Relationships, much like war, often take on a dynamic of their own, so it’s important to be able to step back and assess things, as well as having other people to talk to. Because, it’s very easy to convince yourself that things are absolutely fine when, in fact, they are not.
Someone asked “People who have been in abusive relationships, what was the first red flag?” and netizens shared their stories. A warning, some of the posts here are stories of domestic abuse. If you or anyone you know are going through violence at home, go to the hotline.org (if you are in the US) or the ncvd.org (for the UK).
#1
He choked me. Then he got mad at me for crying because "it's not like I actually died.".
Image credits: CheerMom
#2
There were all of these unspoken "rules" I didn't know about until I would incur his wrath for breaking them.
Image credits: badly_behaved
#3
When you find yourself not telling friends or family about things your SO has done/ the way you're being treated because "they wouldn't understand" and you don't want to make your SO look bad.
Image credits: ThingerBees
#4
When they dislike your friends for no reason. When they try and isolate you. When they insist on knowing your Facebook password. Poor mel.
Image credits: DirtySingh
#5
When she went through my phone and facebook and removed my female friends. I knew that normally, that'd be grounds for leaving her, but I took pity on her because she'd been abused in the past. That was a mistake.
Image credits: III-V
#6
When they start using your emotions to manipulate you. It's very subtle at first, but then it gets worse and worse. My ex girlfriend from a few years ago was abusive. I think people often overlook it when women treat men that way, and it's unfortunate because it exists more often than people think.
Image credits: nag404239
#7
When I finally broke down and asked for help with my depression. Not for her to fix it, but for understanding and loving me while I tried to get help. She responded with, 'I don't care, just let me know when it's over with.'
Image credits: brandnamenerd
#8
The need for my undivided attention every day in my every waking hour. Seriously people, clingers are bad news.
Image credits: anon
#9
That they do things that hurt you emotionally and don't seem to care.
Image credits: Throwaway90578
#10
Not even a big thing in retrospect. That's how it starts.
Our first real argument was regarding my response to a letter he was sending to his professor complaining about a poor grade he'd gotten on an essay. The letter was riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. I remember suggesting he changed "could of" to "could have". He absolutely lost his s**t. Started telling me that I was trying to ruin his self confidence, that I wasn't supporting him, that how dare I tear apart his grammar. I backed down and apologised.
Image credits: misswilde86
#11
He tried to make me sign a contract for rules to follow when I went to college. I tore it up and left his house. My dumb a*s stayed with him for about 6 months or so because I was young and dumb. However, I broke up with him and never spoke to him again.
Image credits: justanotherday3366
#12
When she genuinely chuckled at the sight of me crying and being upset, and then vigorously tried to hide it.
Her genuine reaction showed me she was excited at my pain. Then I realized throughout the relationship, she would cause pain, then make me feel like an a*****e for feeling emotions because it made her feel guilt and she didn't like that so f**k me for not being a cyborg.
I'm not kidding, after that moment I noped the f**k out of that relationship.
Image credits: ninetiesplease
#13
Looking back, there were so many red flags earlier, but the one I first realised at the time was when we had gone shopping and it had started pouring down rain out of nowhere. Everything is your fault if you're in an abusive relationship, according to your abuser.
Neither of us had an umbrella or anything because the weather had changed so rapidly, he then started screaming at me in the train station so badly one of the security guards had to intervene. I realised I was 18 years old, in the prime of my life and was stood here, crying and apologising to a man for the weather while strangers attempted to diffuse his anger at me fearing the consequences. That same night a woman sat next to me on the busy train held my hand quietly as he screamed at me across the aisle.
EDIT: Thanks everyone for your concern and well wishes!
I'm totally out of it now, after being pushed down stairs and losing weight rapidly from anxiety one of my school teachers intervened and got me the help I needed, now I've moved city to the university of my dreams and have the most gentle loving partner I could ever ask for.
Image credits: widemec
#14
His baby sister was innocently playing in the dirt... He walked over to her and smacked her hands and b****ed at her cause she was getting dirty. His brother quickly walked over, grabbed their sister, and took her to a different area of dirt and played with her.
That moment never sat well with me... Years later he turned out to be an abusive husband and was rough with our own daughter twice.
Image credits: MaMaJillianLeanna
#15
Any form of gas lighting no matter how small.
