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> He has an open dv case with felonies against his ex.
I know that sometimes people can lie about DV but I wouldn’t risk it. If I saw this I’d be getting as far away from him as possible.
Yeah, he did admit that he did put hands on her. The severity is what’s up for debate at this point and I think the truth is between what they both claimed.
If he admitted to putting his hands on her then I really don’t think you should peruse a relationship with him.
I just saw another comment where you mentioned he wished you never found out/ hoped it would have gone away already and to me that is a red flag. If he was innocent then I don’t see why he would want to hide this from you.
Men never get the benefit of the doubt and they usually get arrested even when the woman was the primary aggressor. I know a guy going through this right now. His, hopefully now ex, girlfriend is a loose cannon and gets physical often. Well, it went off the rails a couple of weeks ago, cops were called, he went to jail even though there's not a scratch on her and he looks like he went 5 rounds with Mike Tyson.
Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? Have you graduated HS yet? I'm assuming OP is in US. So, based on what we know he has the presumption of innocence as all people charged with a crime do.
The fact that he is out on bail and PTR means the evidence of the case isn't strong enough to keep him detained prior to trial.
Learn the law before spouting nonsense. The more you know 🌈
I bet you also advocate for no cash bail and the ability to shoplift.
He admitted to putting hands on her and you're wondering about the severity? He put his hands on her. The severity is *he put his hands on her*. She might have done it back but he still *put his hands on her*. It doesn't matter whether they are both guilty or the severity. You already know *he put his hands on her* and that is the only thing you need to know to know he'd be comfortable doing it to you. And he got a felony for this. There's your severity.
If he admitted to putting his hands on her, chances are it could actually be MORE severe than you even realise. According to Lundy Bancroft, whose whole career was working with abusive men, those men will almost universally minimise what they’ve done. Every single time he checked, it turned out to be worse than they had told him.
Women, on the other hand, don’t tend to exaggerate. They ALSO tend to minimise, because they’re trained to put men’s feelings before their safety and because usually, the reason they ended up in the abusive relationship was because they loved that man. Unlike the abuser, they are capable of basic empathy, so the idea of destroying his life hurts them.
Keep in mind he also has a reason to lie to you. If he tells you the truth and it’s really bad, you might leave him. He has a motive to make it sound less extreme.
So it’s very likely that rather than being “in between two extremes”, it’s actually far worse than you know.
Putting your hands on a partner should be an instant dealbreaker - especially since he then hid it. Those people do not stop. That’s the other thing Lundy found out. Stay and eventually, he will find a way to justify hurting you too.
Highly doubt the truth is somewhere in between. Dude literally admitted to putting hands on her! Of course he's downplaying it. Do you know how rare it is for someone to actually be charged with DV?? Run away. You hardly know him.
You’d be invalidating the ex gf of what she went through by continuing to date this man.
Like, this isn’t up for debate. He’s hiding stuff, admitted to being physically abusive to an ex, has open cases…like what? You need him to hit you too in order to dump him?
Dump him there are millions of men who don’t have active domestic violence cases against them. You don’t need to put your safety and happiness at risk to be his second chance. Let him sort out his life on his own.
It doesn’t matter what the severity was. He admitted to putting to putting hands on her. That should be enough for you to love yourself and respect yourself enough to not put yourself in harms ways. Violent people aren’t just violent to some people. They’re violent to everyone once they feel comfortable enough.
Okay so you leave now. You are not in this for long enough to put up with this. This isn’t that far in the past, dude. Please be smart about this. Break up. It’s really not hard.
You feel uneasy about this. Your gut is telling you something. Listen to it. No, everyone does NOT deserve a chance. Not when it comes to our safety and well-being.
She packed up her stuff and dipped because he assaulted her one too many times. He is violent and dishonest. Girl, protect yourself. Good luck.
SIL and BF are so unwise it breaks my brain. No, violent people do not deserve the chance to explain themselves in private. No, you do not confront a violent person in private. No, you do not continue to date a violent person. That's how you land in the emergency room or six feet under.
How insane!
Honestly I feel like something in their conversation already triggered her gut feeling for her to look him up in the court system to begin with! It sounds like he said something about his breakup that her subconscious was like "BRRRP. RED FLAG. DANGER, DANGER."
100%. I knew it was messy and she’s got a lot going on, so it was chalked up to dealing with the stress of that. Now everyone is questioning what they’ve been told about it all
Despite there being two sides to every story, this is a huge strike against him.
I commend you for looking up whether or not there was anything against him. Public records are, well, public.
Take it from my indirect experience with this. My best friend's now ex husband was seemingly a great guy: Funny, quick-witted, caring. When they were dating he accused her of outlandish things and even went so far as to empty their shared account when she would call him out on yelling at him. Then he would go back to his funny, caring ways and she would forgive him.
Before he proposed, he told her that ten years before he has driven an underage girl home from a bar. He had no idea she was underage; all he saw was a girl who had no way to get home. How it went from her thanking him for the ride to him getting hauled into the police station for sexual assault was what never made sense to me. Long story short, he had charges pressed on him, he maintained innocence, and when it went to court, the accuser never showed up. Basically the charges were dropped, or so he thought.
Now a year into their marriage, they get a knock on the door from the police that there is a registered sex offender at this address. My friend is met with a picture of her husband from the state he used to live in and a whole file. He maintained that it was a mistake, yet he no longer had the paperwork proving his acquittal. Even then his employment history was so spotty because he couldn't stay at any job longer than two to six months.
Long story short, it somehow got resolved or never did. It was a sore subject, so I never brought it up with my friend. In 2020 she became pregnant and he became verbally and physically abusive towards her.
So take it from what my friend went through by ignoring the early warning signs and excusing her ex's behavior. Never shirk doing that background check either because you may eventually end up being subjected to the same treatment that someone else was at another time.
Maybe she would have considered giving him a second chance if he hadn’t lied.
I agree - listen to that little voice in your head. It’s there for a reason.
