People Reveal Red Flags That Scream "This Couple Won't Last!"

Love is not a many-splendered thing.

Ok, maybe it is for some, but not for most.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen a could and knew in my soul it was a dead-on-arrival situation.

So you try to warn people.

You try to wave the red flag.

And then what happens?

Redditor No-Slip69420 wanted to hear about the times people knew that a certain love story was not going to last, so they asked:

"What screams 'This couple won’t last?'"

Smash!

"The groom smashed the cake in the bride’s face when she didn’t want him to."

- Apprehensive_Yam73

"High predictor of impending divorce."

- Funandgeeky

"Totally agree with this! That being said, I WANTED cake on my face. I had to beg my wife to do it and settled with her getting some frosting on my nose. I know I married the right one because she repeatedly asked me if I was sure and obliged me."

- node_of_ranvier

Wedding Cake GIF by daisymlinkGiphy

Corrections

"One person is extremely annoyed at and correcting the super mundane things that the other says and does."

- PurpleLilyEsq

"My mom does this to my stepdad, and I try super hard not to do that to my partner. I'll catch myself and consciously shut my mouth. I love him very much, and even though he does some things differently than I do the job still gets done. He is not allowed to fold my laundry, though. LOL."

- Kakes_69

Changes

"When one person completely changes their personality to suit the other. One of my friends started dating a guy who was, in my opinion, a real jerk. I guess he felt superior to other people. He was condescending to people who worked for him, rude to wait staff, etc. Anyway, my friend turned from being a confident professional woman into a submissive shadow of herself."

"I was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to keep her act going indefinitely, and sure enough, as soon as they were married and she started expressing her opinions, the whole thing fell apart. They were divorced within a year... which probably wasn't a surprise to anyone who knew her."

- Bay_de_Noc

A Bad Share

"When they share a Facebook account. Someone has already cheated by that point."

- Best_Answer69

"The opposite is true of older people. My grandparents share the same account, and they’re ‘til death do us part. I think Grandpa likes it when Grandma shows him pictures of us, but he isn’t interested in maintaining his own account."

- fartmachiner

"Yeah, lol. My aunt and uncle share a Facebook account, and it’s not a jealousy thing. The same goes for my brother-in-law’s parents. It’s an old-people thing, where usually, one partner has no interest in maintaining a social media account but still wants to be in the loop with life."

"In both relationships, they’re stable, happy, and very much still in love/death do us part."

- schickschickschick

AMEN!

"The preacher officiating at the wedding gives a sermon about infidelity. True story..."

"She was hot and rich. He was less hot and more rich. I don't know which one screwed around first, but the marriage didn't last a year."

"The sermon may have been inspired by one or the other's parents, rather than by the newlyweds' own previous conduct. It was still prophetic, though."

- fubo

AWFUL

"Most couples that I've seen are 'social media couples' and end up having AWFUL relationship problems. And we usually find this out during a public breakup or when one kills the other."

- RugratChuck

season 1 couples GIF by PortlandiaGiphy

Contempt

"Eye-rolling. Scientifically speaking, it symbolizes contempt and is a strong predictor of relationship failure, as presented by John Gottman, who studies relationships. He names contempt as one of the four horsemen of ending a marriage."

- WarrenChanWL

"Contempt, defensiveness, and criticism hurt a lot and make you genuinely sad. But no one can be prepared for the state of destruction that stonewalling and silent treatment leaves the mental health in."

"The real way to deal with it is to not deal with it. But if you don't know that, you will pour yourself into fixing a problem that doesn't need that much effort - they just want you to squirm, beg, and kiss their feet. All self-value and self-respect are thrown out of the window to resolve the problem you think you have with the person you love."

"The problem is always fabricated, and you try to fix a fake problem by giving yourself away into a black hole. The actual problem is always much, much less. They make communication way harder on purpose."

"If you receive the silent treatment, bail the f**k out. It's like quicksand, it gets worse the more you fight."

- ItsNotProgHouse

Attachment Styles

"An intense sense of urgency, especially around relationship milestones."

