark at me now and again and laugh it off as teasing.

 

- She was bothered by the fact we are the same height.

 

- She frittered money she couldn't afford to spend, and when I suggested cutting her cloth to suit her means she would say it was hard as she was part-time. Basically shirking responsibility.

 

- She never seemed to fully appreciate it when I put a lot of thought into, or spent a lot on gifts.

 

- Very occasionally I would catch her out in white lies. That were seemingly pointless. Since she cheated and lied at the end of the relationship, and hid it so well for a period, it made me wonder if there were more that I was unaware of.

 

- She was stubborn, argued to the bitter end, rarely admitted she was wrong.

[cerridwen]

-When angry, he would say the most eviscerating things

 

-He bullied to get his way, using his size and voice to intimidate people

 

-He bad mouthed two close friends of his

 

-He was not physically affectionate in the least--in fact, he was disturbingly cold

[davisc123]

Oh and she couldn't go a weekend without getting really drunk, and on a number of occasions I was there to clean up her sick.

[Lauriebell82]

Red flags I ignored:

 

1. He was VERY dependent emotionally and had a horrible childhood. He told me he loved me on the first date, saw the look of horror on my face, and said he was "just kidding." He wasn't though.

 

2. He wasn't going to college, claimed he "dropped out" of community college. I later found out he flunked out.

 

3. At the start of our relationship he began telling me little "fibs" here and there. I should have seen this as a beginning of something bigger. The fibs became lies, and the lies escalated.

 

4. His whole family HATED me...and I never met them! He was severely abused in every manner possible, which caused him to develop severe emotional issues.

 

5. He cried A LOT. Now I think it's cute when a guy cries occasionally, but my ex just bawled all the time.

 

Finally after 2.5 years I broke up with him. Best decision I ever made in my whole life.

[comethemorning]

Socks with sandals...

Need I say more?!?

[angelboots]

Socks with sandals...

Need I say more?!?

 

LOL... that is on par with the chillidog red flag.. I will watch out for that one :lol:

[LoveTruthChaos]

Red flags I ignored:

 

1. He was VERY dependent emotionally and had a horrible childhood. He told me he loved me on the first date, saw the look of horror on my face, and said he was "just kidding." He wasn't though.

 

2. He wasn't going to college, claimed he "dropped out" of community college. I later found out he flunked out.

 

3. At the start of our relationship he began telling me little "fibs" here and there. I should have seen this as a beginning of something bigger. The fibs became lies, and the lies escalated.

 

4. His whole family HATED me...and I never met them! He was severely abused in every manner possible, which caused him to develop severe emotional issues.

 

5. He cried A LOT. Now I think it's cute when a guy cries occasionally, but my ex just bawled all the time.

 

Finally after 2.5 years I broke up with him. Best decision I ever made in my whole life.

 

Were you dating one of my exes?

Yikes, yep, the day I left him was the best day of my life!

[bitteorca]

Ok so I thought I would contribute to this thread. Some of the things on here make me sound snobby, but I am not, I just wanted to be true to my gut feelings and true to what I saw as red flags. So here goes:

 

• Issues with relationships with men / emotional baggage
  
• Always on facebook / blackberry messenger / phone
  
• Knows equal number of guys as to women
  
• watches different TV from me (more significant than you think if you do this together on a regular basis!)
  
• no intellectual convos
  
• gets very drunk and frequently (although not a bad drunk)
  
• probably flirts with guys (more out of nievity I think)
  
• swears a lot
  
• lives in a rough area / family seem rough
  
• get the feeling she would have wanted to be in control
  
• quite good looking, but not a complete stunner, not above my league
  
• humour didn't match (although did obviously have laughs together!)
  
• potential embarrassment of her meeting / hanging with friends (this must be significant!)
  
• I got the impression she could get physically violent
  
• music didn't match (not a big issue, and I do listen to some weird bands/music!)
  