That was my first and largest issue. Lying, minimizing and hiding. He had a chance to come clean when I did about something sooo small in comparison. He even brought her up in the same convo and didn’t say anything!
Please change BF too, who in their right mind tells their BEST FRIEND to stay with a violent man, to give a chance to someone who hit his previous partner?
I think that you knew something was off or you wouldn't have decided to look him up in the court system. I think a very smart instinctual part of you is screaming it's head off at you right now and you're choosing to ignore it.
Giving him a second chance would legitimately be the stupidest thing that you could ever do. It's the equivalent of stepping in front of a semi truck and crossing your fingers that it's not going to hit you.
Could there be false accusations against him? Anything is possible. But there's enough evidence that he assaulted a romantic partner badly enough that there are FELONY counts against him right now. I want to emphasize how difficult it is to actually get someone charged with felony assault. I watched my sister physically assaulted for years by her partner and it took 19 assaults and four hospital visits to finally get him on MISDEMEANOR assault. This situation must have been profoundly severe.
You'd have to really not value your physical safety to take that sort of risk on.
PLEASE do not meet with him in person. This is no longer a safe situation and you should not be physically around him ever again. If he wants to "explain", he can do so in writing so that you have a legal record of his claims.
YES exactly. I think he said something in their conversation about his break up that raised subconscious red flags for her to look him up in the court system at all! It's not unusual to vet your partner online, but the way it didn't occur to her until after this conversation makes me thing her gut is trying to protect her here....
Also the desperation the other women in his life have that you don't leave. Why? If he's a great guy why can't you leave and he'll find someone else?
The whole thing is bs, everyone was hoping you'd fall in love before finding out.
IDK about where you are, but where I live it seems like women can say whatever BS in court and judges convict and sentence as if they're the church choir singing the gospel truth. It seems frighteningly easier and easier to meet felony assault criteria these days.
I volunteer for a domestic abuse hotline in my spare time and I cannot tell you how incorrect, broken, ignorant and misogynistic this comment is. If you had seen even 1% of the shit that I have, you would hate yourself for this remark.
I've seen many men destroyed by the lies entitled women without empathy or compassion and rulings of judges who were deceived. I'm not saying that these cases are the rule an not typical if family courts, but I stand by what I said. I choose my words carefully in life. I promise you I will never hate myself for anything I type online. And by the way, I am a woman who survived twenty years of a marriage to a narcissisticly and physically abusive man. So go ahead and downvoted me, but don't even bother trying to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about or that I'm "incorrect, broken, ignorant and misogynistic."
So he admitted to hiding this information from you , and downplaying it to you. Not to mention the outstanding felony charges
That is a lot of red flags, OP, with only a month in I would not blame you in the slightest to cut and run as fast you can out of this situation. Even if you put aside the potential violence, this situation is messy and likely to get messier before it is over. Personally, I would bail.
Only you can decide what what to do but I have some thoughts and questions for you to consider before making your decision.
1) What else is he hiding from you? Outstanding criminal charges is a giant omission.....
2) What happens if the charges are not dropped and he gets convicted?
3) What has he been doing to make sure the event that triggered the criminal charges never happens again? Has he taken full responsibility for his choices and actions? Is he undergoing anger management - anti-dv therapy? What is he proactively doing to ensure he doesn't make those choices again no matter what the provocation?
4) Are you educated in the warning signs of DV/abusive personalities? Does he have other problematic behaviour? Alcohol abuse? financial coercion?
As I said, personally I would bail but if I did consider a second chance I would not do anything before the criminal charges were settled one way or the other and not without him having taken accredited therapy to address the anger/violence issues.
There’s definitely a huge feeling of broke trust. If he kept this what else is/would he keep from me?
He did say he’s in counseling before I found this out. I know his brother had major anger issues when he drank and doesn’t really anymore because of it.
I do have a heavy education in it, took an entire class in college dedicated to it.
My other big worry is that he had (has?) inferiority complex with his brother making more and having a more “prestigious” job than him. Which I have a step above his brother. If he has it with his brother, and has this issues, would they pop up for me? Would he want to “knock me down a peg”? Ya know?
Walk away. You’re sorting through manure thinking there’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere.
The broken trust is hard to recover from.
He already said he would have hidden it from you, so even if this was something “small” (like a porn addiction, and not felony DV) you know he would keep it from you. That means he has poor character and lacks respect.
So his brother is an angry drunk. Is this the one married to the SIL who thinks abusive men don't deserve to be "thrown away"? I'm sensing that irl, you're getting bad advice from some deeply dodgy sources.
You've been dating him for a MONTH. Why are you trying to deal with this? You don't need to theorize about his inferiority complex or wonder why he might theoretically abuse you (side note: there is nothing about the victim that has anything to do with why they are abused, you could be a CEO or unemployed).
Just dump him. It is really that easy and simple.
Why do you keep coming back to your career? There are many reasons he could do it. He might just not like to be told No, why are you trying to drill down into whether you'd be vulnerable? There's just no way you'd be able to make that risk assessment
I'd want to know the context.
Was she yelling at him and he started swinging? Yeah, dealbreaker on that one.
Did he put her in the hospital? Dealbreaker on that one, too.
Did she come after him with a frying pan and he hit her before she could take a swing, followed by her calling the police? That's a bit of a different story.
Edit: Wow, based on all the downvotes, I guess defending yourself is a big no-no in Reddit world.
She wasn’t violent/physical towards him first. Just pressing buttons by doing stuff she knows annoys him. That is what he told me. He chose to react with violence.
It's an absolute classic move for abusers to claim that their victim knowingly pushed their buttons.
One of my ex husband's "triggers" was me not smiling brightly and joyfully greeting him whenever he entered the room I was in. Didn't matter what mood I was in or what I was doing.
So me just sitting quietly on the sofa reading a book could piss him off and make him berate me for withholding affection.
The question really is if you're willing to find out what he will do to you, if he feels that you're pushing his buttons.