Also pre-blaming you for things they know will happen because of them. He'd tell me on vacation "that drink is too strong you're just going to pass out later and we won't be able to go out and do anything," but in reality it was him passing out from drinking at 9pm forcing us to stay in. Or saying "yeah I want to see the sunrise but you're never going to get out of bed that early," yet I went and saw it and he slept until 2 hours later when I finally got him up.
When I realized it, I saw he was basically trying to make me give up on doing things so he could blame me for us not doing it, even though if I held up my end he wouldn't hold up his. Between that and making me think my emotions were invalid when he'd upset me just made for a super manipulative relationship.
Image credits: madguins
#16
The first red flag isn't an obvious one. But essentially, if somebody makes you afraid of bringing up a problem you may have with them or responds automatically mean as s**t/defensive as f**k, GET AWAY.
Within a relationship, you have the right to bring up a conversation on something that may bother you in a calm manner and that person should respond to you accordingly. Fights will happen, yes, but you should be able to talk to each other without it being a fight at the first few mentions of something that may potentially challenge them.
In my last relationship though, I came to see everything he was doing to manipulate me came to a head when I caught him in a massive lie. When I told him "You lied to me, by the way" and listed the reasons why he lied to me....he simply repeated over and over "I didn't lie". But...he did lol.
Image credits: anon
#17
For me, the very first red flag was not communicating finances [we were married]. He would "give me" a certain amount to spend, but never wanted me on his bank account. I had my own, but we had agreed on joining accounts - which is why I transferred my money to his since it had better interest rates/bank/etc. I had no access to my own money. It took him 6 months and a threaten of divorce to be put on the account. And then I saw it - he had lost ALL of our money by spending it on him damn self. I couldn't do anything - I could even put food on the table or put gas in our cars.
The second red flag was when we adopted a puppy [this was after I began a finance bootcamp with him]. The puppy would cry at night. Ex had a temper. I heard him storm into the living room, open the kennel, and shake the dog yelling "I will f*****g SHOOT you if you don't shut the F**K up!" I shot out of bed, grabbed the dog, told him he would do no such thing, and left to stay with a friend.
Another one was when we were play wrestling and he pinned me down so hard my arms started going numb. I told him to get off of me and then kneed him in the back. He punched my face. I was stunned and told him "didn't your mother ever teach you not to hit a woman?" "Nope, they're fair game and you look like you can handle your own anyways."
The immense guilt trip I received any time I did something for myself - driving over to a friend's place for coffee, going on a weekend trip to the beach, going to my family's...it was ridiculous.
There were other red flags as well, but these were the top three I could think of. It wasn't until I told my Chain of Command some of these things that they sent me to victim advocacy. I had to be told that I was a victim of abuse. We, obviously, have since divorced and I am now happily re-married to someone who believes we are a partners in life. Together, we balance each other out.
Image credits: badgerfu
#18
Let's break the notion that you'll be able to notice the "first" flag, because abuse doesn't work like that. There are many, many flags that are considered abusive, but anyone can have a one-off. Your SO was jealous one time? That's not a flag.
The first thing I notice that almost always leads to abuse is a disregard for your feelings and the notion that they know what's best for you.
For example, my ex told me in the beginning that if I ever cheated on him, he'd k*ll me. It may not be entirely *normal* but enough people say it jokingly that you might not look twice. But he kept saying it. And eventually I told him how much it bothered me, that it wasn't funny. And he'd apologize and quit for a day or two, but he'd always continue. That was the first time I noticed how he'd disregard my feelings.
My little sister is in a new relationship. He's doing the same thing. She is skinny and she has some health issues that the doctors are trying to figure out, but sometimes eating physically hurts her. Her boyfriend vacillates between making her eat when she's not hungry, and yelling at her when she eats something he doesn't approve of. For example, she wanted a Monster. He told her it was unhealthy and b****ed at her to the point that she put it back. He told her she should drink flavored water instead. She said no, but he bought one for her anyway and made her drink it. It doesn't sound bad right now, but when someone takes your autonomy and makes your choices for you, it's not a good sign.
Image credits: highheelcyanide
#19
The first red flag is the person having an opinion about every single thing you do and every single person you talk to, like they need to be hands on in all your dealings and activities like they are your parent or some s**t.
Normal people don't want to coach your life, only f****d up people do.
