Our most popular article at Feminist Journal is Dr. James Carver's " How To Avoid Losers and Abusers ." which pleases me very much. However, I get many letters from women who want to know the Early Warning Signs of Abusers. These women are concerned about  the sort of persons who are perhaps more socially  adept than the obviously abusive men described in Dr. Carver's article. Many women cite getting into relationships with men who can at first appear to be an "OK person," and then find he really is "just another abuser."

Over many years working as the therapist, I noticed some key attitudes that all abusers seem to hold whether they are the smooth socially adept persons in suits, or obvious criminals.

I, as well as much more famous psychologists than myself, think that behavior derives from thoughts --so look for these thoughts in men who are potential predators, and avoid them! Thoughts and attitudes matter!!

Predators see you as just one more THING in their environment, not a PERSON with thoughts and feelings too. Below I have listed some of these Early Warning Signs that you can see very early on before you are very emotionally invested in the relationship. Later we will look at them more closely.

1) They think You are responsible for his emotional --and perhaps physical well being.
2) They blame the messenger.
3) When you need emotional support -- he's not there for you.
4) They make victim blaming comments.
5) They seem very frequently to hear your comments INCORRECTLY.
6) They seem constantly on alert with you looking for potential flaws and weaknesses.
7)They interpret all human activity as "personal" or "sexual."
The Red Alert Behaviors:
8) They are cruel to animals.
9) They don't understand  children and adults have different roles.
10) They ever make any comment that refers to a child in a sexual way.

Now I can just hear people screeching "I know lots of persons like this!" Well you probably do. Our culture socializes men to be self centered. It also socializes women to be in denial of their needs. So lets pause right here and ask the:
QUESTION of YOU:

WHAT IS THIS person DOING THAT MAKES YOU QUESTION HIS MOTIVES?

There is a common saying in forensic psychology "Motive is Everything." So what is he doing that has set off your Inner Voice -- that wonderful internal alarm system women are trained to ignore. Lets assume on the surface this person seems to fit certain positive male selection criteria. But something just doesn't fit. Something is striking you strange. In spite of the fact that family and friends seem to like this person AND THINK HE IS GREAT --you know there is something wrong.

Well, consider this point. You are around him more than them. They don't see him outside of social situations. And Finally --- You don't need any reason to end the relationship -- other than he makes you feel uncomfortable. But I suspect that if you are already questioning his "real motives" and you feel he is "fake"  then he probably demonstrates some of the above attitudes on a regular basis.

Lets look at them more closely.

1) They think You are responsible for his emotional --and perhaps physical well being.

When I make this comment, I don't refer to a person who tells you of a bad event and is seeking aid in feeling better. In this case, they plainly own their feelings and want some very normal help in dealing with them --- even if its just you being there to complain to. Once in a while everyone needs a shoulder to cry on. Its a  major factor in relieving Life's Stresses! And I'm not talking about people in temporary life crisis situations like natural disasters. Nor am I referring to people with a socially recognized need for support like child support!

But on a normal day,  this type of person  will plainly be in a bad mood,  and perhaps physically demonstrate it by stomping around, slamming doors, etc. --- and never tell you what is wrong. You are supposed to "guess." You are supposed to figure out his needs. You are supposed to solve the problem --without being asked.

Now we all know some people who need you to observe their every behavior and try many, many  things to make them feel better. THEY ARE CALLED INFANTS. Infants need you to hear their cries and make educated guesses about what they want from food to diapers.

Healthy grown people can plainly state their needs, and try to make them known in a relatively calm way to the other adults around them. They don't expect that like a baby the other people around them are supposed to guess, or coax an explanation out of them. And this type of behavior can be over the most mundane things like being hungry because they missed lunch, or angry because they got stuck in traffic. You never know and always feel in the dark as to what is troubling them. And it always seems to be something. He honestly thinks other people --not himself-- is responsible for his behavior.

2) They blame the messenger.

You quickly come to realize there are subjects you can never talk to this person about. You can never raise a point that makes him uncomfortable. If you have some bad news as simple as the bathroom faucet started to leak, he'll get mad or irritated with you for telling him about it. He can't seem to separate the messenger from the message. You can't tell this person anything.

Let's face it. Life is not always pleasant. Unfortunately, as one ages the frequency of bad news increases. Illness, and deaths of friends and loved ones increase with age. And the simple statistical fact that the longer you live the more likely one of those wrong place at the wrong time events will happen to you increases dramatically. So if you are seeing a person who can't take mundane bad news now --imaging how bad he'll act later when just about everything you have to talk about is something negative!

3) When you need emotional support -- he's not there for you.

 In an ideal relationship, because you love one another you should constantly be thinking of ways to make each others day better, and path more smooth. In good relationships, you are there for each other when needed. In an average relationship,  most people should expect to be able to get emotional support from a partner on a regular basis. But many women complain that they can never tell their partner of their needs, or talk about what upsets them without negative consequences. I don't mean physical abuse or even yelling, but being ignored. If you state a need --he'll just ignore it. One woman said "Its not that he abuses me. I feel like I'm not even in the room." Well here's a news flash. HAVING YOUR NEEDS  IGNORED IS ABUSE.
 

4) They makes victim blaming comments.

This isn't the speculation in some circumstances where one might wonder just how some bad event happened to someone. The "Gee, he shouldn't have stood out there with that wire in his hand during the thunderstorm." comments people can make. The people I describe here are those whose first comments about an abusive situation are consistently victim blaming. This is actually a corollary of point Number #1 in which this type of person thinks other people are responsible for his behavior rather than himself. This generalizes to the others in that if some one is victimized ---- they must have made the bad guy do it!

