That's such a complicated question. There are so many underlying reasons why someone might seem like a "bad egg". Personally, my advice to try seed through the good vs bad is to take your time. Don't rush into anything, give yourself space and freedom so you have the ability to assess the situation and aren't so sucked into the relationship you're blinded. Obviously, you should be respected, treated kindly, listened to, and they have to be willing to compromise sometimes. It might take some time for the "bad habits" to surface, but if you take your time it eventually will. Always keep in mind though that sometimes people make mistakes, we are not perfect, we're only human, but that is not an excuse for someone to treat you like poo. It's basically loving yourself. Would you treat anyone that person treats you? Then why allow them to treat you that way. Love yourself as you love others.
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I've never been involved with an abuser personally, so I have no first-hand knowledge. I'm reasonably familiar due to secondhand accounts tho. The best input I have is to suggest that women simply pay attention to their intuition. I think these guys can indeed be very sneaky, but it's really really hard to hide that completely, and our intuition is a powerful tool, so I suspect many women have some inkling ahead of time. If you get 'that feeling,' run asap. It's much harder for them to control you before they get fully entrenched.
I thought this was a good question:
Like I think you stated, there are tiers here. Some guys may not be innately evil (and yes, a genuine abuser is imo straight up evil) but sort of grow into it due to a variety of factors - insecurity, low self esteem, etc. But I do believe that the real hardcore ones do in fact have a 'plan,' with steps designed to bring about the desired behavior and get the dominoes to fall like they want - charm, ingratiate, imbed, attack self esteem, set controls, isolate, 'discipline,' etc. It's disgusting that there could be such people out there but they're not uncommon really. Makes you wonder just who all out there is really a psycopath lol - the guy at the gas station, your banker, the guy who bags your groceries, the guy who installed trim at the factory on your car, etc., etc. It's creepy.Originally posted by rcoreyusComment
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Other thoughts:
Try to never put yourself in a situation in a relationship where you can't just leave if you want to. No matter how wonderful things are, I think its important to not be completely dependent on another person.
One more for my list:
Warning sign: Someone who is too "smooth" when you first meet them. Most people are a bit nervous, reserved, etc when they first talk to an attractive person of the desired gender. Someone who seems perfectly calm, smooth, prepared may have a plan, don't care about rejection because they will simply move to the next target.Comment
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I would argue there are several personality/character traits that determine is a guys is a good choice for a life mate. Among them I would put Attentiveness, Honesty, Responsibility and Respect.
With regard to a avoiding a "bad" guy, I would consider Respect to be the far most important quality to look for. A man who doesn't respect others, women, the relationship and especially his mate is going to be a huge problem. Why he doesn't have respect for all these things may have roots in various things, but the end result is that he ends up treating his mate in ways that make the relationship unbearable.
A general lack of respect for women means his partner will never be an equal in his eyes, so he doesn't have to consider her input for anything. He may fake respect to get what he wants, but a woman in that relationship always feels his condescension.
A general lack of respect for others causes a distance, either by avoidance or conflict, between himself (and his partner) and others (including friends, family, etc). Actively or passively the two of them will end up isolated.
A lack of respect for the relationship means he will not protect the relationship boundaries and make little effort to maintain the relationship. For him, the relationship is there to serve him rather than he being obligated to serve the relationship. He is more likely to ignore the relationship and engage in inappropriate relationships with other women ranging from texting to sexting, from flirting to touching, and from emotional to physical affairs.
A lack of respect for his mate means that she, as a person, is less valuable than he is. She is an object to serve him and he, by his superior worth, is entitled to do what he wishes with her--including abuse.
Often this lack of respect has been modeled for them. Therefore, I love what my mother told me. If you want to know how a man is going to treat his wife, watch how his father treats his mother. Of course it doesn't always turn out that way, but it's a reference point from which to determine if and why the guy is different from his father.
So keeping an eye on his treatment of others (like the service staff on your dates), attitude toward women and how he describes is ex can all give an indication of his level of respect.
The tactics a disrespectful guy uses to lure in and then isolate women vary from the extremely caring and attentive to the hard-to-get playboy, but I think the lack of respect tends to lead the same end.Comment
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DIPSTICK TEST FOR MEN – put together by female divorce attorneys because all men chirp furiously like birds in the morning flashing their plumage for the sole purpose of getting you into their nests. Women therefore have to look beyond all these sounds and sights in order to get the true measure of the man.
They have to ignore the charming sales pitch and always check the oil dipstick because low or bad oil means bad car no matter how sharp looking the car is. Take it for a spin if you like but don’t buy it.
