When evaluating a man, don't just look at how you perceive his behaviour. Also look at the factual realities of your life before/after he came into it.

Hey ladies,

I've been asked in another thread to share some advice my mother, a divorce attorney, gave me on relationships, and decided to make a thread out of it. Basically, my mum always told me two things: Get a consult with a good lawyer before you get married (which ties into her belief not to self-educate on legal matters, as it's too risky to get wrong), and follow one cardinal rule when deciding whether a man is right for you:

Do not merely consider his behaviour, but rather compare the bare-bones, factual realties of your life before and after him.

If this sounds a bit convoluted, let me explain using an example of a category of abuse that has shown up countless times in her practice.

Let's imagine a woman with reasonable boundaries and self-esteem has accidentally started dating an abusive LVM. She wants to go on a girl's trip for the weekend with her friends, and he hates that thought.

He knows she's too confident to accept physical abuse. He knows that if he smacks her across the face and tells her not to go, he'll have a breakup on his hands. So what does he do instead? Whilst her and her friends are organising their trip, he borrows her phone, 'accidentally' breaks it, apologises profusely, and immediately offers to replace it. He immediately buys her a new phone, maybe even a better one than her old one.

Sadly, sadly, ever-so-sadly, that phone only arrives on Friday, when the plans for the trip are already so advanced that our hypothetical woman can no longer join. What a bummer!

Judging from his visible behaviour alone, it seems like an accident happened (which is in and of itself a morally neutral thing that just happens sometimes) and he dealt with it in a HV way by owning up, apologising, and replacing the broken object. If you judge on behaviour only, the woman might be a bit annoyed by the broken phone, but accidents happen, and put a green flag behind him apologising and paying for the new one.

The factual effect though, is basically identical to him having punched her in the face and told her that she wasn't allowed to go. As in: She's going on one trip less.

There are certain kinds of abuse, maladaptive behaviour, or just plain weird shit men pull that you probably won't recognise right away, no matter how well-trained you are at spotting typical abusive strategies. Especially if it's early on or his weird shit occurs infrequently, it might take you months or years to spot patterns that unveil a man's rotten core. If a man, in addition to his weird shit, is nice, charming, and forthcoming, he can very convincingly disguise abuse and plain oddness behind all sorts of veils that you can't properly lift without a lot of work and thought.

That's why it is important to ask yourself one question every few weeks when you are dating a man:

Looking at the factual realities of my life: How has it changed since he came into my life, and is it for the better?

The one common denominator of all bad relationships is that they make your life worse. Just how they do that can be incredibly varied. Do not bother trying to look for the shit in his behaviour, you might not spot it anyways, instead, look for negative changes in your life:

Are you seeing your loved ones less? Do you feel like you have less energy at work? Do you feel distracted, exhausted, strung-out? Do you feel worse about your body than before him? Do you feel like you can't cope with the housework? Are you less fully yourself? Engage in hobbies less? Do you feel like you can't do anything right with him? Do you feel like a problem, without knowing why? Do you feel more anxious, more depressed? Do you go on holidays less? Dress worse? Do fewer fun things? Laugh less? Have less money? Live somewhere worse? Have fewer choices? More responsibilities without compensation? More housework, less fun? An unhealthier lifestyle? Gained or lost weight unwanted? Do fewer new things? Feel less loved? Feel annoyed more often? Complain more? Does more stuff break? Are your grades suffering? Are your kids less happy? Do you feel like you're doing things that don't align with your moral code more often?

It's helpful if you keep a journal for this. Try to maintain a sense of what your life is like on a week-to-week, month-to-month basis, and compare.

Even if you are unable to spot what exactly he's doing, after a few months, you will spot the changes in your life. And once you do, do not try to overanalyse how he's causing them. Unless there is a glaringly obvious outside explanation ('I've started a PhD around the time I started seeing him, so I see my friends less bc of the PhD'), chances are, if the timeframes match, HE is the cause. Don't ask how. Just trust that. And dump him.