Note: This post contains mention of abusive behaviors, physical assault, and sexual assault.
Oftentimes, it can be difficult to notice that your partner is exhibiting manipulative, toxic, or otherwise unhealthy behaviors, especially if you've been in the relationship long enough that those behaviors have become what you consider to be "normal" In situations like these, it can be helpful to know what signs to look out for if you feel that you might be in a toxic relationship.
Reddit user u/KitKatCrunchie asked, "Women, how did you spot a predatory man early?"
1. "Often for me specifically, it's tiny things someone does that is exactly the same as another man from earlier in my life who turned out to be predatory. Using the exact same phrase in the same context that seems just a tiny bit odd, or doing something that seems like a genuine (and very small) misunderstanding but it's the exact same misunderstanding as someone earlier in my life."
2. "If they show entitled and possessive behavior almost right away, or if they make early remarks against women that are very negative."
"I had a coworker who became a stalker, and this is one of the red flags that I saw in hindsight. The level of vitriol he spewed about other women was insane. Even with him explaining their (perceived) offenses to me, the intense hatred was still disproportionate."
3. "To be honest, it was just a gut feeling. The most innocent things are malicious in hindsight."
4. "Pay attention to your instincts. If they're pushing you to drink, do drugs, etc. or trying to get you violate your boundaries."
5. "Pay close attention to how this person treats women that they aren't sexually attracted to. A lot of men that are abusive or who view women as sex objects either entirely ignore, or are insanely caustic to women who are fat, disabled, old, or otherwise not conventionally attractive. This is a good sign that once you stop being his sex object, he will treat you with the same flip disregard for human respect and decency."
6. "'Future faking' is a great term that I didn't have a word for until now. He promises you the world, but can barely show up to plans."
"I had this happen to me once. We weren't even together, but all of the future faking and love bombing that he did on the very first date made it far more difficult for me to recognize that he was canceling plans and taking forever to text back. It really is manipulative, and clouded my judgment for a few weeks."
7. "If he gets jealous or 'ribs' you about your exes, coworkers, boss, male roommates, etc. A normal guy won't suspect that you are up to something or that everyone wants you (adorable, though, you are) without just cause. The predator suspects everyone is 'up to something' because THEY are."
"My mom told me this when I was a teen: 'Someone who says everyone is a liar (She was talking about my dad, lol) IS a liar. They think everyone does it too.'"
8. "I notice this one while dating when I tell a guy that I'd like to pay my own bill, not extend the evening, or that I don't need to be walked to my car or walked home. I say no, they insist, and I say no very firmly. If they don't back off, I have my hackles up. I know that men are taught to be pushy while dating, so I give them a second chance to accept my no. But if I say no again and their response is anger or insistence, I don't see them again. It's shocking how often they act angry at my no."
9. "If he has a long 'hard-luck' story. I dated a guy who could never take responsibility for anything and always portrayed it as life being unfair on him. It wasn’t his fault that he got in two car accidents within a month, it was so unfair that he couldn’t get a job better than McDonald’s, etc. It took me years to realize that it’s impossible for every negative thing in his life to be the result of an exterior loss of control."
10. "You know that vibe when you are at the mall and the kiosk person's eyes lock in on you and they make a beeline to get to you? Then they start whatever spiel that they use and you've heard it all before and you know that they are only pretending to be polite/using social norms to trap you because they want something from you? Something you don't want to give? It feels like that."
11. "Another woman messaged me on Facebook and told me she saw I'd gone on a date with him. She told me that she had gone on several dates with him and he had assaulted her. Naively, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked him about it and he FLIPPED OUT, sending me pages and pages of texts painting himself as a victim. Needless to say, I didn't accept his next date invitation to go to a secluded cabin for a weekend with him."
13. "His friends were doing things that have now since been made illegal (sharing pictures without permission). He would receive them and never told me. It wasn't until I found out years later that I realized he'd probably done the same thing to me. He couldn't understand why I was so disgusted with him for simply enabling his friends to violate women like that."