This is a five point analysis for finding out about men, i.e. are they good, bad or troublesome:
1. Is he Violent or Controlling? Has/does he hit you, scream at you and or physically menace or restrain you? If so run for your life because he doesn’t love you and he can’t. Control isn’t love!
2. Does he use/abuse Drugs or Alcohol and or Smoke or use Tobacco? Even if only casually and or “recreationally” because typically such use/abuse spirals out of control over time. And smoking is included here because tobacco is a gateway drug to other drugs. People who smoke are also addicts and like all addicts are self-medicating for depression and or anxiety disorders which are genetic and so can be passed on to your children. Fact that he smokes, drinks or does drugs doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, it just means he loves you less than his addictions and so he will always put his needs ahead of yours and your children’s if you (God forbid!) have them.
Case Example: Pretty 30 year old married woman with two small children walks into Divorce Lawyer’s office seeking mediation (not divorce) services because she wants to repair her marriage to her husband who was an Attorney himself who smoked cigarettes regularly.
A week earlier her husband fell asleep in his easy chair and unintentionally dropped his lit cigarette which started a fire that burned out the entire living room of their house.
No one was injured but this was a culmination of prior events, i.e. he was always falling asleep at night in his easy chair with a lit cigarette in his mouth despite his wife’s repeated warnings that he needed to stop doing that. It then occurred to this wife that he always just does what he wants to do even if it endangers her and the kids hence her request for mediation.
However the Divorce Lawyer advised against mediation and strongly urged divorce! Shocked the wife asked why because they still loved each other and he was a good father and provider, in fact he never missed work and all their bills were paid.
But the Divorce Lawyer said: “Leopards don’t change their spots!” That is he didn’t just become self-centered and addicted overnight, he was always this way but the wife did not see the signs (the five points) which like oil dipsticks in cars are always there because love is blind, i.e. she was always in denial about him. The Divorce Lawyer predicted that he was not likely to change his
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ways so why wait for the next fire that may be inescapable. Wife needed to put herself and her children first because her husband couldn’t and wouldn’t: “...love, honor and cherish” her.
Wife initially ignored this advice but a week later came back to the Divorce Lawyer and authorized Divorce proceedings against her husband because he was still falling asleep at night in the house with lit cigarettes in his mouth despite the previous fire.
Wife saw the light and divorced him much to his dismay. Being a lawyer himself he aggressively litigated his side of the divorce and custody proceedings but the Court Judge ruled against him citing the best interest of the children evidentiary standard, i.e. not in best interest of kids to be with father who caused house fire with them in it. Therefore all his visitations had to be supervised unless he sought and received psychological counseling for his addictive disorder.
To his credit after the Divorce was finalized he completed long term psychological counseling over a period of years and was able finally to give up cigarette smoking with his physician’s assistance. He is no longer angry at his ex-wife for the Divorce and properly blames himself.
They have each remarried but at least have an amicable relationship regarding their children.
He even has re-established a professional relationship with his ex-wife’s Divorce Lawyer because he finally realized that this Divorce Lawyer had done what he couldn’t and wouldn’t do himself, i.e. put his wife and kids first! Altruism is after all the opposite of solipsism.
3. Is he personality disordered? If so run for your life! There are many kinds of psychological and emotional personality disorders that both men and women have that aren’t always readily apparent but if you pay attention you can see them because in any close or intimate relationship you will experience them! In short if you think or suspect there is something wrong, there is.
The three main personality disorders to watch out for are:
a) Narcissistic Personality Disorder – there is much research on this and profiling by Psychiatrists and Psychologists such as by M. Scott Peck, MD who authored the best seller “People of the Lie” to better understand human evil. Dr. Peck gives several case study examples of his own patients and from there drew a profile for how to recognize these sick personality types. Note there are varying degrees of this Disorder from seemingly minor (passive aggressive cigarette smoker in above example) to very serious (sociopaths).
In short a narcissist is someone who can only ever love himself (or herself), not you or anyone else. They are very dishonest, treacherous and often adulterous and into drugs!
Leonardo DiCaprio & Jonah Hill play two obvious ones in the movie Wolf of Wall Street.
You can’t change them - you can only learn to identify them and stay away!
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b) Latent Homosexual Personality Disorder – in short macho men who are always trying to over compensate for their subconscious doubts about their own sexuality. These guys are almost almost always rude, crude loud mouths who really prefer the company of other men and are often taking unnecessary chances with their life and yours, i.e. driving car too fast because they “know” what they’re doing. They are only going out with you and or marrying you as proof to themselves and others that they’re not gay but they really are. They typically go into police and military professions and often boast openly to others about their sexual conquest of you and have open contempt for real gay men even suspecting other non-macho men of being gay. And while there are troubled men who know they are gay but unfortunately marry a woman anyway living a repressed or double life and so should be avoided by women as long term husband material, the latent homosexual (who is also often times a narcissist to boot) is another kettle of fish that you need to run for your life from.
