How do you know a man will be violent?

[Anonymous]

He will definitely give you clues. I was married to a man that turned violent after our wedding, but the signs were all there. He would leave me on the street at night if we got into a fight, he would storm off after fights, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early
He gets you to account for your time away from him
He gets you talking about past relationships (this will be used against you at a later time)

If a guy is going to turn out to be a psycho, I guarantee you will see one of these signs in the first 4-6 months. No one (especially an abuser) can remain on their best behavior for longer than 6 months. If you take your time getting to know someone and enjoy a slow paced developing relationship, you should have an easier time extracting yourself if things turn bad.

For me the only one that was true is the one in bold. Which is also 1/2 of the marriage without abuse.

You needn't be hit to be abused. Psychos will do as little or as much as it takes to control you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FU. There are often no signs at all. Do you think women are stupid? do you think women want to be hit? I dated someone 4 years and lived with him for 1 before he threatened to beat the crap out of me the first time. He raised his hand but didn't hit me. I told him at the time that if he ever laid a finger on me, I would call the cops and have him tossed out so fast it would make his head spin.

3 years later he threatened to beat the crap out of me again and I ended things. He was increasingly subtley abusive, jealous and control in front of all his friends and family members. If they didn't find it apalling, why should I have? He was charming when he wanted to be and when he was cruel he was always apologetic and tried to make up for it. He was always totally into me - proposed, great ring, wanted to have kids.

This is how they reel you in - smooth in the beginning, isolate you from your own peers, try to get you tied down economically so you can't leave and tie you to them with kids. It's the rare abuser who starts out hitting you.

How are these "no signs at all???" There were lots of signs. You just listed them, you recognized them, you left, and you are not maimed or dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early
He gets you to account for your time away from him
He gets you talking about past relationships (this will be used against you at a later time)

If a guy is going to turn out to be a psycho, I guarantee you will see one of these signs in the first 4-6 months. No one (especially an abuser) can remain on their best behavior for longer than 6 months. If you take your time getting to know someone and enjoy a slow paced developing relationship, you should have an easier time extracting yourself if things turn bad.

For me the only one that was true is the one in bold. Which is also 1/2 of the marriage without abuse.

In the first 6 months to a year? I will admit to having made “little negative comments” about my husband’s job/Family now, after 10 years of marriage (and not frequently) but while we were dating? No. That would definitely be a red flag for me in the early stages of dating and with any regularity later on. My husband was unfriendly to my recent, long-term ex when we started dating, and I was concerned about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early
He gets you to account for your time away from him
He gets you talking about past relationships (this will be used against you at a later time)

If a guy is going to turn out to be a psycho, I guarantee you will see one of these signs in the first 4-6 months. No one (especially an abuser) can remain on their best behavior for longer than 6 months. If you take your time getting to know someone and enjoy a slow paced developing relationship, you should have an easier time extracting yourself if things turn bad.

For me the only one that was true is the one in bold. Which is also 1/2 of the marriage without abuse.

Undermining your self esteem and alienating you from friends and family is abuse.

Saying it is gross that my grandmother takes out her dentures at the table is not abuse.
Saying my brother is an inconsiderate dolt is not abuse.

Also, the comments that he made about me are verbally abusive but they also don't point to "getting violent" otherwise almost every woman I know would eventually get hit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early
He gets you to account for your time away from him
He gets you talking about past relationships (this will be used against you at a later time)

If a guy is going to turn out to be a psycho, I guarantee you will see one of these signs in the first 4-6 months. No one (especially an abuser) can remain on their best behavior for longer than 6 months. If you take your time getting to know someone and enjoy a slow paced developing relationship, you should have an easier time extracting yourself if things turn bad.

For me the only one that was true is the one in bold. Which is also 1/2 of the marriage without abuse.

In the first 6 months to a year? I will admit to having made “little negative comments” about my husband’s job/Family now, after 10 years of marriage (and not frequently) but while we were dating? No. That would definitely be a red flag for me in the early stages of dating and with any regularity later on. My husband was unfriendly to my recent, long-term ex when we started dating, and I was concerned about that.

Except when we remove ourselves from our family of origin and connect with another human being we begin to see how things our family did might not be healthy. That is normal part of growing up and evolving from our family of origin.

My MIL actually fed my son until he threw up (Italian) because she shows love with food, guess what ... that is bad. If I say it, it's not alienating his family from him, it is a healthy way to realize things from your childhood were not perfect and changing for the good.

It's calling out every single little "sign" as a "sign" that confuses women of abuse.

"little negative comments" are normal. Refusing to let you spend Thanksgiving with your family because of "little negative things" is not normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early
He gets you to account for your time away from him
He gets you talking about past relationships (this will be used against you at a later time)

If a guy is going to turn out to be a psycho, I guarantee you will see one of these signs in the first 4-6 months. No one (especially an abuser) can remain on their best behavior for longer than 6 months. If you take your time getting to know someone and enjoy a slow paced developing relationship, you should have an easier time extracting yourself if things turn bad.

For me the only one that was true is the one in bold. Which is also 1/2 of the marriage without abuse.