When watching the News or a film and a woman is plainly abused his first comment is how it must be her fault. Or if he sees a disaster on TV his comment is not some compassionate concern for their situation, but some cruel comment about how its their own fault, etc.

Or if you have known him longer, you'll find that if you can actually get him to listen to you when you have a problem, its somehow always all your fault.
 

5) They seem very frequently to hear your comments INCORRECTLY.

This may seem a petty point, but many abusers seem to have listening comprehension problems. And again I am NOT discussing an actual organic problem like Hearing Loss or some sort of Learning Disability.  And no, I'm not referring to the woman who decides to discuss "our relationship" in the middle of the Super Bowl. I'm referring to  emotional resistance to listening to what others have to say. Since many of my patients who were sent for counseling seem to be other wise normal and have a fine memory for verbal facts about matters that interest them like sports data, I expect it is simply they are not giving the victim their full attention when listening  to them. If you ask them to repeat what you just said, most likely they can't. Even if they made eye contact, they tuned you out and simply weren't listening to you.

This can be really pernicious. I remember counseling couples, and having them them make simple statements repeating what the other had said (Reflective Listening), which is very common marriage counseling technique. Even in that quiet undistracted setting, men who were high functioning in all other life areas, simply could never repeat exactly what had just been said to them.  This used to amaze me.

6) They seems constantly on alert with you looking for potential flaws and weaknesses.

This is the cause of the "walking on eggshells" feeling so many women report with men who haven't been physically abusive --yet... These guys make them feel that any conversation is some sort of contest rather than a way to share information about the day. They always seem to be trying to put a negative spin on your behavior. This goes beyond victim blaming when you actually share a sad/or bad experience and ask for comfort. This is having a normal fact based sort of conversation about inconsequential daily events and you suddenly feel a sense of struggle. You find yourself defending trivial daily behaviors like taking a sandwich for lunch. "Why not eat out? Are you avoiding someone? Who do you talk to at lunch? <hopeful> Are you having problems at work? Are you having money problems?"

All over a sandwich!

And yes, this a very common alert behavior. Women getting over bad relationships frequently report they should have seen it coming because of these sorts of unpleasant conversations over minor daily events. Unknown to them, they were already locked in a power struggle with a loser. They tended initially to write off these weird conversations to the other other party "having a bad day." But as the power and control problems that abusers all have become more evident in the relationship over time.

7)They interpret all human activity as "personal" or "sexual."

This is easier to sum up than to describe. Its a sort of mind set which indicates you "know personally" all the people you interact with. But it goes beyond that. They constantly express the mis-perception that you are "personally interested" in any subject you care to discuss. The idea that people discuss matters in abstraction, or because their work demands it,  is a complete mystery to them. For example, I am writing this article on Early Symptoms because many women have asked for it. I know for certain I will get weird  letters from people who will incorrectly assume I wrote this article because I am personally involved with some one demonstrating these symptoms.. I am not. As I plainly stated, I wrote it at the request of others who need information based on my extensive clinical experience with these matters. But an abuser would never understand this.

Another example, would be a woman who described attending a business lunch with several colleagues. When she told her "then"  boyfriend about it, rather than listening to her describe how it went, or what was important to her, he constantly interrupted her with personal questions about "who her friend was." She just couldn't get him to understand no one in the group was "her friend," that they were simply business colleagues. She went on to describe that this was universal in all her interactions with him. He just didn't seem to understand that she researched subjects at work because it was her job, or that she talked to many people, and yes, even had lunch with many people just as part of doing business!! He constantly badgered her about these things until she broke off the relationship. He simply didn't understand any human action that wasn't motivared by personal involvement.. .

A third example is that annoying person who sees sex in every action. The "Oh look.. she talked to him --she must want sex!" "Oh look... she petted her cat --maybe she's into animals." sort of wacko. These people while obviously borderline psychotic (can anyone not see people like this as weird??) can be very disruptive in social settings.

THE RED ALERT BEHAVIORS: these ae things that are associated in our knowledge of criminals with very very dangerous people.

8) They are cruel to animals.

Cruelty to animals is a major alert for many pathological behaviors. I am not talking vegetarianism, or pets as "substitute children" here, but the commonly accepted way of being kind to smaller weaker creatures. Cruelty to the weak  is very bad sign. Most lists of warning behaviors for disorders as bad a Serial Killing include cruelty to animals as one important warning sign.

9) They don't understand  children and adults have different roles.

They make comments about kids which lead one to believe they think kids take care of adults -- rather than the other way around. For instance, you may announce that a family member has a new baby. He'll remark that they now have someone to take care of them, do stuff for them. etc... Rather than, that they have someone to love!

You'll also hear this in older people who act like adults have some say over grown children. These demonstrate these people have a poor understanding of social boundaries and even more important, social responsibly to children.

10) They ever make a comment that refers to a child in a sexual way.

This should not need saying, but some people are pathologically socialized they don't realize no normal person would ever make a sexual remark about a child. If he says Jon Benet Ramsey ( a  well known case of a murdered six year old)  looked "hot" --dump him.
 

SUMMARY

I can hear the out cry of the colluders in the readership, but why waste your time on someone who even if he never actually hits you...will tie up your irreplaceable time keeping you from finding a person who can meet your needs. Do you want to be with a person who ignores your thoughts and feelings? Do you want to be with a person you can't communicate with? Who is constantly calling your every move into question? Who may hold attitudes seen by many  professionals who study criminals as typical of very serious offenders like rapists and killers?

And ask yourself once again --WHY AM I ASKING THESE QUESTIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE!