1- They are completely unfazed by your tears or overwhelm in an argument. They keep going at you, you might even beg them to stop and just give you a hug, deaf ears. As the arsehole rant continues.
2- The tinge of happiness.. when you have done something they deem ‘wrong’ they seem slightly excited by the thought of how much fun they will have making the relationship even’ again. Tit for tat, wasn’t even cool in primary school.
3- Who they turn to. When things are bad they turn to your friends and family for support, it’s not their own support they are looking for it’s taking away yours. Like telling your mum about your abortion thinking it holds weight. Clearly didn’t read the room because between you and your mum you’ve aborted a whole football team and are ok with it.
4- You are hesitant to answer a question incase it’s a set up.
You feel like you are being constantly set up, someone is waiting to catch you out. You feel yourself questioning ‘where is this going?’ When any random line of questioning begins.
5- Any slight changes of plans cause a headache or worse. Spontaneity is out the window because they will use any change of your plans as an excuse to be mad at you, accusing you of deception.
6- They seem to want to be mad. Any excuse will do in order to create and maintain disharmony in the relationship, a lot of the time they are looking for validation for the unacknowledged depression they feel.
7- The silent treatment. They love it. They can sleep on it, work during it, go weeks reveling in it. And the silent treatment is not completely silent, oh no they won’t give you the satisfaction of being able to call them on it. They will answer yes or no questions and coldly tell you that they aren’t mad. It’s more of a silent sulk and anyone who’s lived with it will do whatever they can to avoid it, by avoiding upsetting the arsehole, so arsehole gets what he wants, all the time.
8- Really harsh words don’t effect you anymore. It’s been normalised, you take it on the chin and get over it quick.
9- They love to rehash the argument, they go over every word that you have said in texts or conversations. It’s like sitting you down for a quick summery or brainwashing session of what just happened and why it’s your fault.
10- You find yourself lying, small lies that become bigger lies all to avoid triggering the arsehole and somewhere along the way you became more stressed out over being caught lying then being lied to which is something you don’t recognise.
11-You find yourself trying to come up with something to say that’s interesting enough to get their attention or get them off their phone on a date night.
12- You have created a fictitious character with kinder intentions to explain the arseholes actions to your friends and family. (Except your best friend who knows how fucked he is and is politely waiting for the day you leave so she can demolish him in publicly).
13- Your mutual friend group is getting smaller and smaller as your partner constantly falls our with the people you enjoy spending time with.
14- instead of ‘thanks for understanding’ You find yourself saying ‘what the fuck just happened?’ After a disagreement. In fact you say ‘wtf’ quite often. You even find yourself looking at the sky waiting for the directed from the Truman show to pop out a of cloud and explain that this whole relationship is actually a reality Tv show called ‘how much will she take’.
15- there is always an excuse for their double standards. The excuse could be so far fetched, ‘I had to fuck your friend because a physic told me that your fucked mine in a past life’ but they know that the general public hasn’t been through their confidence destroying boot camp so soon after these lavish excuses they will generally ask you to confirm that you keep that one between the two of you.
16- They deflect their personality onto the outside world and believe everyone esle has bad intentions too. They fob it off as being ‘too smart to trust people’ but really aresholes don’t think they are arseholes so they have to assume that everyone else is an arsehole deep down or their world will fall.
17- They save things in their phone or computer, incriminating or embarrassing things about people to bolster their control. They confuse relationships with court cases and spent their time collecting collateral.
18- They don’t walk your dog and your dog is ok with that.
19- An argument is never about the small thing it started over. They will bring anything at all into it in order to keep it going, cross every line you have ever drawn and then tell you that you have ‘you have really crossed a line this time’.
20- They are obsessive with and find ways to bring up, your sexual history. Like one of my really cool ex’s who knew I had once fucked a cop and would get ‘funny’ (triggered) when we drove past cop with ‘quick Con run a red light, you might get lucky’ as he seethed red through his laughter.
Source: Constance Hall
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