Undermining your self esteem and alienating you from friends and family is abuse.

Saying it is gross that my grandmother takes out her dentures at the table is not abuse.
Saying my brother is an inconsiderate dolt is not abuse.

Also, the comments that he made about me are verbally abusive but they also don't point to "getting violent" otherwise almost every woman I know would eventually get hit.

What he said about your brother absolutely crosses the line. Look, my brother is an ass, but if anyone were to say it, I'd be pissed!

As far as abuse goes, there are degrees. The abuser uses whatever tactics are needed to keep you under control. What that entails may change over time (ie, verbal abuse, then physical abuse and physical abuse escalating to severe beatings). It could be that your abusive situation didn't require much effort on his part. That is not an insult. Abusive relationships involve two people and you either wittingly or unwittingly went along with his b.s. because it wasn't so bad, in your analysis. When his tactics changed, it was a bridge too far for you (I hope you're not still in it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early
He gets you to account for your time away from him
He gets you talking about past relationships (this will be used against you at a later time)

If a guy is going to turn out to be a psycho, I guarantee you will see one of these signs in the first 4-6 months. No one (especially an abuser) can remain on their best behavior for longer than 6 months. If you take your time getting to know someone and enjoy a slow paced developing relationship, you should have an easier time extracting yourself if things turn bad.

For me the only one that was true is the one in bold. Which is also 1/2 of the marriage without abuse.

Undermining your self esteem and alienating you from friends and family is abuse.

Saying it is gross that my grandmother takes out her dentures at the table is not abuse.
Saying my brother is an inconsiderate dolt is not abuse.

Also, the comments that he made about me are verbally abusive but they also don't point to "getting violent" otherwise almost every woman I know would eventually get hit.

Every abuser uses a combonation of at least two of those behaviors. The more of them he exhibits and the more extreme they are, the more likely he is to get violent. There are many types of abuse: emotional, verbal, financial, physical, sexual. I wouldn't enjoy any of those and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[Anonymous]

Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early

Moving quickly isn't a great thing, but it's relatively normal. Furthermore, you didn't define commitment. If a couple has sex pretty early on, it's pretty understandable, expected even, for commitment to exclusivity. I've dealt with bunny boilers who wanted to move scarily quickly. (Is scarily a word?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early
He gets you to account for your time away from him
He gets you talking about past relationships (this will be used against you at a later time)

If a guy is going to turn out to be a psycho, I guarantee you will see one of these signs in the first 4-6 months. No one (especially an abuser) can remain on their best behavior for longer than 6 months. If you take your time getting to know someone and enjoy a slow paced developing relationship, you should have an easier time extracting yourself if things turn bad.

For me the only one that was true is the one in bold. Which is also 1/2 of the marriage without abuse.

In the first 6 months to a year? I will admit to having made “little negative comments” about my husband’s job/Family now, after 10 years of marriage (and not frequently) but while we were dating? No. That would definitely be a red flag for me in the early stages of dating and with any regularity later on. My husband was unfriendly to my recent, long-term ex when we started dating, and I was concerned about that.

Except when we remove ourselves from our family of origin and connect with another human being we begin to see how things our family did might not be healthy. That is normal part of growing up and evolving from our family of origin.

My MIL actually fed my son until he threw up (Italian) because she shows love with food, guess what ... that is bad. If I say it, it's not alienating his family from him, it is a healthy way to realize things from your childhood were not perfect and changing for the good.

It's calling out every single little "sign" as a "sign" that confuses women of abuse.

"little negative comments" are normal. Refusing to let you spend Thanksgiving with your family because of "little negative things" is not normal.

I submit that a man who loves you will accept your family, flaws and all. In the 30 years I have known my husband, he has never said a bad word or negative little comment about any of my friends or family. When I have had difficulties with them or said horrible things about them, he's supported me and encouraged me to work it out. There are men in this world who possess integrity and it is not nosl for your partner to put you or your family down.

[Anonymous]

*not normal*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Tangible signs:
Relationship moves quickly. He declares love before you really know each other well
He makes little negative comments about you, your appearance, job, friends and family
He acts jealous (you think, wow! he really likes me)
He is cruel to animals
He presses for commitment early

Moving quickly isn't a great thing, but it's relatively normal. Furthermore, you didn't define commitment. If a couple has sex pretty early on, it's pretty understandable, expected even, for commitment to exclusivity. I've dealt with bunny boilers who wanted to move scarily quickly. (Is scarily a word?)

Commitment in the sense that all your free time is dedicated to him, leaving no time for yourself, your family or your friends. It speeds up the sense of "knowing" each other because you've spent so much time together -even though it's only been two months.
"Scarily" works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everything they do is a sign, in hindsight. Actually every single one of you have a "sign" in your relationship, but it is not a sign until he actually hits you.

I had some "signs" so I went to a therapist and we did couples therapy.

I was told, it's not what he does, it's your reaction.
I needed to figure out his love language and blah blah blah.
I needed to put more effort into the marriage since the kids were sucking my energy away from him.
I needed to make sure I was not keeping score with the chores.
I needed to make sure our sex life was not stale, and all that BS.