Case Example: Parents of a beautiful 20 year old daughter came into a Lawyer’s office for advice on her troublesome 24 year old boyfriend who they want to sue for damages. Turns out this boy “friend” convinced their naïve daughter to let him film one of their sex sessions. He claimed to her then it would only ever be for their intimate viewing only.
He lied because soon thereafter he (without her prior permission or consent) posted the film on the internet for his male friends and the whole wide world to see bragging in his typed adjunct narrative to the film that this was his (unnamed) beautiful blonde girlfriend having hard core sex with him. Not surprisingly he doesn’t film his own face in this sexual romp but only hers thereby protecting his privacy all the while expensing hers.
The Lawyer advised that this man is evil like a treacherous pimp and subconsciously gay (because why the need to prove to the world that he was heterosexual?) and so their daughter needs to run for her life but as a practical matter to not bother suing him because it would only attract more attention to the matter and that she should instead just transfer back home from her out of state college and deny she is in the film should anyone ever ask.
c) Miser/Spendthrift Personality Disorders – these men value their money more than their time and are beyond being merely frugal. They really are incapable of enjoying themselves and will make your own life miserable versus the spendthrift who is inclined to live beyond his means spending more than he has on himself and you giving you the illusion of generosity prior to getting the eviction or foreclosure notice. See discussion below on credit reports!
4. Is he generally stupid and or not that bright? As the female of our species you have a gate keeper’s responsibility not to knowingly pass on stupidity or disability (all inheritable traits) to the next generation. Whether a man is bright or not should be readily discernable in your observations and conversations with him over a short period of time provided you are bright
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yourself. For instance, guys who have tattooed their former girlfriend’s name on their body aren’t very bright because they can’t think beyond the present given their smaller brains.
If you want to have children with a man then you want that man to be able to think long term because children and family are long term and so require seeing and planning ahead for future contingencies, i.e. education, habitation, etc. Smart guys can do this, stupid guys can’t.
5. Any Criminal History and Credit Report on him? If you have his full name, birth date and Social Security number you should be able to Google his criminal history or reports of same. And Credit Reports only cost about $75.00 and they’re worth every penny! Because marrying a man is a lot like giving him a job…because marriage is work. Therefore if you would run a credit report on a potential employee or tenant why not for a mate? Credit Reports will show a good or bad credit even bankruptcy history in terms of: has he been paying his bills when they come due? If he hasn’t been then what makes you think he is going to pay your bills when they come due? So go and get the credit report because just taking your girlfriend’s word about him can prove perilous.
Closing Comments:
This Five Point Analysis Test for finding out about men provides a basic platform of observation about personality types that can be and are detrimental to the health and well-being of women. It doesn’t ask questions like is he good in bed, because while very important that’s not an immutable characteristic and so can be a learned behavior with teaching and instruction (one of the few areas where women can change men for the better).
However, a man’s bio-chemistry and personality disorder cannot be changed.
So once an addict or an *****hole: always an addict or an *****hole (who will never put you first).
The overarching narrative throughout this exercise is spotting dishonesty and liabilities because once children are born women become less mobile and so more vulnerable to detrimental control, poverty and abandonment.
Mutual altruistic love and support are key factors in having a successful marriage or long term relationship and so it behooves women to pay attention to these serious signs or red flags which are always there if you just look for them because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of divorce or break up cure.
That is open the hood and check out the dipstick.
And take that good looking bad boy for a spin around the block if you like but don’t buy him.Comment
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Postscript
Friend of mine read this Dipstick Test for Men and suggested adding to it.
He knew this very bright and beautiful high end call girl who finally got out of the business.
She eventually married one of her very wealthy clients who was a self-made rich man.
My friend asked her how she ever got into that business.
She said it was an incremental process but once in it was hard to get out because of the money.
That is there was little chance she could make the same money at a straight job.
So my friend asked then why did she get out now, why marry this client?
She said because this guy of all her clients proved different from all the rest.
That is many of her wealthy clients in the heat of the moment asked her to marry them.
But she always said no thank you after asking them three questions:
1. Do you love me enough to risk your life saving me from say a house fire? (All said yes).
2. Do you love me enough to risk all your wealth by splitting it with me? (Almost all said no).
3. If you’re not willing to risk your money for me why would you ever risk your life for me?
Almost all were struck silent and so she concluded that they were just ********k buddies.
And that was okay with her so long as they paid their tab but they weren’t marriage material.
When she asked the man she finally married these two questions he said yes and did so.
