In the past couple of days we've been talking about Alyssa, a domestic violence survivor. She has a blog at alyssasstory.org.

One thing women often say when they get involved with Bad Men is they didn't know the men they were involved with were Bad Men until it was too late. She thought he was a Good Man, until all of a sudden he turned Bad. It isn't true. All the signs that a man is a Bad Man are there. Most of the time, women choose not to see them, or gloss over them, or ignore them, or believe they can fix them.

Alyssa's very first blog post doesn't come out and admit that she knew her abuser, "R", was a Bad Man. But the signs were there.

She glosses over how the relationship started.

I met my abuser on Facebook, we went to the same high school, had a lot of the same friends. We started talking and obviously began a relationship. We got an apartment together, got engaged, I can honestly tell you I was truly happy. I felt safe. Until I wasn’t.

She gives us one paragraph, three sentences, to describe the first couple of years of their relationship. Yet, later, she tells us he was a full blown alcoholic, had a volatile temper, and a propensity for violence, especially while drinking or drunk.

Alyssa won't admit it, at least not in her blog. But she was aware of all this before she ever got deeply involved, before she had sex with him, before she moved in with him, before she let him knock her up. She knew, or should have known. All the signs were there.

Bad Men are plainly obvious. Everyone knows what Bad Men are, what they look like, and what they do.

First of all, no one, and I mean no one, becomes a full blown alcoholic overnight. "R" had a drinking problem long, long before he had ever heard of Alyssa. Most alcoholics develop their problem drinking by age 21, and with Alyssa's description of "R", he fits the profile. And if Alyssa had been paying attention for like two seconds, she saw it.

Second, no one changes that rapidly from mild mannered and "nice" to temper flareups resembling volcanic eruptions. "R" was like this long before he and Alyssa had ever heard of each other. Alyssa knew this too. There is no way, no way in hell, she didn't see this or signs of it before she got involved with him.

I am sure of this because Alyssa says she went to the same high school and had many of the same friends as "R" did. Facebook isn't the first time she'd heard of or seen "R". And if she had the same friends, surely she'd heard some things about him from them.

Her glossing over how the relationship started, giving us three sentences to describe a year or so of relationship, is also a dead giveaway. Another telltale sign is Alyssa's refusal to accept any responsibility for the development and course of the relationship. Not that she's responsible for his maltreatment of her. She's not responsible for that.

She IS, however, responsible for her either (a) not seeing R's volatility, alcoholism, and unsuitability for a relationship; or (b) seeing those things and ignoring them. Either she's not very bright and didn't see signs; or she chose to overlook them for one reason or another.

I have a very hard time believing a smart savvy young California woman was unable to see ominous signs of problems in R. You have to have been living under a rock for the past 30 years to have not heard of "domestic violence". Every one, every woman, knows what that is and women are hypervigilant to the point of mental illness about it. Everyone knows alcoholics are prone to abusing others, especially while drunk. Everyone knows young men who are 6 feet 3 inches and 280 pounds might pose a threat to women who are 5 feet 3 inches and maybe 120 pounds. Everyone knows young men deployed in the military in overseas wars come back having some problems, including PTSD (in a later blog post she reveals this about him).

So I don't believe for one minute that Alyssa didn't know, and could not see, that R had violent, alcoholic propensities and that that could mushroom into him beating her and abusing her. If she didn't know these things about him, she SHOULD HAVE known about them and her failure to know or see them contributed greatly to the problems she described.

It's more likely Alyssa saw these signs and ignored them. I don't know why. Low self esteem, thought she could fix them and change them, or thought they wouldn't be problems. Whatever they were, I believe she saw the red flags and ignored them.

Alyssa's error here was thinking a Bad Man could change into a Good Man, and that he would make that change for her. Or, she thought he was a Bad Man to everyone else but was a Good Man to her.

No. Bad Men don't change for anyone but themselves. Bad Men are bad, through and through. They have some "good" in them, as does everyone; but Bad Men's "bad" traits overwhelm their "good" ones.

And Alyssa knew or should have known these things, and I think she did. But she chose to ignore them.

Alyssa also had many, many opportunities to leave. I believe R showed his alcoholism and violent tendencies to Alyssa, quite clearly, well before she got deeply involved with him. She could have, and should have, ended it there. She didn't.

It's very likely R showed those Bad traits to Alyssa after they got deeply involved but before she moved in with him. She could have, and should have, ended it there. She didn't.

We know R showed those Bad traits to Alyssa while living together but before he got her pregnant. She describes it in her first blog post. She tolerated it for a year or so. She could have, and should have, ended it there. She didn't. She could have, and should have, ended it numerous times during that "year or so". She didn't.

We also know R showed those Bad traits to Alyssa while she was carrying his child. She could have, and should have, ended it there. She didn't.

It was only after R beat her while 6.5 months pregnant, and she had to be hospitalized, gave birth prematurely, and suffered serious complications of injuries while pregnant, that she ended it.

Alyssa knew, or should have known, R was a Bad Man. She knew or should have known that before she ever had sex with him. And even if not then, she knew or should have known that long before getting exclusive or serious with him, and definitely before moving in with him and commingling their lives together.

Alyssa is responsible not for R's beating her, but for staying with R and continuing a relationship with him long after she knew or should have known exactly what he was.

The morals of this post are:

1) Women know which men are Bad, and which are Good. They can sniff out Bad Men a mile away. They know they are with Bad Men. And mostly, they don't care, until that Badness almost kills them.

2) When you see a woman's blog post complaining about a Bad Man, yet

a) gives you only three sentences to describe how the relationship started, and

b) refuses to acknowledge any responsibility whatsoever for getting involved with him or continuing the relationship or seeing/not seeing Bad traits

you know you're dealing with a woman who knew these things but won't admit it.

3) And this ties in with 2): Always, always, ALWAYS listen to women not only for what they say, but for what they DO NOT say. Look for what they don't say/gloss over in their posts. Listen for glaring omissions in time lines and descriptions of events. Doesn't mean you have to ask about them. Just means you can fill in the blanks with what you know is likely, based on what's described here.

Let's be careful out there.