I spent 3 years with a therapist and a marriage counselor; they were told ALL THE SIGNS but they never said, hey this is toxic, you need to leave. All the Dr. Phil BS was fed to me, marriage is hard, raising kids are harder, your H is stressed you need to be a light place for him to land, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The think is my H was way nicer and kinder and involved with the kids than all my friends H's who never hit them. But, if they ever do, I have about 300 signs that showed they would.

this poster is exactly right. I was in a relationship where my partner was doing things that were absolutely unacceptable. Because he hadn't hit me (yet), the therapists pulled all of these "therapitic techniques out. I finally left because I simply decided that our 2 kids and I would not live with the unacceptable behaviors. Everyone on this thread is focusing on tbe wrong thing -- how do you know he will hit you - when the real question is for what reason is it OK to walk away?

The answer to that last question is, frankly, it is always OK to walk away for any reason. Feel uncomfortable? Demeaned? Constricted? Criticized? Unloved in the way you want to be lived? Nit exclusive enough or too exclusive?

As women, we have to have permission to seek out relationships on our terms, and that is a far broader thing than simply "is he going to hit me?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything they do is a sign, in hindsight. Actually every single one of you have a "sign" in your relationship, but it is not a sign until he actually hits you.

I had some "signs" so I went to a therapist and we did couples therapy.

I was told, it's not what he does, it's your reaction.
I needed to figure out his love language and blah blah blah.
I needed to put more effort into the marriage since the kids were sucking my energy away from him.
I needed to make sure I was not keeping score with the chores.
I needed to make sure our sex life was not stale, and all that BS.

I spent 3 years with a therapist and a marriage counselor; they were told ALL THE SIGNS but they never said, hey this is toxic, you need to leave. All the Dr. Phil BS was fed to me, marriage is hard, raising kids are harder, your H is stressed you need to be a light place for him to land, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The think is my H was way nicer and kinder and involved with the kids than all my friends H's who never hit them. But, if they ever do, I have about 300 signs that showed they would.

this poster is exactly right. I was in a relationship where my partner was doing things that were absolutely unacceptable. Because he hadn't hit me (yet), the therapists pulled all of these "therapitic techniques out. I finally left because I simply decided that our 2 kids and I would not live with the unacceptable behaviors. Everyone on this thread is focusing on tbe wrong thing -- how do you know he will hit you - when the real question is for what reason is it OK to walk away?

The answer to that last question is, frankly, it is always OK to walk away for any reason. Feel uncomfortable? Demeaned? Constricted? Criticized? Unloved in the way you want to be lived? Nit exclusive enough or too exclusive?

As women, we have to have permission to seek out relationships on our terms, and that is a far broader thing than simply "is he going to hit me?"

Thanks, Captain Obvious. The real issue is that most of these women lack either self-esteem or any amount of critical thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything they do is a sign, in hindsight. Actually every single one of you have a "sign" in your relationship, but it is not a sign until he actually hits you.

I had some "signs" so I went to a therapist and we did couples therapy.

I was told, it's not what he does, it's your reaction.
I needed to figure out his love language and blah blah blah.
I needed to put more effort into the marriage since the kids were sucking my energy away from him.
I needed to make sure I was not keeping score with the chores.
I needed to make sure our sex life was not stale, and all that BS.

I spent 3 years with a therapist and a marriage counselor; they were told ALL THE SIGNS but they never said, hey this is toxic, you need to leave. All the Dr. Phil BS was fed to me, marriage is hard, raising kids are harder, your H is stressed you need to be a light place for him to land, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The think is my H was way nicer and kinder and involved with the kids than all my friends H's who never hit them. But, if they ever do, I have about 300 signs that showed they would.

this poster is exactly right. I was in a relationship where my partner was doing things that were absolutely unacceptable. Because he hadn't hit me (yet), the therapists pulled all of these "therapitic techniques out. I finally left because I simply decided that our 2 kids and I would not live with the unacceptable behaviors. Everyone on this thread is focusing on tbe wrong thing -- how do you know he will hit you - when the real question is for what reason is it OK to walk away?

The answer to that last question is, frankly, it is always OK to walk away for any reason. Feel uncomfortable? Demeaned? Constricted? Criticized? Unloved in the way you want to be lived? Nit exclusive enough or too exclusive?

As women, we have to have permission to seek out relationships on our terms, and that is a far broader thing than simply "is he going to hit me?"

Thanks, Captain Obvious. The real issue is that most of these women lack either self-esteem or any amount of critical thinking.

No, that is not the real issue. The real issue is that our culture has broadly accepted and normalized abuse from men. Marital rape wasn't prosecutable until 1973. Date rape is still largely unprosecutable and even when prosecuted is largely unpunished. The #metoo movement demonstrates the extent to which sexual assault and harrassment is embedded in our culture and relationships. And our economic disempowerment (lower wages, less career mobility, no maternity leave, no widely available reasonable childcare, poor levels of child support post-divorce, and unequal parental burden-sharing) makes it very hard to leave an abusive relationship, especially before the hitting starts.

But sure, blame male abuse on dumb women with low self-esteem.