Share This Article
At a certain point you realize: you were blinded by love. You thought your new lover was a sweetheart, but it turned out to be a meanie. You were convinced you had met someone responsible until you found out the bills weren’t being paid. And you thought that your partner took good care of himself, but that turned out not to be the case either.
Your partner seemed perfect when you were dating, but now you start to regret it when it turns out that this person is almost the opposite. Is she just such a great actor or actress? Or have you ignored all the red flags?
ALSO READ: Manipulation in Relationships: Signs and Tricks of a Manipulator
It can be either sad or comforting to know that almost everyone experiences this at some point. All relationships reach that stage at some point, where you reflect on the relationship you have. But while some people conclude they made the right choice, others aren’t so sure. And at that point you start thinking things like:
- “But I didn’t want this.”
- “This is not what I signed up for.”
- “How did I get into this?”
- “Did I miss the red flags?”
11 red flags in relationships
When things aren’t going well in a relationship, it’s normal to think about it and wonder if there were red flags that said your partner wouldn’t be a good match. Did you miss them? Not paying attention? Or deliberately ignored? Psychotherapist Sharon Martin tells PsychCentral that these are 11 common red flags:
- Inability to resolve conflicts.
- Controlling behavior or a lack of trust.
- You don’t feel like you can fully be yourself.
- Your friends and family members have expressed concerns about your partner or relationship.
- You give in instead of compromising.
- Difficulty sharing feelings – you or the other person.
- Give up your friends, interests, or goals.
- Pressure to get too serious too quickly.
- Lying or breach of trust.
- Abuse of any kind – emotional, verbal, physical, sexual, financial.
- Symptoms of mental or physical health problems.
No one wants to date someone who has a tendency to cheat. Also, most of us don’t want to date someone who isn’t honest and lies frequently. Someone who regularly cheats in relationships is also not an ideal partner. A red flag is a signal that your partner has one of those tendencies, despite your partner doing his or her best to hide that tendency. Research says we see these red flags in our partners, but we also often ignore them. Why we do that?
ALSO READ: 6 Reasons Why You Don’t Know Your Partner is Lying
Why we ignore red flags
Lawrence Josephs, a professor of psychology at Adelphi University, tells PsychologyToday that it starts with the first meeting. “We put our best foot forward when we start dating someone because we want to make a good first impression if we hope for a second date,” says Josephs. “We do our best to present an idealized image of ourselves and hope that our dates find that idealized self-presentation irresistible.”
According to research, the first impression determines the course of a relationship. This is called the ‘primacy effect’ – you remember best the first event in a series of events. In effect, you judge a date based on that first impression and this colors all future judgments about that same person.
“As soon as we form a first impression of someone we’re dating, something called confirmation bias kicks in,” says Josephs. “We selectively look for evidence of anything that confirms our first impressions. And when we have doubts, we let our friends confirm and validate what we already believe about our new loved one.”
Anything that does not match the first impression is ignored or questioned. We selectively ignore anything that doesn’t match the first impression, including the red flags. For example, you start making excuses for everything that doesn’t fit the idealized image you have of the person you’re starting to fall in love with. Why you do that? Because you want to maintain the image of your ideal partner .
The prejudices you have about your new lover are driven by the image you want to maintain. You want to believe in the idealized image you have formed of your loved one. You have a good reason for this, because you are tired of being single , lonely and sexually frustrated. So you have every reason to believe in the idealized image that your new love portrays.
Interpreting red flags
Despite the fact that we can see the red flags, they are not always acted upon. Josephs says the problem is that we all have beliefs that influence how we interpret the red flags. And these beliefs ensure that the red flags are no longer so red or become a different color. One of those beliefs is that people are ‘fixable’.
Josephs: “The assumption is that relationships need to be worked on and if you work on them, people can change. So, womanizers can become monogamous, abusers can become kind, narcissists can acquire empathy, and addicts can recover. Dating partners are diamonds in the rough and if you polish them enough, they will shine brightly to suit your taste.”
Another belief is that relationship problems can always be solved. Red flags are an indication of possible future relationship problems . But if you believe that you will be able to overcome those relationship problems, then those red flags will not stop you from moving forward with the relationship.
“That makes you vulnerable to discovering that the problems are much more serious than you thought and may no longer be possible to solve. But then you might be stuck in a bad relationship that you can’t get out of so easily because you are married, have children, and are financially and emotionally dependent.”
ALSO READ: Zombie Apocalypse Test: Would Your Relationship Survive a Zombie Plague?
What does your feeling say?
A red flag is an alarm that goes off when something is wrong. It is your intuition that says: “Now you have to pay attention.” Red flags give you a strange feeling that something is wrong.
“A red flag is an indication of the character flaws you will have to live with in the long run if this person becomes your life partner,” Joseph explains. “You can feel compassion for your dating partner because at the end of the day, we all have our own flaws and none of us are perfect.”
“The real question is whether you can still love this person despite the flaws if their flaws prove to be irreparable. If the answer is yes, then continue. If the answer is ‘no’ then do not proceed.”
P.S. Are you already following Gistinger.com on Facebook , Instagram and Twitter?