I am sitting on my office floor, old journals splayed about. A quest to understand more about who I am in dating sends me alternating between taking sips of wine and holding up a journal and reading the words I wrote in my youth. As I read my own words from age 19, 22, 26, and 30 I find my grown up self surprised at the insight I had in my early years. In every relationship from those years, I knew more, or at least my gut knew more than I ever realized. Part of me expected my 40 something self to look back and think I was a total dating idiot back then. 
Instead, reading my own words sends me right back to that timeframe. With the full picture of the context of my life at the time, I now have more compassion for the decisions I made, and a better understanding of just all that was going on to make up my life at that moment. Still, even with a renewed sense of self compassion, I notice some red flags that appeared early on in the relationships I was in. It occurs to me that many of them were the same red flags I missed in a few difficult relationships later in life. Here are 2 dating red flags that are easy to minimize and overlook.
- Conflict is not allowed.
While constant conflict is its own red flag in relationships, avoiding conflict at all costs can be a red flag as it causes issues to build up and trust to break down. Signs of this red flag are: your feelings are minimized or dismissed, when discussing issues she emotionally shuts down, she deflects her own responsibility by taking a condescending tone and telling you what you need to do, or she punishes you with silence, denial of intimacy, or an angry outburst when you try to bring things up to discuss.
2. Control issues abound.
It’s easy to spot someone who is trying to control you in obvious ways – judging what you eat or wear, or who you hang out with. But control issues can appear in more subtle ways that erode away at love and trust. For example, in one relationship from my youth, she would often feel the need to explain things to me, like how to choose the best grocery line or the fastest route home. While there’s nothing wrong with having a partnership where you learn from one another, the frequency, tone, and context of the “helpful information” matter. In my case, the how to information was always delivered after I had allegedly done something wrong – like chose the wrong grocery line, for example. Thus, the tone and experience were critical rather than helpful. Part of me always wanted to scream, “I have been choosing my own grocery lines since I was 18!”, but then I realize that my own reaction may be a sign that something isn’t quite right in the relationship as well. 
The one feeling I have the most as I read my journals from my youth is that while red flags almost always revealed themselves early on, we simply don’t know a person until we know them. These days, I hope I can honor all I learned in my youth and spot red flags sooner in dating. To read more about red flags in dating, click here.