• questionable amount of facebook friends (again not a biggy, possibly just different views on how to use facebook)
  
• said she got bored of people (but has since said she hasn't got bored of me and that she does like me, and that she has told other guys before if she just simply lost interest. it was something I said - I screwed up)
  
• she did dump me by text - theres no excuses for that one, but does raise issues of her being a coward / having problems expressing emotion to others / avoiding uncomfortable situations (the last time I saw her to discuss things she also couldn't look me in the eye properly, she was obviously uncomfortable) - but is this LTR material
  
• doesn't have any hobbies
  
• doesn't have any real ambitions
  
• on a different intellectual level than what I consider myself to be on (sounds horrible and big-headed, but like I have said, need to stay true to what I think)
  
• dream job is something I would consider to be an easy job...if that makes sense
  
• said she loves to meet new people - again, this can be over-analysed, but could raise issues of commitment
  

 

Wow...why do I care so much again?!?!

[GreenPolicy]

- told me she wasn't very ambitious

- She's a Christian. A month before she dumped me, we were hanging out and she said she wanted to be in Heaven right now. I was really taken aback by this, as we were pretty much pre-engaged and had mutually pledged a desire to marry. I was like "WTF? What about the rest of our lives together?" She said "Oh, don't worry, I'm not suicidal, but I'd rather be in Heaven right now." I asked my mom about this, who is a Christian and a regular churchgoer, and she said "Well, as a Christian, I do believe my reward in heaven is greater than my reward here on earth, but I would not say that as a young woman with my life ahead of me."

- She told me most of her other relationships she dumped the guys after a few months because they annoyed the crap out of her, and she had only two previous relationships before me that lasted a full year. She told me I wasn't like that. Well, guess what, I got dumped two weeks shy of our first anniversary. I thought it didn't apply to me because we had mutually agreed on marriage, she sat her parents down and told them I was The One, and her parents wanted to meet mine. She introduced me to her biological father, something she had never done with her boyfriends before. I didn't think the lack of commitment past a year applied to me.

[poorguy]

This is a great thread!!

1. Had slept with 9 guys by the age of 19

2. Lies about everything

3. Smokes pot wayyyy to much

4. Addicted to Facebook and the attention it provides

5. Spoiled rotten

6. Friends are loosers-although deep down she is not

7. Two faced

8. Manipultive

9. Never been single

 

The sex was amazing though!!

[reknown29]

1.) she contradicted herself. in the beginning said she was broken up with her ex and then after a month of dating her, she said she just told her ex that it was over between them.

 

2.) she would fly off the handle and get upset over little things, shew ould say something and then deny it.

 

3.) she mentioned that she was incapable of being faithful in her last 5 year relationship.

 

4.) we got in to an argument one night and she never made it home...

 

5.) she slept with a guy after one of our arguments and eventually told me about it. saying in her mind we were broken up.

 

6.) she would constantly have to smoke weed when doing stressful things, like seeing my parents...

 

7.) we could not communicate or ever come to an agreement over any sort of argument, no matter how pointless and petty. she was insanely stubborn.

 

8.) she continued to stay in contact with her ex throughout our relationship. it got to the point where he was sleeping in her apartment while she was at my place.

 

9.) she would give me zero assurance when I was feeling doubtful about events in my life.

 

10.) when I was bed ridden with the flu, she took it personally and ran out on me. I was ignoring her...

 

11.) she would completely ignore me at events and gaze into another guys eyes while having a deep conversation with him.

 

12.) she never said a single thing good about me outside of my physical appearance and my "sweetness".

 

13.) most of her friends were man hating miserable, rude people.

 

14.) we would constantly fight when she was drinking. she would not accept that there was a difference when someone is sober or drunk. she thought drinking brought out the truth. anything negative she would accept as the truth.

 

15.) she always would say she got "loose" when she drinks and she would be in other states getting trashed.

 

16.) if I brough up concern over her having lunch and drinks with other guys in hotels, or gazing at someone at the bar, she would get angry. Never giving any assurance that it was nothing...

 

17.) completely incapable of communicating or coming to any kind of compromise/ resolution between us.

 

18.) she actually said in the first few months, "if we keep having sex this much, you do not have to worry about me cheating".

 

19.) our relatoinship was a roller coaster ride. she blamed EVERYTHING on me.

 

WTF WAS I THINKING!!!!!!!!!! for me, the sex was also amazing...

[poorguy]

Haha..makes you wonder how they got that good!!!!!!!

