Red Flags: a running list

[SparklingandBroken]

I am currently going through my second divorce. As easy as it is to blame my husbands for their choices, there is very obviously a codependent aspect in myself. Red flags explode in my face and I can't even see them.  I have ZERO desire to date. I plan to go to a therapist again soon so help with this. But I am curious to know, what red flags you have discovered. 

One of mine is someone, who at my age (mid 30s), still parties with his friends every weekend.

[rjc149]

I guess that depends on your definition of “partying.” Getting s***faced and doing party drugs each weekend, when he’s got kids etc? Yes, red flag. A 30-something bachelor with an active weekend social life, I dunno, is that a red flag?

Not to go on offense here, but a mid-30s woman going through a second divorce is a huge red flag. Everyone has deal breakers but it may be better to dial back judgement of your dating prospects (when you resume dating) a bit.

[carhill]

I'm older, divorced around a decade and my main red flags are a bottle/drug habit and insanity. Can't abide those. Sounds simple but it's not really.

Disordered humans are a real danger if one has a caretaker personality. Once one accepts that one has such propensities as KISA, fixing people, co-dependency, whatever, it's easier to process it out and give whatever love/help/attention one desires freely and without expectation because, well, disordered people disappoint frequently if one expects *anything*.

Task your counselor to give you mind tools to process things differently. You'll still feel the same/similar emotions. You'll still want and desire certain types of people. You can process that differently. The process is a choice.

[SparklingandBroken]

3 hours ago, rjc149 said:

I guess that depends on your definition of “partying.” Getting s***faced and doing party drugs each weekend, when he’s got kids etc? Yes, red flag. A 30-something bachelor with an active weekend social life, I dunno, is that a red flag?

Not to go on offense here, but a mid-30s woman going through a second divorce is a huge red flag. Everyone has deal breakers but it may be better to dial back judgement of your dating prospects (when you resume dating) a bit.

I didn’t mean to trigger you. Yes, I meant partying...getting wasted and doing drugs. Not meeting up with the guys. I know that my own situation is a red flag. 

[SparklingandBroken]

3 hours ago, carhill said:

I'm older, divorced around a decade and my main red flags are a bottle/drug habit and insanity. Can't abide those. Sounds simple but it's not really.

Disordered humans are a real danger if one has a caretaker personality. Once one accepts that one has such propensities as KISA, fixing people, co-dependency, whatever, it's easier to process it out and give whatever love/help/attention one desires freely and without expectation because, well, disordered people disappoint frequently if one expects *anything*.

Task your counselor to give you mind tools to process things differently. You'll still feel the same/similar emotions. You'll still want and desire certain types of people. You can process that differently. The process is a choice.

Thank you for the constructive response. I work in healthcare and naturally have a “caretaking” personality. This has been my issue.

[rjc149]

10 hours ago, SparklingandBroken said:

I didn’t mean to trigger you. Yes, I meant partying...getting wasted and doing drugs. Not meeting up with the guys. I know that my own situation is a red flag. 

It’s okay, you didn’t trigger me. I knew my comment was going to come off as accusatory. I just couldn’t help my indignation for that brief moment, I’m sorry if I acted on it. I’m a 35-year old avoidant who has never been in a relationship longer than a year. I’m a red flag too.

Did one of your ex husbands go out getting trashed each weekend? 

[rjc149]

Just wanted to add (I wasn't able to edit my post above): I read into the "still goes out partying with his friends" as  you taking issue with his age, ie. that going out with friends on weekends is not age-appropriate activity for a mid-30's man, not you taking issue with routine substance-abuse. Someone going out getting s***faced and doing drugs every weekend is a red flag for any age. 

[Prudence V]

Red flags for me include:

• Serious mental health problems, and the unwillingness to address those;
• Unwillingness to accept responsibility for any children they spawn;
• Belittling their partner in public, demeaning them, undermining them, etc to try to make themselves look better;
• Treating people who report to them, or are employed by them, or who serve them in shops, etc poorly;
• Bitching about friends behind their backs;
• Treating animals badly;
• Reading the Daily Mail, or The S*n, or other right wing tabloids;
• Voting Tory. Or UKIP;
• Being racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, ableist, Or bigoted in some other way;
• Subscribing to conspiracy theories, being an anti-vaxxer, a flat-earthier, a climate change denialism, or any other foil-helmet kind of behaviour;
• Living in a house that stinks of cat piss;
• Being financially irresponsible;
• Having no sense of humour, or regarding everything as a joke;
• Needing to eat meat at every meal;
• Holding right wing views politically or socially;
• Following Katie Hopkins, Piers Morgan, Tommy Robinson or Stephen Fry on Twitter;
• supporting Israel’s human rights abuses in Palestine;
• Supporting Brexit. 
   

There’s a whole bunch more, but that’s a start.