Image credits: shewshoe
#20
Went with a friend to dinner that lasted longer than usual because we were catching up. Left the restaurant to tons of text and calls. When I called back he was fuming. We had only been seeing each other about a month at that point.
Image credits: laurenashley7774
#21
When I told a coworker about things she reacted with horror. That's the thing about abusive relationships, at least in my experience. They start off great and then slowly warp into something terrible and the abused person might not know.
I didn't even notice what was happening to me until two years in. Looking back it blows my mind that I accepted the treatment but at the time it just seemed fine.
I was working at a coffee shop and while closing one day started chatting with a new co-worker - by this point I had been isolated from all my friends and I thought it was because I was a terrible person so was cautiously trying to make a new friend. We were drinking wine while we worked and started dishing about our men and her reaction to my 'what happened on date night this past week' story was horror.
It got me thinking and once I knew to look, all of the other red flags showed up.
This was also the same way I found out my parents were abusive. A friend in high school saw the bruises and cuts and when I told her I got in s**t for losing a toy something she was like 'ummmm...that is not a normal reaction to that.'.
Image credits: full-of-grace
#22
When he started trying to isolate me from my family. I had already moved out of the house to live with him, but my family lived just a couple exits up the highway so I still saw them frequently. He would make snide comments about my little sister and always try to find ways to put my father down (my dad is a colonel in the army, my ex was an enlisted soldier and he always had a bit of an insecurity complex about officers vs enlisted.) If he had plans to go out, I would make plans to see my family and then he would cancel his plans and urge me to cancel mine. He never wanted me to go to their house anymore or see them at all. And when I met him, I had just moved to the area and was a recent 17 year old graduate who was taking a year off before starting college so I didn't know anyone but my family, wasn't in any position to meet anyone,and had no other connections. But he never wanted me to find other connections or continue the ones I had.
That was when I first started to think "yick, what is with this guy?" but I made excuses for him. As young fools in abusive relationships often do.
Image credits: Shark-Farts
#23
The casual passive-aggressive comments he would drop in normal conversation. Then the comments would become more direct, then mean, and finally just cruel. And once he saw that I would accept those, well, the floodgates of abuse just burst open.
Image credits: scaredofmyownshadow
#24
I was berated for hours about 2 weeks in for "causing" him to miss out on a w**d pick up that I was buying with my money. I was stunned I just kept saying sorry because I'd never encountered anything like that. No matter how many times I said sorry it didn't matter, that is until he finally got his w**d. Was a red flag but that f****r was still around for several more months. I finally kicked him out after he tried to make me k*ll myself at 4 months pregnant.
Image credits: mementomori42
#25
Always getting their way no matter what and throwing a fit when they don't.
Holes in my condoms. Not a joke very serious.
Claimed she was having a bad day and wanted me to spend time with her. Sweet at first but when she kept on insisting on sex with no protection I drew the line.
Finally we ended up breaking up after she drew a knife on me.
Image credits: anon
#26
For me, the first red flag was when we were joking around with one another on the couch. She threw a playful insult at me, I threw one back, and then she hauled off and slapped me in the face. There was no indication before-hand that she was like that.
I had grown up getting abused physically, and I didn't want to go back to that, so I called the evening off early and broke up with her the next day.
Image credits: cyrus_hunter
#27
Like 3 weeks in, when he randomly started arguing with someone over some stupid s**t, I sided with the other person who I thought was being reasonable. The PoS got furious at me, saying "I expect you to be on my side". Aghast and pissed, I walked away ignoring him. He suddenly started playing nice and sweet again. I should have never looked back at that point because he soon turned out to be a massively manipulative, immature, emotionally abusive piece of f*****g scum. Ugh.
Image credits: KissyK*llerKitty
#28
He "broke up" with me and said we could only get back together if I cut off my two best friends who were guys I had known since I was 2 years old.
He then continued to break up with me every time he wanted me to cut someone out of my life.
I was 15 at the time. By the time I was 18 I barely had anyone left in my life. Thank god for my family.
I was also bruised and battered to a pulp. Hindsight is a funny thing.
Image credits: sooriza
#29
Never admitting fault, full of lies, gas lighting...becomes aggressive when you checkmate them in arguments.
Image credits: anon
#30
Two things made me uneasy and really stand out in retrospect.
