"there's a darkness inside me"

Wanted to share one of my biggest red flags.

Have any of you heard men say this before?? Or am I just unlucky in hearing it from all my exes?

Whenever I asked them to elaborate they "can't explain it"

I used to be bewildered by it. Now I realize what it is. It's just a very immature, man child admission of guilt.

Guilt over some kind of really bad perversion (like pedophilia) or guilt over cheating. Or maybe it's guilt over enjoying violence against women. It's something that THEY know qualifies them as a "bad" person, but since every man thinks they're a "good guy" and their egos prevent them processing the idea that they're not good, they do justifications. In this case they compartmentalize. Like: "cheating on my ex with a teenage girl that one time was just the 'darkness inside me', it doesn't define me as a person."

Dismissing anything as "darkness inside me" is a way for them to justify their shit instead of going to therapy. But they're letting you know that they're going to cheat on you, abuse you, use you or worse.