Charting My Course (Part 2)

[BL42]

I think there is another category of Red Flags that I might refer to as Passive Red Flags or Background Red Flags, which refers to someone's life history and what they have been subjected to. Childhood abuse, lots of divorce throughout the family, toxic family or serious family issues, severe issues in prior MR or R, etc - these are things that would be Red Flags for me even though they are in the background and may not have yet appeared to have manifested behaviorally, at least not to me and not yet. The concern of course is that such serious background issues will eventually manifest in certain behavior that could be a real problem for a R.

It's now my opinion these "background red flags" are often grossly underestimated. Drug abuse and violent temper are more obvious, whereas the background can be more easily glossed over. I dismissed my ExW's family history - her parents' 3 marriages each, her mom's affair/D of her dad, and her cutting her dad out of her life for years because 1) she promised she didn't want to be her mom, and 2) I was in love. Looking back her family background and their history of this behavior should've been a much bigger red flag for me, and I firmly believe they manifested for her whether it was she hit the age of her mom when her mom did this or the stress of the young kids/infant. I spoke to my sister's friend about his very similar sitch - his then W even jumped out of the car at a stop sign on the way to MC - he told me "the biggest mistake you made was marrying someone whose parents had been divorced multiple times". I believe that's true, and now believe the "background red flags" should be taken much more seriously than most do.