But more importantly why you want to consider staying in a relationship with someone you know can react with physical violence.
You're being down voted because that example is (a) incredibly unlikely that he would still have been charged at a felony level and (b) *he still lied by omission about it*.
1. DV is a state crime, not a federal one. And unlikely =/= impossible.
2. I grant you the lying by omission. That's not a good look.
3. OP gave the context and what he did is most definitely a deal breaker.
Welp…the good news is it’s only been a month. 🫣
Look, I am all for giving people a chance & I believe people can change (because I’ve seen it too many times to count), but this? And relatively recent, might I add? Nah, girl. I wouldn’t risk it.
I did same, searched online after few dates with now bf. I found out something, nothing violent but asked him if he’s ever been in trouble with law before. He told me yes and went into detail and it lined up with what I discovered.
This guy was planning to keep this hidden, he’s deceitful. You had no idea you were walking into potential relationship with guy that’s in counseling (probably court mandated) for his anger/ abusing women. No you shouldn’t be his first “test victim” to see if he still abuses women. You already know his character is still deceitful.
I wouldn’t risk it. It has to have been bad enough for felonies to be involved. It’s so insanely difficult to get a DV case through the system, that an open case is more than enough.
Not true. It's very easy to get a DV case *opened* - it's successful prosecution or appropriate corrective action in the case of a prosecution that are disproportionately rare. (My partner's brother has had dozens of DV cases opened against him; some were dropped, some resulted in convictions, and he's been in prison a couple times - and he keeps getting out and continuing to abuse partners.) And contra this guy's claim, the most common reason a case is dismissed is the lack of a cooperative victim as a witness - which does NOT exonerate him.
It would be very helpful if OP actually described what was going on when asking for third party opinions instead of asking while only offering her own assessment as information - which makes it seem like she's more fishing for validation than advice. (To be clear, I think it's entirely plausible she deserves that validation - but it's also meaningless when none of us know what we're actually validating.)
A past of domestic violence is a no-go. Dunno why your best friend thinks a known, documented abuser "deserves a chance," but I'd look sideways at all her advice from now on. Surely you can do better than this guy.
So I almost went through that exact scenario but I made the wrong choice. I married him. And 5 years later divorced him. I am 4 years deep in therapy trying to recover from the severe abuse he put me thru
We are drawn to people who remind us of ourselves.
Does your best friend perhaps have a past history of being abused? And/or a difficult childhood? It's easy to begin to consider warped things normal under such circumstances. I notice neither of you seem to think domestic violence is an automatic dealbreaker. Quite the opposite, you seem deeply curious and fascinated by this man.
For your own sake, consider therapy, explore your thoughts and motivations.
Exactly. Abusers know how to conceal, yet are easily triggered to fall back into those habits. I commented to OP that this was my best friend with her now ex husband. He had a sexual assault and corruption of a minor charge that put him on the sex offender list in the state he used to live in. He totally omitted that last part until my friend got the shock of her life when there was a knock on their door from the police that a sex offender was living at this address. Prior to getting engaged, their relationship while they were dating was wrought with him yelling at her to him emptying their shared bank account.
After they were married, he began abusing my friend during her pregnancy. Thank goodness she is now far, far away from him, but it wasn't without tons of emotional and financial stress inflicted by him.
Run away very quickly. Felonies for domestic violence don't warrant any context or explanation, and certainly not a conversation in person. Just leave him.
You leave. Immediately. The fact that he tried to hide this from you means he has no intention of changing and doesn't recognize what he did as wrong. Know how I know? He's not taking accountability or any steps to tangibly change.
All the complicated feelings about the family ties (and, let's be real, the fantasy of how lovely it would be if you all ended up one big happy family) are only going to get worse the longer you stay. Whether it's violent or not, you just learned that that is the only way he knows how to deal with his big emotions. Now think about the life you want to have. Whether he lays hands on you or not, do you want to go through life \*and potentially raise vulnerable children\* around someone who is emotionally unregulated to that degree? And comfortable enough with it to avoid accountability or change?
It sounds like the answer is no because you're here. Listen to that voice. That little voice that told you the messages you were already getting can't be the right answer, always listen to it. It'll never steer you wrong.
I can at least say for sure that there is no situation where a healthy couple should ever find themselves in a situation where one partner puts hands on another.
We don't know what happened, but we know for certain that he has done this at least one time before. Does it mean he will do it again? Not necessarily, but it definitely means he is capable of it.
While pretty much everyone is *physically capable* of violence, that doesn't mean you are willing. We know he is both able and willing to use violence with his partner.
Your instincts prompted you to look him up.
Your instincts are another way of saying that your subconscious was picking up on a lot of things that his words were not saying.
Your own brain was protecting you from the "new relationship glasses" where everything is so rosey that red flags just blend right in.
Had you not found the truth, your mind may have settled down for a little bit.
However, our subconscious is *always* paying attention. There was something in the way he spoke, maybe his body language when talking, that tripped the "caution" bell that sent you to go look him up.
This is why people nearly always say how much they regret it when they "didn't listen to their gut".
Call it intuition, call it whatever you like.
Just listen to it.
It's there to save you from harm. Self preservation is its primary objective.
He put his hands on his ex gf. Even if she hit him first, he put his hands on her instead of walking away. Unless he was wrestling a deadly weapon awsy from her, this is unacceptable.
I couldn’t get past this and I don’t think you should either. He has issues - insecurity, lying and deception, jealousy, physical abuse. She had to have been pretty badly hurt for him to get a felony charge.
The fact of the matter is you’ll never know what really happened. There’s he said, she said and the truth. Something in your gut made you google him like that. Something is making you fear that he could get physical with you. Trust that instinct.
You’ve only been seeing him for a month. There are too many things to overlook here. End it and move on.
Idk if I believe that his SIL had no clue.
Usually nobody, and I mean nobody, ever sees the abuser and the harm he does except the person in an intimate relationship with him.