That is he proved himself to her to be genuinely altruistic.
And so she was happy to get out of the business because it wasn’t always a good time.
Many of her male clients were sons of rich men with a lot of money and time on their hands.
But she found them on the whole to be self-centered and living in an unreal bubble.
Her advice to young women was to stay out of that business and to avoid sons of rich men.
Because they never knew adversity or economic insecurity and so were untested.
As such they were likely to cut and run at the first shot of adversity.
Moreover, they can’t split their spendthrift trusts with you because they don’t control them.Comment
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Good: (in order of importance)
Humor (you find similar things humorous and make one another laugh on a regular basis)
Encouraging (encourages your positive leanings without making you feel bad about where you are now)
Confident (without being cocky)
Warning: (most to least troublesome)
Mama/Daddy's boy/girl (Ultra strong parental bond, in my experience, is usually a sign of boundary issues)
Sketchy friends (not a lone douche, a one off is probably fine, but if they're most comfortable with a pack of people you don't like/aren't comfortable with, then the pack behavior is probably a good indicator of their behavior/attitude)
Attitude toward their work/job (Everybody has bad days at work, but if it's a pattern of complaints you have to wonder if they've got a victim complex)
Lack of friends (if they don't have any close relationships, are they capable of one? Many possible mitigating factors here, but definitely something to ponder/keep an eye on)
Clueless about past relationships (If they don't know why past relationships ended, or feel that it wasn't (at least partly) their fault, it shows a decided lack of self-analysis (can't improve if you don't analyse)
Danger: (most to least troublesome)
Disrespect for previous partner(s): the use of violent profanity when referring to their EX(s), speaks degradingly about their EX(s), uses words like dumb, stupid, fat, gross, ****, lazy (Besides the obvious, even if you've met the person and would mostly agree with their assessment, the fact that they haven't moved on, were with the person (who had to have had SOME redeeming qualities for the relationship to begin) and stayed long enough to become so vicious about them, says that they don't know when to end a relationship and would rather ride (or drive) a downward spiral.
Down Talking: any phrase/question that starts with "why are you so" and doesn't end in a compliment. Any phrase or conversation that talks about your less than stellar qualities that YOU do not initiate, or that does not feel as if the person wants or is trying to bolster you. Use of any of the words in the Disrespect category. Anyone who does not treat you with respect DOES NOT respect you, and as someone (Claret?) said, if they don't respect you they don't consider you equal. Which is the beginning of a downward spiral.
Flippancy: regular or repeated downplaying or dismissal of things that are important to you, especially goals for yourself/your future.
Emergency: (from run don't take anything go to the nearest friendly neighbor/police station (if you have a car) to pack and go to friend/family member or lacking that shelter/hotel)
Physical Violence - Run
Threat of Physical Violence - Grab your wallet/purse get out now, worry about your stuff later (like when you come back with the cops)
Violent Anger Directed at You, no spoken threat of violence - Grab immediate necessities and go, come back with someone else for the rest.
Behavior That Threatens Your Safety - This is a little grey but you know it when you see it (shoots drugs, gets blind drunk, gambling problem) anything that could bring people looking for them that won't care about collateral damage. Or behavior that in itself though not an immediate direct threat (a smoker that passes out because they're drunk/high, a drinker that insists on driving, a thrill seeker that like to "push the limit") would only take one bad/wrong moment to become an immediate danger.
I've never been in an abusive or possessive relationship myself, I was fortunate in being able to learn from other's mistakes/bad choices, but I've witnessed or heard 1st party accounts of enough bad/dangerous relationships to know that they NEVER get "fixed" and better NEVER lasts. The best time to get out of a relationship is when you 1st ask yourself if you should. The earlier in a relationship you are when you ask, the faster you should make your exit. If your spidey senses go off, remember what a house in Amityville once said... GET OUT!Comment
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I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
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Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
From a speech by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775 at St. John's Church, Richmond, VirginiaComment
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I recently stumbled upon this nugget of wisdom at a similar website:
I think "the bad boy" is purely sexual. That seems to be a common theme I see reading these posts. "The Bad Boy" can ********** her brains out while "The Nice guy" gives her financial, emotional, and all other kinds of security and comfort. The funny thing is, the women get to play the victim card, as "Their heart is torn between two people." Bulls******! Just tell the truth! Your vagina is addicted to "bad boy" c****k, where Mr. Nice Guy just don't cut it, but the "bad boy" would put you in the poor house, and possibly the hospital. I would think the solution is simple. Ladies, teach your "good guy" how to ********** like a "bad boy". More times than not, the "good guy" is so happy you're there he'll do anything you ask, especially if it leads to more time in bed with you! XDComment
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