14. "Whenever a much older man (or much older woman) tries to find a much younger partner, that’s an immediate red flag. I gag when I hear of the stories of 50-year-olds preying on 19-year-olds."
15. "I set boundaries early, like not talking or texting while I’m at work. If someone repeatedly crosses them, even when I remind them that I need to focus on work/life, they don’t respect my needs, at the very least. I'm not sure it specifically weeds out predatory men but it cuts down on possessive, and dismissive ones."
16. "This one is obvious, but any racism, sexism, anti-gay or anti-trans bias, antisemitism, etc."
18. "Not sharing basic information about himself, but he wants to know everything about you."
19. "Love bombing. Do not ignore this. It feels wonderful in the beginning, getting someone's full attention, making you feel like the queen of his universe. Gifts, attention, affection, romance, intimacy, amazing sex. They make you feel safe, so safe that you feel like you can truly open up. Then it stops. Suddenly things begin to change and you aren't so wonderful anymore. All of the things they did before never happen again, and you begin to be the object of constant criticism and emotional manipulation. And because they treated you so well before, it's easy to think that you must have done something wrong to make them change their behavior, and if you don't think that, they will make sure you do. You will end up apologizing for breathing too hard, accidentally slamming a door, not reading their mind, etc. They will give you bread crumbs of that wonderful love they shined on you before, only to bait you into staying."
20. "The only real answer is that you can't always spot a predatory partner. Some predators throw up those flags, and it's great to learn them so you can get out as soon as they start waving them. But some just won't. Some will be your friend and your confidant, never making a move or pushing a boundary until they get you alone and drunk. Some will be the perfect, loving partner until they think they have you trapped (pregnancy, marriage, mortgage). I'm not saying this to scare, but because I think the MOST IMPORTANT part of this is not to blame yourself for trusting the wrong person. It's not your fault that you 'didn't see the signs.' Sometimes there just are none, and when things go wrong the best thing to do is to just get the fuck out of there as quickly and quietly as you can. Blaming and second-guessing yourself will only cause indecision and delay."
21. "Compliments/insults. How many insults are actually disguised as compliments? Any guy that makes seemingly lighthearted jokes about your appearance has got to go. There is always a thread of truth in jokes. Also, when giving compliments, do they show jealousy? This could be as simple as, 'Oh I’d tell you how beautiful you look tonight, but I’m sure that you get that a lot.'"
22. "Some red flags are hard to pinpoint. I have good instincts that took me a long time to learn to trust. Some men do small, negative things that raise alarm bells and I can't articulate why. Like, a guy on Tinder told me that he liked the photo of me without makeup better. I don't know why that raised alarms, and honestly, I don't even wear makeup often. And it is a really benign statement. But something about asserting preferences for my choices made me uneasy in the context. In combination with his overall tone, I had the impression of someone who was controlling. Shitty people do this unconsciously because they are behaving as usual, but it tests what you are willing to accept."
23. "This might be kind of trigger happy, but I watch how they treat my cat. If they pick up my cat and my cat tries to leave but they don't let her leave, then I call everything off. If they are that comfortable violating my cat's autonomy as soon as they meet her, then they might be comfortable violating mine soon after or down the road."
24. "How a man talks about women, especially his mother or previous relationships is very indicative of his views on women."
25. "Predatory people are often very nice and charismatic, which is something that I wish we were told in school because I think we're often told that the people who will kidnap or hurt us are weirdos lurking in trench coats in dark alleys. That's not often the case. The predators who are good at what they do will often know how to appear nonthreatening. A predatory person will charm you and use manipulation to make you feel like YOU are the bad guy if you reject them. Remember that they are the asshole for putting you in that position in the first place. I was a people pleaser in my 20s and often worried about rocking the boat, but now I listen to my gut more and I don't care if you think I'm a bitch for declining your advances."