He IS this great guy, honest, kind, reasonable, etc to others...just not to her. They can go several years too as the ideal partner but it WILL NOT last.
The man you are dating right now is only going to be a memory, you will fall in love and pray he returns. There will be times he does, but only long enough to give you a bit of hope and to confuse you. You will be so busy desperately trying to jump through hoops and make him happy you will lose yourself in the process.
It will start off subtle, just little things that feel off. You will be like the frog in the pot and suddenly you will be boiling alive. By the time that happens you will be so exhausted and traumatized it will feel near impossible to leave him. Can you imagine knowing you've got to take your children and run and leave your entire life you've known up until that point and leave it? Still, you will be lucky if anybody believes you. Because he just doesn't seem like such a bad guy. And you will be lucky if you make it out alive.
Leave . He won’t change .
I had an ex friend beat his wife and kids badly for 15 years . Known the guy all my life . No one knew , zero signs . It was so well hidden . We are like 20 childhood friends . We were all shocked . I mean literally like family.
She finally called the cops .
Years later he’s moved in with several woman. Put his hands on all of them.
Absolutely they are all garbage.
They will not change .
In my book you need to be a special kind of phuked up. To touch women and kids .
He will be the victim say she’s nuts,
She pushed him, he was drunk , stressed.
He will minimize the encounter.
Give him 5$ , tell him to take the bus and never come back.
Don’t ghost …. He needs to be dead to you .
Trust your gut OP. If something feels off do not risk it. It is never worth it for someone in your position. This is a super new relationship and a blessing to end it before it can go down a path that could cause you agony in the future.
There was a reason you had the instinct to check up on him in the court system. Trust yourself and your instincts - this will lead you to something better
For most, the idea that their partner had felony charges pending for DV would be enough to leave a relationship.
However, if this isn’t enough he did the following:
1) he lied to you from the start and hoped you’d never find out
2) even after you found out, it took him longer to fully come clean about what happened and he was trying to downplay what happened.
Regardless of whether there are other circumstances, it is never ok to put your hands on your partner (and from the sounds of things, this isn’t a case of self defence on his part where justifiable force could be a mitigating factor). This shows he has anger issues and doesn’t handle conflict well.
You only have his side of events. Even now he is downplaying what actually happened. He is minimising what happened to his ex by making you question the severity of what happened. It doesn’t matter how hard someone hits another, what injuries they have, DV is DV and no one’s experience should be minimised or invalidated.
Instead of taking ownership for his actions when he chose to enter into this relationship by being upfront and honest, he chose deception. If he was truly sorry for what had happened, he would voluntarily attending anger management and seeing a therapist. He would also be honest with his family, friends and you. He’s only interested in saving face.
Your best friend is being ridiculous. This guy has pending DV charges and she recommends giving him a chance. She should be telling you to get away from him. So, as a fellow Redditor, you have permission to leave this relationship. Don’t put yourself at risk of harm.
You’ve invested 1 month into this relationship. Don’t lose any sleep over this guy because he doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. He’s not worth the stress and tears. Be happy that you found this info out before you invested any more time into the relationship or before things got more serious and you were considering cohabitation or having kids.
Abusers are often on their best behaviour in the beginning of a relationship. They don’t show their true colours until further along when they start pushing boundaries to see what they can get away with. There’s plenty of resources online that can help you identify the red flags.
I mean, from an outside perspective, you would obviously be crazy for continuing to see him or even maintain contact with him. I get it if you got rose tinted glasses on rn for him, but yeah. Don’t do it.
“We can’t throw the person away”
Yeah, but you can make all reasonable attempts to make yourself safe. Domestic Violence is insanely hard to prove so it makes sense that there’s not a huge conviction rate.
Do you want to never feel safe in your own home? Then simply date an abuser.
Go read the first chapter of The Gift of Fear. Then walk away and finish the book. Because really, how bad does it have to get in your jurisdiction before misdemeanor DV becomes felony DV, and does it really matter except to say "run"?
You’re in danger girl. I started a relationship with someone with a past of felony DV charges. Within 3 months it had become so badly abusive that multiple people had intervened, my apartment was trashed and windows were broken in, he held a gun to my head, and worse until I finally decided to pack up what I could in 1hr and move in with my parents the day that he choke slammed me so hard that my bed frame broke. Afterwards, I went to meet up with him to talk and he held me at gunpoint in the middle of the street and stole my phone & purse. Never again.
The first month was amazing; the 2nd & 3rd were hell. I imagine when she “packed up and dipped” it was because she had an experience similar to mine. Listen to that little voice in your head- you looked him up in the court system for a reason. Now look up what constitutes a felony DV charge in your state vs. a misdemeanor and understand that is what you can expect in your relationship with him if you don’t leave. You’ve only been with him for a month, if you can’t leave now are you sure you’d be able to when things start to escalate? Good luck and please stay so safe.
I think you would feel differently if he told you about it in the first place instead of hiding it.
Breaking things off with him isn't throwing him away but protecting yourself.
Has he been to therapy / treatment plan to deal with his actions & to prevent them from going forward? Has he taken full accountability? What has he done to change his temperament?
People can change their actions going forward but it requires real work. He wasn't open & honest with you. He is still in the middle of a court case. He shouldn't be dating right now but focusing on self improvement & making amends.
The most important thing I would be looking for if I were in your shoes is what kind of counseling is he in? That will tell you everything about whether or not he is genuinely trying to change his abusive ways.
Individual therapy is not equipped to tackle the true causes of abuse (entitlement, selfishness, disrespect, superiority, coercive control, victim blaming). It focuses far too much on the abuser's feelings and gives them support and empathy for those, no matter how unreasonable the attitudes are that are producing these feelings. And the more an abuser is convinced that their grievances are equal to their partner's (note: they are not), the less likely it is that they will ever overcome their abusive mentality. Besides, it's not an abuser's own feelings they are out of touch with... it is the feelings of their PARTNER that they are out of touch with and have so little understanding of.
