Danger Signs in a Relationship

Image: il vano

Abuse in relationships seldom comes from nowhere, and toxic relationships seldom start out toxic. The problems begin small, and escalate over time.

It’s wise, therefore, to be alert to the early warning signs of a relationship that’s headed toward abuse. The signs may be small at first, easily overlooked or rationalized away, but in my experience and observation, there are a few telltales that inevitably escalate over time—obvious in hindsight, but difficult to see in the rush of starting a relationship with a wonderful new person you’re deeply smitten with. New relationship energy can easily blind us to these warning signs.

Markers of People You Should Be Extremely Wary Of:

• Someone who hits you (this should perhaps be obvious, but it’s incredible the mental gymnastics we make to rationalize it: “Oh, they didn’t really mean to,” “Oh, they only did it once”).
• Someone who screams at you.
• Someone who pushes your boundaries (it is very common for abusers, in the early part of a relationship, to test you by pushing your boundaries in small ways: touching you without permission, not stopping if you pull away or tell them to stop, not taking “no” for an answer even on little things)
• Someone who destroys your property when they get angry (it’s important to remember that violence against property or possessions is abuse!).
• Someone you are afraid to say no to.
• Someone who controls you: what you eat, what you wear, where you go, what you do.
• Someone who demands to see your emails, text messages, Facebook messages, and so on.
• Someone who abuses your pets.
• Someone who calls you names.
• Someone who does not listen to how you think or feel, but instead tells you how you think or feel.
• Someone who lies to you, or lies to others about you.
• Someone you do not trust.
• Someone who does not do what they say they will do on many occasions and/or about important things.
• Someone whose goals in the relationship are dramatically at odds with yours.
• Someone who uses threats, coercion, emotional manipulation, emotional blackmail, or pressure to get you to do things you don’t want to do (“You better or else,” “if you loved me you would”).
• Someone who spies on you or tracks you.
• Someone who frequently calls you a liar or who accuses you of doing things you haven’t done.
• Someone who deliberately attempts to make you feel jealous, angry, or guilty.
• Someone who does not assume good intent; that is, they consistently seek the most damaging, harmful, or malicious interpretations for the things you do.
• Someone who does not respect your limits or boundaries.
• Someone who opens your mail or otherwise demands access to all your communication.
• Someone who attempts to isolate you from friends or family (“now that we’re together, I don’t want you talking to other men”).
• Someone who demands that you get rid of your possessions, including such things as photos of you with other people, or gifts from previous partners.
• Someone who consistently expects you to do things their way, but offers no flexibility when it comes to doing things your way.
• Someone who consistently blames you for their own emotions (“why do you have to make me so angry?”).
• Someone who bullies you, and/or enlists other people to bully you.
• Someone who puts you down, for example by telling you you’re lucky to have them because nobody else would ever want you.
• Someone who consistently undermines your memories (“that didn’t happen,” “you never did that”) as part of a systematic effort to make you doubt yourself.
• Someone who frequently engages in “protest behavior” (calling or texting many times, getting angry if you don’t return texts “fast enough,” being hostile or aggressive toward you, deliberately ignoring you) when they feel threatened or anxious.

Every one of these things on its own can warn of a toxic, controlling, abusive, or manipulative person. More than one of these things at the same time? That’s a clear warning sign.

Caution signs of potential incompatibility

Not every difference is a sign of an abuser, and not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is necessarily abusive. Markers of potential problems that might or might not rise to the level of abuse, but may point to serious relationship problems down the road, include:

• Excessive or irrational jealousy.
• Excessive or irrational clinginess, including such things as becoming upset if you don’t return text messages fast enough, don’t explain where you’re going all the time, or have to account for your whereabouts throughout the day.
• Grossly incompatible life goals: one of you wants children and the other doesn’t, one of you wants monogamy and the other doesn’t, one of you wants to live in a high-rise in the middle of a city while the other wants a farmhouse sixty miles from nowhere.
• Sexual incompatibility, particularly when combined with sex-negative attitudes.
• Persistent irrational belief that you are cheating.
• Persistent irrational anxiety that you are going to leave them—something that almost invariably becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
• Extreme differences in how you spend money.
• Extreme differences in priorities, including how you prioritize time.
• Significant differences in sexual tastes.
• Poor communication, and particularly a tendency toward passive-aggressive communication styles.
• A habit of assigning blame on others, and most especially externalizing blame for internal emotional states.
• Significant anger management problems.
• Inability to be compassionate and respectful when differences arise, including during arguments.
• Attempts to control, disparage, or—especially—prevent you from engaging in your hobbies or pastimes.
• Unwillingness to compromise—“it’s my way or the highway.”.

Again, any of these may signal problems in a relationship; multiple incidences of these factors quite likely mean the relationship is unhealthy.

Reducing your chances of being abused



Image: tarapatta

There’s no sure-fire way to avoid becoming a victim of abuse. Abuse can happen to anyone, though some traits make it more likely that you might be abused. I think the best strategy to avoid being abused is to be alert to the early signs of abuse and violence. Violence doesn’t appear from nowhere in an intimate relationship, it escalates slowly over time, sometimes over a period of years.

It can start small—little acts of boundary violation over minor things. Leaning close when you tell someone to back off. Casual violations of your personal space or your property. Small acts of control that, on their own, seem trivial and not worth fighting over. Then it escalates: threatening gestures, hitting the wall beside you, breaking your stuff, perhaps throwing things, punching things that are next to you, things like that.

They may blame you for the violence, or claim that if only you would something something whatever, it wouldn’t happen. It can be surprisingly easy to internalize that particular gaslighting—it’s vital to remember that hitting the wall next to you or breaking things when they’re angry is never ever ever ever ever ever ever okay, regardless of what narrative someone spins about it.

Ever.

But that’s the thing—almost nobody goes from zero to violence against a partner in one step. It’s just that it becomes easy to normalize each individual escalation.

So what do you do?

I am now firmly of the opinion that the most rational approach to keeping yourself safe in an intimate relationship is to adopt a one-strike-you’re-out policy toward physical violence. “But I didn’t hit you, I only hit the wall.” Doesn’t matter. It’s over. “But I didn’t hit you, I only hit your stuff.” Doesn’t matter. It’s over.

Remember that physical violence does not necessarily mean violence to you. Safehouse defines physical violence as:

Hitting, punching, kicking, slapping, strangling, smothering, using or threatening to use weapons, shoving, interrupting your sleep, throwing things, destroying property, hurting or killing pets, and denying medical treatment.

(Emphasis added) A zero-tolerance attitude toward any physical violence, even when it’s directed at things instead of people, is, I think, wise and reasonable.

The same thing applies to other types of coercive control. One often-overlooked sign of coercive control, for example, is a partner who controls your sleep schedule, what you eat, or what you wear. As the Better Help page on warning signs of emotional abuse says:

Controlling the type of clothes you wear, what you eat, or who your friends are can be a sign of emotional abuse. If you feel that your partner sees you as a child or belonging and not a person, that may be a red flag that you are being emotionally abused.

The Psychology Today article on Common Patterns on Coercive Control puts it this way:

For example, someone may have what they eat, how they sleep, or what they wear dictated by their partner. They may not be allowed to wear certain clothes or may be required to stick to a daily schedule of when to get to sleep or when to wake up.

Remember, relationships between equals do not treat one person as subordinate to another. Even BDSM relationships involve deliberately-negotiated, consensual parameters.