July 15, 2017

Interview with Karla Downing: Recognizing Red Flags in a Relationship

Interview with Karla Downing: Recognizing Red Flags in a Relationship

Interview Transcript

Mike: This is Mike Hennessy. And on behalf of the team at LoveEvolveandThrive.com, I am pleased to welcome you to today’s interview with Karla Downing. Karla Downing is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the founder of ChangeMyRelationship.com. Go to www.ChangeMyRelationship.com for more information.

Karla: Yes. Thank you for having me.

Mike: Karla, sometimes women tell us they have a tough time understanding why their relationship failed or isn’t working and perhaps there were red flags all along that they could have ignored or failed to recognize. Can you talk about what those red flags might be and what women need to watch out for when they’re dating a man?

Karla: Absolutely. Well, some of those red flags are obvious and others are more subtle but all have the potential of being overlooked, excused, or denied. All are reasons to stop, look, and listen to what is going on and carefully consider whether or not you should continue in the relationship. All have the potential of desensitizing you to their effects the longer you are in the relationship and are drawing you into the dysfunction to where it becomes harder to clearly see the problems in your partner.

The first is emotional reactivity, if he creates drama and turmoil frequently by being upset, sensitive, moody, angry and reactive over things that aren’t really a big deal to you. As a result, you have to put energy into explaining what you really meant, apologizing, and trying to fix his feelings. As a result to this emotional reactivity, you find yourself walking on eggshells and afraid to be yourself.

Second is jealousy, suspiciousness, possessiveness, and accusations. He accuses you of being unfaithful, is suspicious of your relationship, acts like he owns you and your time and shows extreme jealousy. This distrust is unrelated to a history of you being unfaithful or untrustworthy.

Excesses that bother you; anything he does to excess that bothers you now has a potential to bother you more later on. These include addictions, other relationships, sports, work, and personality traits. This is even worse if he is defensive about the issue when you bring it up.

Lying. If you have caught him in lies, you can assume there will be more lies in the future unless the underlying issue has been resolved.

Control. He tries to control who you see, what you do, and how you live your life. At first, this may feel caring. But the underlying issues behind control are deep and they lead to abuse later on.

The sixth is emotional, verbal, or physical abuse. If he uses manipulative and controlling tactics such as put-downs, minimizing, ridicule, name-calling, discounting, hostile anger, threats, withdrawal, or physical violence, you’re dealing with abuse. These only get worse the longer you are in the relationship.

Problems in his personal life whether it is with his children, finances, his business, family, friends, work, physical health, mental health, or sexual problems, these will become your problems if the relationship continues.

The eighth is self-doubt. If you find yourself questioning yourself and wondering if you are crazy, overreacting, oversensitive, mean, or selfish because he is telling you that you are the problem in the relationship, this is a red flag. This means that he is highly unlikely to be able to deal with things that you bring up as problems in the relationship, deal with any complaints that you have with him and that he will most likely blame you for all of the problems forever.

The next one is that his family or friends don’t like or accept you. This is especially important for you to consider if this person is very involved in his life. It’s his best friend, he’s not going to stop having this best friend. His children do not like you even if they’re adults. His mother is very involved with his life. She doesn’t like you. Carefully consider the effect on your life and relationship that this is going to have especially if he doesn’t validate your concern and stand up for you to any of these people.

The next is that his past relationship baggage is unresolved. He needs to have worked through past relationships to be ready to have a new relationship. This includes working through the anger and the sadness, accepting that the relationship is over and having a balanced perspective about his part in the problem. And if you have a guy who is telling you that it was all his ex-wife’s fault or all every one of his girlfriend’s fault that the relationship did not go well, that is an even bigger red flag.

The next one is you have different values, beliefs, lifestyles, and likes. He does not have to be your clone but you need more than physical attraction to build a happy life together. You have to have some things in common around which to build a compatible relationship.

Twelfth is care taking. If you find yourself taking over his responsibilities, fixing his problem, and helping him to become a better person; watch out. This means that the relationship is built on an unhealthy dynamic and he has got some problems that you are instantly running in order to fix and this is especially a big hook for you if you have co-dependency issue or if you are a caretaker in your childhood or if that’s your pattern in a relationship.

Next is your family and friends don’t like him. Unless they have a history of not wanting you to be happy, their objective observations need your attention and consideration. They know you and they care about you and they can see things that you may have already desensitized yourself to.

The next one is he is unable to resolve conflicts and unwilling to learn how to communicate better. Conflict is healthy as long as it leads to better understanding and mutual cooperation. But the inability to resolve conflict and communicate in a healthy manner leads to dysfunction and pain.

The last one is hoping for change. If you’re just dating him and you are already telling yourself that he needs to change and you’re trying to change him, this means that you see the red flags but you are willing to convince yourself that they will go away rather than lose the relationship. This is a huge warning sign.

Mike: Karla Downing, thank you so much.

Karla: You are really welcome.

And this is Mike Hennessy. And on behalf of the team at LoveEvolveandThrive.com, I’d like to thank you for listening to our interview and wish you the very best in your relationships.

Our guest today was Karla Downing, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Change My Relationship at www.ChangeMyRelationship.com.

For free tips and insights on relationship advice for women from hundreds of experts and authors, please visit our website at www.LoveEvolveandThrive.com.

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