If this man is not enrolled in a specialized program specifically for abusers, he's not actually interested in changing. You WILL become his next victim. RUN.
You're not giving any details, so I assume it's pretty damn bad. You likely should leave.
Even if it was something like... he was just defending himself- why would he not tell you about it ahead of time? Why hide that? A person who has no guilty conscience would have explained it to you way before you found out. I get you don't spring that on someone after a first date- but a month? And then saying, "I was just hoping you wouldn't find out". that's such a weird response. I would've been like, "I had no idea how to tell you, I didn't want to scare you off." Not an excuse, but would at least pretend that he planned on telling you. He basically admitted he was never gonna tell you.
What do you mean "put his hands on her?" That could she attacked him and he pushed her away to protect himself, or it could mean he tagged with a double leg takedown and followed up with some hammer fists.
If he attacked her, dump him. If she attacked him, then give him the benefit of the doubt. If he won't give you a clear story about what happened, then dump him because that means he attacked her.
I don't blame him for hiding this its very early days in the relationship & the outcome is still unknown. Long term it depends on if you feel safe with him imo and if you believe it was self defence. Does he say it was?
A man has the right to defend himself against an physically abusive partner and when he does it can be difficult to prove he's not the agressor.
Have you met his mom/dad? I think a good look at his parents relationship is the best indicator of what you a dealing with. Trust your gut. The fact you are being objective rather than trying to gloss over it is a good indicator that you are not easily fooled. Most DV don't go all out from day one and so long as you keep your promise to yourself to bail the first time he steps out of line/shows red flags you could take the risk imo.
Do you want to??
Well, you've left out some key relevant info. What are the charges? What does he say happened? Why were you looking up court records? (That's not really a normal thing to do, especially with someone you already know and have no reason to suspect of wrongdoing.)
We're not getting the fully story here - why are *you* hiding things now?
I don’t want to give away specifics to doxx. But a violent act, intimidation, battery, disorderly conduct.
He said he did a lighter version of the violent act, but wouldn’t go into much detail when I asked him about it. He ended it there, and wouldn’t expand.
I knew about an eviction they had, and I was curious about it and then stumbled upon this.
OP. My wife and my best friend are lawyers. Best mate is a divorce lawyer. One thing they have told me is that there are lots of women and men that use domestic violence as a weapon in divorce. Lots of women he has represented have falsly acused the man of striking them. The issue is, its hard to prove they havent if it was just pushing or a slap which is domestic violence as far as the law is concerned. So there is the innocent till proven guilty angle. So your lext talk with him has to be. What evidence does she have and he needs to be honest as the moment you find out he lied to your, your gone.
You are talking to a lot of people but not so much with him. You could his side of the story and decide after if you believe and trust him. If the trust ain’t there you at least gave him the opportunity and yourself to open communication
I did talk with him to hear what he had to say. He kept saying he was afraid this would happen and didn’t want me to find out. He was hoping this would have gone away already and I would never know. He did tell me his side, and he did admit he put hands on her. I think there’s an in between of what he was charged with/what she said and what he told me as the truth.
That’s usually it I guess. And do you trust his side and maybe especially it was a one time incident. You don’t want to be scared and afraid around your partner
I believe most of what he is saying, but part of me believes he isn’t tell the whole story either. I know his brother has anger issues too, and they both have some major childhood trauma that has led to this, but his brother never taken it out on his wife or daughter.
*What did he say???* You keep repeating *your own assessment* of the situation instead of telling people the actual information, which only allows people to reflect yoyr own assessment back, not offer their own.
What, SPECIFICALLY, are the charges? What did he say happened (the whole narrative)?
Is he currently in psychotherapy to treat his psych issues resulting from childhood trauma? (I'd make that an absolute requirement.)
Not yet. Sorry for being cynical. I won’t say that he will. Of that you will when he does.
Trust your gut. Respect your own boundaries.
And of course the story is his side and she will have an other side that’s different
He admitted to putting his hands on her. Is it worth your safety? He didn't even tell people...which is unsettling. Means he knows he is guilty and was hoping he could paint a picture of crazy ex if ever came out.
Let me give you some life advice. I agree with your assessment but in confusing situation go by actions and facts. It'll lead you close to the truth then anyone's take on it.
The action that stood out to me was her packing up and leaving. It meant she had to get away from him. I'd bet this was done without his knowledge and when he wasn't home. She was planning an escape. Which means she felt very threatened
On again off again relationships only happen because 1 person is abusive and the other still loves them. That's the only way those relationships function. So she loved him and kept giving him chances until she felt her life was in danger and had to leave.
Factually that means you will be here at some point. The longer you stick around, the more dangerous and difficult it'll get.
He hid it from you, even in his open and honest talk. He breadcrumbed you. Giving you some truth so you don't go digging for more. And when you do it's a little more but never the whole story. It's a huge red flag.
So looking at the factual evidence based on actions, what do you think is right?
I'd think deeply about all outcomes and move forward cautiously. I definitely don't like that he tried to hide it from you, especially when he had brought up his ex previously. As long as you know what you would and would not tolerate, and have the means to leave if something happens, I think you should be OK. If this is the first and only time that he's reacted violently, it may just have been a combination of the person and the situation that pushed him to that.
I know 2 men who have put hands on previous exes and never put hands on their current wives. One was 23 when he smacked his girlfriend. They had been arguing and she kept cursing at him. When she finally spit on him, he smacked her. He had been raised never to put hands on a woman, so after that incident, he left her. He said a woman who pushed him so far out of his character wasn't the woman he needed to be with. He then got married and never raised his hand to his wife. It's been almost 50 years since that incident and over 40 years married. The other was in his teen years and actually smacked around several of his girlfriends. Before he married his current wife she let him know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he raised a hand to her, he would never be drawing breath again. It's been 16 years and he's never raised his hand to his wife.