26. "Talking about trust issues and using them as an excuse for intrusive/controlling behavior. Even if someone has trust issues, it is not really your responsibility to compromise boundaries to meet an excessive need for 'security.' It is their responsibility to be aware of the issue and actively work to understand and control it for themselves. If they are not able to, it is still not your responsibility. They are probably just not ready to be in a relationship built on trust."
27. "Men that in any way joke about consent, #MeToo, feminism, etc. in a demeaning way is a big red flag for me."
28. "Another thing to look out for is someone who is constantly telling you what kind of person they are, unsolicited. 'I'm a really open-minded person,' 'I'm a really generous person,' I'm really kind to my friends.' If you were really that way, you would trust me to see it in your actions, and not need to tell me about it. As soon as someone tells me something like that, I start looking for evidence of the contrary. Usually, they're covering for the fact that they know they are NOT like that, and they hope it takes you a while to figure it out."
29. "Any guy who calls themselves an 'alpha.' Gross. Run."
30. "We were in the early days of dating. He was still holding a candle for his ex, so she was often a topic of conversation. I was very young, inexperienced, and frankly, I had low self-esteem so this didn't immediately raise red flags. He told me that his ex packed up her shit while he was at work and left. That was it, not a word to him. She just disappeared like a fucking ghost in the night and he never heard from her again, she refused to speak to him. Soon after, his anger issues became obvious and I understood why a woman would escape when he wasn't there to stop her."
31. "When they push or ignore your boundaries in relatively insignificant situations, that's how you know they'll ignore them in really important ones."
32. "When they call women 'females.'"
34. "Any man who fetishizes an entire race of women has to be deeply fucked up, even if he insists that he’s 'not a racist.'"
35. "My dog, who loved everybody, hated him. Sometimes animals have instincts that we've been conditioned to ignore because of social norms."
36. "Man here. Don't trust a guy who hangs out with people he doesn't want you to meet. If he hangs out with terrible people, then there is a good chance they have something in common."
37. "If they literally don’t ask for consent, they just expect it. They expect you to want everything that they direct at you."
38. "Slightly more overt red flags were incidental unwanted/unwelcome touch in the workplace. Let me explain, I am not a 'hug a stranger' kind of person. Predatory males in the workplace would touch my hands outside of a handshake, maybe while they were resting on my desk. They would ask for a hug or pose for pictures in awkward ways. I often wore suit coats over a sleeveless shell top. One guy managed to get his hand beneath my jacket every single time we stood next to one another in a picture or even in a conference room addressing a meeting. His hand beneath the jacket waist grab to introduce me. It was just weird."
39. "Every predator in my life seemed to come at a time when I was particularly vulnerable. As a teenager, it was the early days of my parent's divorce, and later on, it was almost always within three months of a breakup. They would say all the right things but with zero sincerity. The love bomber was the worst, who got me hooked quick, then blamed me for having feelings and falling for him when he promised me the future that I’d always wanted."
40. "He got mad at me for not answering my phone when I was in school. This was high school, mind you, and he kept blowing up my phone, so I went to the bathroom, answered the next call and he wanted to know why I wasn’t answering. I told him I was in school and that apparently wasn’t a good answer so I told him to never call me again. Luckily, he obliged. But if a man doesn’t care about your education, he does not care about you."
41. "When he was trying to guess which house was mine on Google Maps before I met him in person."
42. "Unfortunately, I didn’t. I just had a three-year relationship end because the guy thought that I would drop everything and follow him to a college that I had no desire to go to. It was my first relationship so I’m pretty much 0 for 1 for now. There were red flags, but I thought I was being nice for overlooking them rather than just naive and stupid."
43. "I tend to be a lot more careful around rich men. They not only tend to believe that they can get away with more, but unfortunately, they’re often right about that. Obviously, this is a demographic assessment, not a personal one, so your mileage will vary, but I’d just like to put this caution out there as well."
44. "Any guy that gets territorial and nasty with another woman stepping in when he’s making advances on a drunk girl."
Do you agree with these? Or is there a telltale sign of a toxic partner that wasn't mentioned on the list? Let me know in the comments.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.