"I understand being excited about a new partner, but if you feel like the world will end if you spend a week or two apart or don't move in together/meet the parents/get engaged or married ASAP, then you're not in love. You're infatuated, which isn't sustainable in a healthy way."

"My therapist helped me look into attachment styles. There are also tons of free resources out there about them. The urgency can be a sign of anxious attachment. The ideal is to work towards secure attachment. Shifting even slightly in the direction of secure attachment brought me a peace I can hardly put into words."

"Also, finding a partner that is communicative and honest. And being that partner, as well! I haven't had to guess where I stand with my partner since the first couple of months we met (~1.5 yrs ago). And I try to make sure he doesn't have to guess with me either. That took away a lot of urgency and panic."

- CamelApprehensive229

2 Years Apart

"I married into a family with a relative who was constantly in different relationships. Predicted she'd be divorced within 18 months. I was right. Nobody was surprised. She was in her early 30s, already been married twice, had three kids with three different fathers. Only one was from a marriage, and the kids were 2 years apart."

"Oh, and she planned each one. She cheated on her 2nd husband (didn't feel any guilt or remorse) and would bring a new guy around every year. We all knew she was marrying her 3rd husband because she thought he had money. Turns out he didn't."

- EmbarrassedPick1031

Too Spicey

"When one is so insecure they belittle the other to feel better about themself. I once had dinner with a now-divorced couple, and there was a spicy dish. The wife casually said, 'Husband can't handle spicy food.' Husband replied out loud, 'Whatever, I'm literally better than you at like 100 other things.'"

- JJGBM

34 Years

"When someone spends a lot of time in conversation talking about how happy their marriage is. That's someone trying to convince themselves."

"I mean, hey, if someone asked me, I'd say I've had an outstanding 34-year marriage to a woman who creates life and love and beauty wherever she goes. But I don't feel a constant need to yap about it in conversation."

"So if you know someone who is talking about their blissful marriage, know that they likely need some marriage counseling pretty soon."

- AnybodySeeMyKeys

Clearly...

"When one is clearly gay but everyone knows except the girl. I met a couple at a doctor's visit. And I remember thinking, is she not aware he is gay? Anyway, I forgot about it. They had a child, so I was worried but then thought maybe I was wrong; hopefully, I was wrong. I was not. He was gay; they separated."

- Fragrant_Bid_8123

Rainbow You Are Gay GIFGiphy

Dopamine

"Love bombing in the first couple of weeks. Yes, we love that you love each other. But you hardly know each other, and you haven't sat down with the realities of life and living together. You are in love with being in love. The dopamine will wear off, and who you are as a person and how you deal with stress, daily tasks, and friends/family are all just as important."

- Everyoneheresamoron

Mismatch!

"When there is a massive communication mismatch. I knew a couple where one partner was always very forthright and the other kind of meek. Partner A would express an opinion on anything from what to do for dinner to when they should start trying for kids. Instead of just saying that they disagreed and having an actual conversation, Partner B would subtly imply it, and Partner A would either actually not get it or pretend to."

"This, of course, resulted in Partner A nearly always getting what they wanted, Partner B feeling steamrolled into every life decision, and Partner A angry that Partner B was always quietly unhappy. It ended poorly, though both are in much better relationships now."

"Communication is, in my opinion, both the main cause of so many relationship failures/unhappy relationships, and yet it's also one of the issues that a committed couple can fix (given the time, will, and often a good therapist)."

- Conscious_Writing689

Hey Jerry!

"Get in a sh**faced drunken argument at their own wedding Jerry Springer style. Also, shoving the wedding cake into the face. It was a harbinger of things to come. Also, the groom belongs to a hardcore fundamentalist sect, and the preacher uses the event as a pulpit to give a fire-and-brimstone sermon instead of just giving the couple a blessing. Oh, there was no music or dancing allowed. I walked out of that one."

- TwinFrogs

Happy To Be Here Jerry Springer GIFGiphy

Pay attention to the red flags!!

They are waving for a reason.

Sometimes, we're too blinded in the relationship to see the crimson.

So then, we must turn to others for help when "something" seems off.

Anything that resembles an episode of Jerry Springer is a HUGE red flag.

And as always... COMMUNICATION is KEY!!

A lesson never learned.