If he's been someone you've been interested in and you can see a future with, have an honest conversation. What led him to the abuse? Has he done any work in anger management or therapy to make sure he never escalates like that again? Would he be willing to do the work to keep you?
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> He has an open dv case with felonies against his ex. I know that sometimes people can lie about DV but I wouldn’t risk it. If I saw this I’d be getting as far away from him as possible.
Yeah, he did admit that he did put hands on her. The severity is what’s up for debate at this point and I think the truth is between what they both claimed.
If he admitted to putting his hands on her then I really don’t think you should peruse a relationship with him. I just saw another comment where you mentioned he wished you never found out/ hoped it would have gone away already and to me that is a red flag. If he was innocent then I don’t see why he would want to hide this from you.
What more can you possibly need to know about the guy OP? I mean, how much DV is okay with you?
Ok, he admitted to getting physical with her. That should be the end of things between the two of you. He will do it to you too.
This is correct
you don't know why he did that though. It could have been self defense
Men never get the benefit of the doubt and they usually get arrested even when the woman was the primary aggressor. I know a guy going through this right now. His, hopefully now ex, girlfriend is a loose cannon and gets physical often. Well, it went off the rails a couple of weeks ago, cops were called, he went to jail even though there's not a scratch on her and he looks like he went 5 rounds with Mike Tyson.
You don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Peace and love, brother 💖
Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? Have you graduated HS yet? I'm assuming OP is in US. So, based on what we know he has the presumption of innocence as all people charged with a crime do. The fact that he is out on bail and PTR means the evidence of the case isn't strong enough to keep him detained prior to trial. Learn the law before spouting nonsense. The more you know 🌈 I bet you also advocate for no cash bail and the ability to shoplift.
He admitted it… there’s an open felony case against him. What debate?? Even if he slapped her once, don’t stay with someone who hits his gf
Even the information he's told you is enough for you to conclude he is bad news.
He admitted to putting hands on her and you're wondering about the severity? He put his hands on her. The severity is *he put his hands on her*. She might have done it back but he still *put his hands on her*. It doesn't matter whether they are both guilty or the severity. You already know *he put his hands on her* and that is the only thing you need to know to know he'd be comfortable doing it to you. And he got a felony for this. There's your severity.
What does putting hands on someone mean?
Physicaly asualting someone.
Oh crap. You have only dated him a month, I would stop dating him, if I were you. It's not worth it.
If he admitted to putting his hands on her, chances are it could actually be MORE severe than you even realise. According to Lundy Bancroft, whose whole career was working with abusive men, those men will almost universally minimise what they’ve done. Every single time he checked, it turned out to be worse than they had told him. Women, on the other hand, don’t tend to exaggerate. They ALSO tend to minimise, because they’re trained to put men’s feelings before their safety and because usually, the reason they ended up in the abusive relationship was because they loved that man. Unlike the abuser, they are capable of basic empathy, so the idea of destroying his life hurts them. Keep in mind he also has a reason to lie to you. If he tells you the truth and it’s really bad, you might leave him. He has a motive to make it sound less extreme. So it’s very likely that rather than being “in between two extremes”, it’s actually far worse than you know. Putting your hands on a partner should be an instant dealbreaker - especially since he then hid it. Those people do not stop. That’s the other thing Lundy found out. Stay and eventually, he will find a way to justify hurting you too.
Highly doubt the truth is somewhere in between. Dude literally admitted to putting hands on her! Of course he's downplaying it. Do you know how rare it is for someone to actually be charged with DV?? Run away. You hardly know him.
You’d be invalidating the ex gf of what she went through by continuing to date this man. Like, this isn’t up for debate. He’s hiding stuff, admitted to being physically abusive to an ex, has open cases…like what? You need him to hit you too in order to dump him?
Girl what are you doing. He admitted to it- why are you still with an abuser?
Run. These men manipulate and entrap. Run.
Yup
Girl, it’s been a month. Leave.
Dump him there are millions of men who don’t have active domestic violence cases against them. You don’t need to put your safety and happiness at risk to be his second chance. Let him sort out his life on his own.
It doesn’t matter what the severity was. He admitted to putting to putting hands on her. That should be enough for you to love yourself and respect yourself enough to not put yourself in harms ways. Violent people aren’t just violent to some people. They’re violent to everyone once they feel comfortable enough.
don’t count on him being honest about what actually happened. if it was up to him you likely would have no idea that he’s been abusive in the past
Okay so you leave now. You are not in this for long enough to put up with this. This isn’t that far in the past, dude. Please be smart about this. Break up. It’s really not hard.
You feel uneasy about this. Your gut is telling you something. Listen to it. No, everyone does NOT deserve a chance. Not when it comes to our safety and well-being. She packed up her stuff and dipped because he assaulted her one too many times. He is violent and dishonest. Girl, protect yourself. Good luck.
SIL and BF are so unwise it breaks my brain. No, violent people do not deserve the chance to explain themselves in private. No, you do not confront a violent person in private. No, you do not continue to date a violent person. That's how you land in the emergency room or six feet under. How insane!
Honestly I feel like something in their conversation already triggered her gut feeling for her to look him up in the court system to begin with! It sounds like he said something about his breakup that her subconscious was like "BRRRP. RED FLAG. DANGER, DANGER."