[dng]

• Would reneges on any decision or commitment she made if something else made more sense to her at the last minute
  
• Would consistently lie about nothing and everything based on her assumption that everybody lives by "what you don't know can't hurt you"
  
• Any criticism of anything about her leads to a crisis
  
• Would come home blacked out drunk hours after she said she would and wouldn't remember where she went, had to undress her and put her to bed on many occasions but to be fair this hadnt happened in a number of years
  
• Any type of discussion very laborious and include hours of petty arguing until you finally reach the heart of the matter, and would usually later declare that she just agreed because she was tired of talking
  

 

Writing this list depresses me so much that I don't wanna go on.

[cerridwen]

1) He had a reputation in college for being a womanizer, much to his pleasure

 

2) He said he has never been "a relationship guy"

 

3) He felt most women had burned him in his life and he harbored severe distrust which he used to justify his cheating

 

4) He once bailed on a FWB situation because she asked for a commitment. Later, he explained he actually liked the girl very much and was not interested in others, but the "commitment" part scared him away and he rather leave.

 

5) He registered on, and used, a well-known website for married people interested in affairs. He'd troll for married women on that site with whom to have cyber-sex.

[Sonolumino]

1. Couldn't communicate intellectually

2. Had no passion, about anything

3. Said "I do everything I do based on feeling, because feeling is normally what's true".

4. When I explained to her the serious problems that I was having in my life, she said "Cheer up".

5. When we were having a rough time, my grandmother died and I told her I'd like to talk about it, she went on a date with another guy instead.

6. Had no drive to grow and change, wanted to stay the same in every way.

7. Never understood nor cared to understand my point of view.

[starryeyed12]

1. Told me he loved me after 2 weeks.

2. Talked about marriage after 2.5 weeks.

3. Asked me if I would ever want to have kids without being married first.

4. Trash talked women, me, and my friends and believed every stereotype in the book.

5. Dropped out of college twice; once for film production and again for music performance.

6. Talented singer for his band, but was kicked out of the band by his bandmates.

7. Cheated on his ex wife before marriage (when they were dating) with some groupies back in his band days. He never told her this, but told me.

8. Had an EA when he was married (not with me).

9. Hid how often he was watching porn from his ex wife and lied to me about it as well.

10. Always made excuses for his paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.

11. Bought a nintendo wii with the $100 his dad gave him instead of using it to pay off his $230 overdue electric bill.

12. Went through money like it grew on trees whenever he did have it.

13. Had to have his wealthy friend loan him money anytime there was ever an emergency.

14. Blamed EVERYTHING on me and the fact that I was younger than him.

15. Blamed all his problems on "life" and said I had no real experience with it because I hadn't been **** on like him.

16. Had a huge chip on his shoulder so that no one could talk to him about his issues without a tongue lashing or the cold shoulder.

17. When I caught him looking at other women, he claimed he was people watching. Just so happens that the only people he seemed to watch were women.

18. Watched over 6 movies per week, and hours of entire DVD sets of TV series without me. The first TV series I noticed he was watching was Californiaction. Obsessed with horror films and books. Did this instead of job hunting during the week because he said it was his passion.

19. Was fired or asked to leave his last 3 jobs.

20. His best friend openly cheats on his wife. He had another full-fledged A last Feb., so when my ex and I hung out with him we had to had to hang out with the OW.

21. Parents divorced. Father fell out of touch with him for many years. When he was little he would draw pictures of his family and black out the faces with black crayon. Bullied in school.

22. Has few close friends anymore because he makes little effort on those relationships. Now relies on Facebook as the only way to keep contact with friends.

23. Only child.

24. Has no tact and has trouble communicating his feelings. Bottles up his emotions. Slapped me once. Slapped his son once.

25. Has no drive or ambition.

26. Told me I couldn't travel anywhere without him. He did not want me to visit my cousin in Europe because he had never been able to travel, but always wanted to. He didn't want me to go and have a "first" without him. Even though I was always supposed to be fine that I would never have his first child or be his first wife. This is just "life."

 

Wow. I could go on too...

Edited December 15, 2010 by starryeyed12

[bitteorca]

1.) she contradicted herself. in the beginning said she was broken up with her ex and then after a month of dating her, she said she just told her ex that it was over between them.

 

2.) she would fly off the handle and get upset over little things, shew ould say something and then deny it.

 

3.) she mentioned that she was incapable of being faithful in her last 5 year relationship.

 

4.) we got in to an argument one night and she never made it home...

 

5.) she slept with a guy after one of our arguments and eventually told me about it. saying in her mind we were broken up.

 

6.) she would constantly have to smoke weed when doing stressful things, like seeing my parents...