* He had nothing positive to say about any woman he had ever dated, or even met. All ex-girlfriends were "mentally ill" and hateful. All his friend's girlfriends/wives were mean and overbearing. He liked his mom, but no other women.
* He isolated me from my friends. He kept saying how nice it was to stay in alone and kept asking me to break established plans with friends.
#31
So I once worked as a prison warden in a prison for men who had abused their s.o.
During lunch breaks I used to read their court trials, the legal reasoning interest me.
During one lunch break I said to a more experienced colleague
-*Well, from working here and reading about all these trials I've learnt the importance of telling my *daughter (she was in her early teens back then*) to walk out after the first strike.*
-*No*, said my colleague, *you tell her to walk out when he starts to always pick her up from work. You tell her to walk out when she wants to go out with her friends and he insists on her staying at home by saying " but honey, I had planned to make you dinner and then we can cuddle in the sofa and watch a movie. That's where it begins. When the first strike hits she has been controlled for a long, long time*.
#32
She used to find things to criticize...even though she had no business commenting on...
for example, she would ridicule my driving, yet at the time she had already lost her licence and had gotten into numerous accidents...
She would criticize my cooking because she liked to do thing her way and stand over my shoulder while doing so....
Criticize my work hours while having no job and no income and expect that we could do anything if I just worked less...
Image credits: jaytrade21
#33
Not liking you having a life outside of your relationship with them.
If they b***h about you going to work, school, out with friends etc.
And question what you're wearing, who you're seeing etc.
#34
Every single text message I got (even from family) resulted in me hiding things from her and cheating on her because I wasn't ONLY texting her. When we broke up, I did it over text out of spite.
#35
He would say mean things, and then brush it off as teasing. Yet he was extremely sensitive to being teased, even in a gentle way. He did not see this in himself at all.
The complete inability to manage emotional conflict and lack of self awareness are the damning things about this. A normal person either quits teasing people or lightens up.
#36
Having to justify every opinion.
"I don't like *specific movie*"
Tell me what you don't like about it.
"I just didn't like it"
That's stupid to not like things without a reason...
- -
This turned into me having to try to explain feelings and emotions...
All were invalidated until the point where I felt I was incapable of making a decision.
#37
I didn't see the red flags until 15 years later.
So, going back in time, the first BIG red flag was after he grilled me about some phantom affair he thought I was having, it turned out he was cheating on me. I didn't find out the truth until after we already married, though.
#38
"Yes, I veer to the right a lot, so when I lose control of the wheel it'll be you who will hit the tree before me." She had a lot of undiagnosed mental issues. Her lapses in logic were too much for me to handle in the end.
#39
When he moved in, he offered to add me to his cell phone plan, and I declined.
Then he tried to buy me a new cell phone as a gift. I told him that I liked my cell phone just fine and would select and buy my own replacement when the time came.
Then I suddenly started receiving nuisance phone calls and he suggested that I change my number. I told him that I had had my number since 1997 and had no intention of changing it.
One day, he came home with a new cell phone for me. I put it in a drawer and left it there.
Three days later, my phone disappeared.
I searched every inch of my house (the one into which he had moved) over the next 8 days, every moment I got that he wasn't there.
During this time, I relied solely on the cell phone he had given me.
On day 8 of my fine toothed comb, I found my phone in a box of his recently deceased father's legal papers. I kept it and hid it.
Two days later, I told him that our relationship was over, and that he needed to find a place to live within 30 days.
He pretended that he was going to go out and turned his truck around and blocked my car into the garage.
When he came back in, I was in the bedroom, because I was watching him block my car in through the window.
He closed the door and I just sat there....until I realized that he was moving furniture.
When I opened the door, there was a book shelf blocking the door jamb. At that time, I had 3 dogs and 3 cats, and the dogs were barking like mad on the other side. I would have k*lled them, had I knocked the shelf over.
I started screaming. He started laughing. He told me he had taken back the cell phone he had provided for me. He told me I was being evil, and that he would let me out when I came to my senses.
I waited until the dogs settled down, evidence that he was no longer standing at the door, and used the phone I had stolen back to call first my dad, then 911.
The police didn't give him 30 days to find a new place to live.
It turns out that he had moved six pieces of solid oak furniture into the small hallway from the master bedroom. The only way I would have gotten out would have been the windows.