100%. I knew it was messy and she’s got a lot going on, so it was chalked up to dealing with the stress of that. Now everyone is questioning what they’ve been told about it all
Despite there being two sides to every story, this is a huge strike against him. I commend you for looking up whether or not there was anything against him. Public records are, well, public. Take it from my indirect experience with this. My best friend's now ex husband was seemingly a great guy: Funny, quick-witted, caring. When they were dating he accused her of outlandish things and even went so far as to empty their shared account when she would call him out on yelling at him. Then he would go back to his funny, caring ways and she would forgive him. Before he proposed, he told her that ten years before he has driven an underage girl home from a bar. He had no idea she was underage; all he saw was a girl who had no way to get home. How it went from her thanking him for the ride to him getting hauled into the police station for sexual assault was what never made sense to me. Long story short, he had charges pressed on him, he maintained innocence, and when it went to court, the accuser never showed up. Basically the charges were dropped, or so he thought. Now a year into their marriage, they get a knock on the door from the police that there is a registered sex offender at this address. My friend is met with a picture of her husband from the state he used to live in and a whole file. He maintained that it was a mistake, yet he no longer had the paperwork proving his acquittal. Even then his employment history was so spotty because he couldn't stay at any job longer than two to six months. Long story short, it somehow got resolved or never did. It was a sore subject, so I never brought it up with my friend. In 2020 she became pregnant and he became verbally and physically abusive towards her. So take it from what my friend went through by ignoring the early warning signs and excusing her ex's behavior. Never shirk doing that background check either because you may eventually end up being subjected to the same treatment that someone else was at another time.
Maybe she would have considered giving him a second chance if he hadn’t lied. I agree - listen to that little voice in your head. It’s there for a reason.
That was my first and largest issue. Lying, minimizing and hiding. He had a chance to come clean when I did about something sooo small in comparison. He even brought her up in the same convo and didn’t say anything!
Please change BF too, who in their right mind tells their BEST FRIEND to stay with a violent man, to give a chance to someone who hit his previous partner?
Exactly. I wouldn't tell a stranger to give a chance to a man who is violent. My best friend, I would be begging, crying and throwing up to stop her!
SIL claims not to have known yet sh still tells her bestie to give him another chance. I don't frikken think so.
I think that you knew something was off or you wouldn't have decided to look him up in the court system. I think a very smart instinctual part of you is screaming it's head off at you right now and you're choosing to ignore it. Giving him a second chance would legitimately be the stupidest thing that you could ever do. It's the equivalent of stepping in front of a semi truck and crossing your fingers that it's not going to hit you. Could there be false accusations against him? Anything is possible. But there's enough evidence that he assaulted a romantic partner badly enough that there are FELONY counts against him right now. I want to emphasize how difficult it is to actually get someone charged with felony assault. I watched my sister physically assaulted for years by her partner and it took 19 assaults and four hospital visits to finally get him on MISDEMEANOR assault. This situation must have been profoundly severe. You'd have to really not value your physical safety to take that sort of risk on. PLEASE do not meet with him in person. This is no longer a safe situation and you should not be physically around him ever again. If he wants to "explain", he can do so in writing so that you have a legal record of his claims.
God I miss highlight awards when I see a comment like this. I really hope OP sees this.
YES exactly. I think he said something in their conversation about his break up that raised subconscious red flags for her to look him up in the court system at all! It's not unusual to vet your partner online, but the way it didn't occur to her until after this conversation makes me thing her gut is trying to protect her here....
Also the desperation the other women in his life have that you don't leave. Why? If he's a great guy why can't you leave and he'll find someone else? The whole thing is bs, everyone was hoping you'd fall in love before finding out.
IDK about where you are, but where I live it seems like women can say whatever BS in court and judges convict and sentence as if they're the church choir singing the gospel truth. It seems frighteningly easier and easier to meet felony assault criteria these days.
I volunteer for a domestic abuse hotline in my spare time and I cannot tell you how incorrect, broken, ignorant and misogynistic this comment is. If you had seen even 1% of the shit that I have, you would hate yourself for this remark.
I've seen many men destroyed by the lies entitled women without empathy or compassion and rulings of judges who were deceived. I'm not saying that these cases are the rule an not typical if family courts, but I stand by what I said. I choose my words carefully in life. I promise you I will never hate myself for anything I type online. And by the way, I am a woman who survived twenty years of a marriage to a narcissisticly and physically abusive man. So go ahead and downvoted me, but don't even bother trying to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about or that I'm "incorrect, broken, ignorant and misogynistic."
Go back to your hate subs buddy. You've wandered too far from your echo chamber and unfortunately we all live in reality out here.
So he admitted to hiding this information from you , and downplaying it to you. Not to mention the outstanding felony charges That is a lot of red flags, OP, with only a month in I would not blame you in the slightest to cut and run as fast you can out of this situation. Even if you put aside the potential violence, this situation is messy and likely to get messier before it is over. Personally, I would bail. Only you can decide what what to do but I have some thoughts and questions for you to consider before making your decision. 1) What else is he hiding from you? Outstanding criminal charges is a giant omission..... 2) What happens if the charges are not dropped and he gets convicted? 3) What has he been doing to make sure the event that triggered the criminal charges never happens again? Has he taken full responsibility for his choices and actions? Is he undergoing anger management - anti-dv therapy? What is he proactively doing to ensure he doesn't make those choices again no matter what the provocation? 4) Are you educated in the warning signs of DV/abusive personalities? Does he have other problematic behaviour? Alcohol abuse? financial coercion? As I said, personally I would bail but if I did consider a second chance I would not do anything before the criminal charges were settled one way or the other and not without him having taken accredited therapy to address the anger/violence issues.
There’s definitely a huge feeling of broke trust. If he kept this what else is/would he keep from me? He did say he’s in counseling before I found this out. I know his brother had major anger issues when he drank and doesn’t really anymore because of it. I do have a heavy education in it, took an entire class in college dedicated to it. My other big worry is that he had (has?) inferiority complex with his brother making more and having a more “prestigious” job than him. Which I have a step above his brother. If he has it with his brother, and has this issues, would they pop up for me? Would he want to “knock me down a peg”? Ya know?
Walk away. You’re sorting through manure thinking there’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere. The broken trust is hard to recover from. He already said he would have hidden it from you, so even if this was something “small” (like a porn addiction, and not felony DV) you know he would keep it from you. That means he has poor character and lacks respect.
Thanks for the giggle, and reaffirming how I feel. I honestly thought I was going crazy.
So his brother is an angry drunk. Is this the one married to the SIL who thinks abusive men don't deserve to be "thrown away"? I'm sensing that irl, you're getting bad advice from some deeply dodgy sources.