 

7.) we could not communicate or ever come to an agreement over any sort of argument, no matter how pointless and petty. she was insanely stubborn.

 

8.) she continued to stay in contact with her ex throughout our relationship. it got to the point where he was sleeping in her apartment while she was at my place.

 

9.) she would give me zero assurance when I was feeling doubtful about events in my life.

 

10.) when I was bed ridden with the flu, she took it personally and ran out on me. I was ignoring her...

 

11.) she would completely ignore me at events and gaze into another guys eyes while having a deep conversation with him.

 

12.) she never said a single thing good about me outside of my physical appearance and my "sweetness".

 

13.) most of her friends were man hating miserable, rude people.

 

14.) we would constantly fight when she was drinking. she would not accept that there was a difference when someone is sober or drunk. she thought drinking brought out the truth. anything negative she would accept as the truth.

 

15.) she always would say she got "loose" when she drinks and she would be in other states getting trashed.

 

16.) if I brough up concern over her having lunch and drinks with other guys in hotels, or gazing at someone at the bar, she would get angry. Never giving any assurance that it was nothing...

 

17.) completely incapable of communicating or coming to any kind of compromise/ resolution between us.

 

18.) she actually said in the first few months, "if we keep having sex this much, you do not have to worry about me cheating".

 

19.) our relatoinship was a roller coaster ride. she blamed EVERYTHING on me.

 

WTF WAS I THINKING!!!!!!!!!! for me, the sex was also amazing...

 

Jees...sounds about as toxic as my brief relationship! I don't know you dude, but I get the feeling we can do a lot better! Me for one knows that now I have to look inside myself and see why I ignored/put up with all the red flags and didn't do a runner myself. Probably comes down to a lack of self-esteem/confidence/idealising someone to be someone they are not/a perceived need for a relationship to fulfil you (determining one's happiness through someone else - external validation instead of internal validation, never healthy)

 

This thread helps us to understand that it isn't necessarily the ex that we are pining for (look at all they're bad points...I mean come on!) but something they represent...which I believe can be a reflection of some kind of weakness inside of you (like I have said with myself it is a lack of confidence, and the fact that I believe deep down somewhere that girls provide my worth)

[dng]

This is all nice and dandy, but I wonder what the other party would have to say on us.

[vandelay]

This is all nice and dandy, but I wonder what the other party would have to say on us.

 

Seriously, I don't want to know.

[Woggle]

1.Was a drama queen who thought that everybody was against her and that the big bad world did not understand her.

 

2.Casually used some hard drugs when I first met her which spiraled into full blown addiction later on

 

3.Was emotionally unstable and quick to lose her mind over little things but she called it passion.

 

4.Every man she dated before was some type of criminal or scumbag

 

5.Thought she some sort of feminist rebel by sleeping with as many men as could.

[starryeyed12]

This is all nice and dandy, but I wonder what the other party would have to say on us.

 

Lol That is a good point!

 

When I was listing off all my "red flags" about him I thought about that too. As I was going through them, I thought to myself, I would actually love to somehow happen upon his list of flags for me.

 

But then I got to thinking, he criticized me so much throughout our time together, I already know what he would write! And if he were truly honest with himself, he wouldn't deny or defend any that I have written either. If he were smart he'd just work on them or let the past be the past like both parties should after a breakup. But then again, if he were smart, we'd probably still be together.

[Tressugar]

Oh that he's an alcoholic for one. Coupled with his abandonment issues, hating his mother, PTSD, his lies, drama always erupting everywhere he goes, not dependable and can not handle his own finances.

 

Other than the things previously listed he's a real catch-seriously.

[goldenrainbow]

Well had to post in here as a warning sign. I have just come out from a toxic relationship.

My red flags (which I stupidly ignored were):

 

1. Wanted to marry me 5 (Yes, FIVE) days after we met.

2. Talked me into moving in together after one month together (after 3 monsth we were indeed living together...)

3. Kept constantly calling me and texting me for nothing, if it took me more than 5 minutes to text him back he would go crazy thinking I was with someone else.

4. Threatened to leave I don't know how many times, (one of them at the beginning because I had gone shopping alone (WTF)).

5. and so many others..

 

So ladies (and gentelemen too)... BEWARE of flags like these ones. It eventually turns into verbal abuse (as mine did) and so on.