People Explain Which Red Flags They Completely Missed In Their Previous Relationships

A person's lack of trust in a relationships is indicative of a larger issue.

Checks Phone

"She insisted on checking my phone all the time, but I was never allowed to touch her phone, ever."

– TheRavingRaccoon

Phone With X-Rated Content

"when one month into the relationship I discovered nudes of other women on his phone and that he still had Tinder. when three months into the relationship he went though my text messages and read through old conversations I had with someone before I even started seeing him and somehow made me feel guilty about it, and four months into the relationship when he cheated on me for no reason other than that he could in the moment and he was drunk. it took me three years to break up with him."

– CandelaBelen

Addicts who will not get help are bad candidates for love.

It's Not Up To Us To Change People

"I was too new to realize that you can't 'fix' an addict."

– sabboo

Serial Drinker

"That somehow there was always a good reason to drink. Later he became lazier and stopped pretending to have a reason and just drank the whole time out of habit."

– Annabenc

Appropriate Metaphor

"I'm half convinced zombies are a metaphor for addicts. They look like your loved one which why you don't immediately recognize them as a bottomless pit of hunger that will either get close enough to try to bite you and turn you into one of them or simply tear chunks out of you until there's nothing left."

– gonegonegoneaway211

Mommie Dearest

"I married a mom's boy. I didn't see the problem at first but things got weird quickly. She controlled him and our marriage."

"It took 15 years and couple of kids, but I left that situation. The funny part is, after the divorce, she and I got along quite well."

– 629mrsn

Gaslighting is a common problem in relationships that people unfortunately are unable to identify early on.

Getting Territorial

"He 'didn't get jealous' but he also didn't want me to hang out with male friends. Or, in fact, other people in general. One time he came to pick me up from the cinema, saw I'd been there with a friend, and got so mad on the drive home that he punched the steering wheel. That was...a thing."

"He also took advantage of my mental health problems to not only gaslight me but to make him look like the better person and to make me out to be crazy. I didn't realise the extent of it until ages later when I was in a healthy relationship! Lesson time: if someone is constantly making you feel uneasy and vulnerable, they are not your friend, let alone your partner."

– Botentbo

Foreigners Explain Which Parts Of American Culture Seem Strange | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Textbook Move

"YES. The whole 'I'm not controlling you because I'm not directly 'forbidding' anything; I'll just find ways to emotionally punish you after, until you can't muster up the energy anymore' game. A classic. Your world shrinks month by month, seemingly by choice, and one day you look up and realize you have nowhere else to turn. Textbook."

"If they're yelling anything like 'I'm not controlling!' or 'I don't get jealous!' at you, it's a red flag. This is NOT a debate that needs to happen in healthy relationships. You're not crazy, you're just being gaslighted. Sure sign to GTFO."

– AggressiveExcitement

Mental Health Denier

"First bf I had, he was 24 I was 18. Was the only person outside my family who I told about my depression after I was diagnosed with it. He said that was a fake disease. Because this was many years ago and on the media, there wasnt much info about it like nowadays, I believed him. One time he went out with me and my sister, he took us home but he was extremely wasted. He crashed against a wall and the car was a total loss."

"At that moment I felt like sh*t because of his car and because 'this wouldnt have happened if he wouldn't have taken us home'. Months later he used to laugh about the accident because his parents bought him a new car. He was always joking about how we 'defeat death', and later confessed to me that he knew the brakes were not working properly that night. I was so f'king pissed cause my sister and I could have died. Overall the guy was a complete a**hole and I am glad we only dated for 9 months. After that I have never dated with anyone who drives after drinking, nor with anyone who believes mental health issues are fake."

– greenyoshi89

Analyzing Happiness

"The constant teasing and diminishment of what made me happy wasn't a misunderstanding. I wasn't miserable because I just needed to lighten up. I didn't realize it at the time because I didn't realize I grew up with a parent who did that to me, so I though this was normal behavior and I was bad for not appreciating it."

– thewidowgorey

They were pretty much difficult people to live with.

I Just Want Muffins

"Yeah my first red flag... I liked to randomly buy muffins from a shop below us. They were like 1.50 and delicious. Would buy them maybe twice a week at most. Boyfriend told me to stop buying muffins that I was waisting my money on junk food and they aren't healthy and I'll get fat. Wish I would have stood up for myself then. Cause who the f'k cares if I want to buy myself a yummy snack once in a while."

"That was the first thing he tried to control. Followed by about 2 years of emotional abuse and sexual assault. Similar to you, couldn't do anything right. Would stop saying I love you but said, 'I maybe could love you if...' If I tried to get him to stop touching me he'd throw a fit. Dude, you've been rubbing my boobs for 2 HOURS. Terrible. I got out but the abuse sticks with you. I'm really sorry sorry for your trauma."

– BlabBehavior

Never Satisifed

"She complained a lot of things and had often strong opinions, i liked it in the beginning and thought she just has „pepper in the buttocks". Well she just liked to complain a lot and no matter why i did, i could never get her fully satisfied."

– ChefDelight

No Motivation

"Complete and total lack of ambition. He would complain about his job and finances, yet did nothing to change his circumstances. I would tell him to take advantage of his days off start some classes or courses that would help him in the future, I told him I could handle us financially until he was done and when he was done it would be my turn…His days off were spent playing video games and smoking weed."

"We would talk about all the dreams we had for our future. He was supportive when we talked about it but when I started putting in the work, getting promotions, bringing in more money, he became resentful. I would tell myself he was in a funk, it was just a phase, NOPE this was a personality. He couldn't walk the talk."

"6 years of missing this enormous Red flag went by…but when I left, everything I had worked towards was coming to fruition."

– nonafett

Not People-Friendly

"He didn't have any friends. I thought he was a misunderstood loner but he was actually just hard to be around."

– 44morejumperspls

Many in the thread said red flags are often there but are ignored.

This was true for a friend of mine who was in an emotionally abusive relationship. She recognized all the signs telling her she needed out of that relationship, but she stayed with him because, "he was working on changing to be a better person."

She held him to that promise for three years and realized he was not making any effort to change at all, but she refused to see it because she "loved him."

She eventually left him and is now happily married. Her only regret was the fact that she wasted a lot of time ignoring what her gut had been telling her all along.

It was a good reminder we should trust our instincts more.