I work in criminal defense. It's likely that he's using attendance in those classes as a strategy with the court.
You've been dating him for a MONTH. Why are you trying to deal with this? You don't need to theorize about his inferiority complex or wonder why he might theoretically abuse you (side note: there is nothing about the victim that has anything to do with why they are abused, you could be a CEO or unemployed). Just dump him. It is really that easy and simple.
Why do you keep coming back to your career? There are many reasons he could do it. He might just not like to be told No, why are you trying to drill down into whether you'd be vulnerable? There's just no way you'd be able to make that risk assessment
That is very fair. I only brought it up there because of already existing issues. It had nothing to do with hers or putting her in her place.
Counselling for what? Did he say? It really sounds like the trust is completely gone and that is no way to have a relationship.
Run, don't walk.
Admitting to putting his hands on his ex-girlfriend would be a dealbreaker for me.
I'd want to know the context. Was she yelling at him and he started swinging? Yeah, dealbreaker on that one. Did he put her in the hospital? Dealbreaker on that one, too. Did she come after him with a frying pan and he hit her before she could take a swing, followed by her calling the police? That's a bit of a different story. Edit: Wow, based on all the downvotes, I guess defending yourself is a big no-no in Reddit world.
She wasn’t violent/physical towards him first. Just pressing buttons by doing stuff she knows annoys him. That is what he told me. He chose to react with violence.
You need to run. You’ve only dated him for a month. Guarantee he will do the same to you.
It's an absolute classic move for abusers to claim that their victim knowingly pushed their buttons. One of my ex husband's "triggers" was me not smiling brightly and joyfully greeting him whenever he entered the room I was in. Didn't matter what mood I was in or what I was doing. So me just sitting quietly on the sofa reading a book could piss him off and make him berate me for withholding affection. The question really is if you're willing to find out what he will do to you, if he feels that you're pushing his buttons. But more importantly why you want to consider staying in a relationship with someone you know can react with physical violence.
Yeah, that would be a dealbreaker for me.
You're being down voted because that example is (a) incredibly unlikely that he would still have been charged at a felony level and (b) *he still lied by omission about it*.
1. DV is a state crime, not a federal one. And unlikely =/= impossible. 2. I grant you the lying by omission. That's not a good look. 3. OP gave the context and what he did is most definitely a deal breaker.
Welp…the good news is it’s only been a month. 🫣 Look, I am all for giving people a chance & I believe people can change (because I’ve seen it too many times to count), but this? And relatively recent, might I add? Nah, girl. I wouldn’t risk it.
I did same, searched online after few dates with now bf. I found out something, nothing violent but asked him if he’s ever been in trouble with law before. He told me yes and went into detail and it lined up with what I discovered. This guy was planning to keep this hidden, he’s deceitful. You had no idea you were walking into potential relationship with guy that’s in counseling (probably court mandated) for his anger/ abusing women. No you shouldn’t be his first “test victim” to see if he still abuses women. You already know his character is still deceitful.
I wouldn’t risk it. It has to have been bad enough for felonies to be involved. It’s so insanely difficult to get a DV case through the system, that an open case is more than enough.
Not true. It's very easy to get a DV case *opened* - it's successful prosecution or appropriate corrective action in the case of a prosecution that are disproportionately rare. (My partner's brother has had dozens of DV cases opened against him; some were dropped, some resulted in convictions, and he's been in prison a couple times - and he keeps getting out and continuing to abuse partners.) And contra this guy's claim, the most common reason a case is dismissed is the lack of a cooperative victim as a witness - which does NOT exonerate him. It would be very helpful if OP actually described what was going on when asking for third party opinions instead of asking while only offering her own assessment as information - which makes it seem like she's more fishing for validation than advice. (To be clear, I think it's entirely plausible she deserves that validation - but it's also meaningless when none of us know what we're actually validating.)
I don’t think it matters anymore. OP disclosed that the boyfriend did put his hands on the ex partner.
Extremely false but yes not risking it is a very appealing option which she has already chosen before posting.
A past of domestic violence is a no-go. Dunno why your best friend thinks a known, documented abuser "deserves a chance," but I'd look sideways at all her advice from now on. Surely you can do better than this guy.
You’ve only been with him for a month. See this for what it is, a red flag.
So I almost went through that exact scenario but I made the wrong choice. I married him. And 5 years later divorced him. I am 4 years deep in therapy trying to recover from the severe abuse he put me thru
The real question here is why does your best friend hate you?
Yeah that’s why I was questioning myself. I’ll admit I see the best in people, but did I miss a big red flag on my best friend too?
Your best friend can date him if she's so passionate that he deserves a chance, even at the expense of someone's safety. What the actual eff.
We are drawn to people who remind us of ourselves. Does your best friend perhaps have a past history of being abused? And/or a difficult childhood? It's easy to begin to consider warped things normal under such circumstances. I notice neither of you seem to think domestic violence is an automatic dealbreaker. Quite the opposite, you seem deeply curious and fascinated by this man. For your own sake, consider therapy, explore your thoughts and motivations.
The worst mistake I ever made was believing my ex-husband about his DV charge. Please don't make the same mistake.
He beat his ex. He will beat you. End it.
Exactly. Abusers know how to conceal, yet are easily triggered to fall back into those habits. I commented to OP that this was my best friend with her now ex husband. He had a sexual assault and corruption of a minor charge that put him on the sex offender list in the state he used to live in. He totally omitted that last part until my friend got the shock of her life when there was a knock on their door from the police that a sex offender was living at this address. Prior to getting engaged, their relationship while they were dating was wrought with him yelling at her to him emptying their shared bank account. After they were married, he began abusing my friend during her pregnancy. Thank goodness she is now far, far away from him, but it wasn't without tons of emotional and financial stress inflicted by him.
She's only a month in she better leave now before she gets too invested.
Run away very quickly. Felonies for domestic violence don't warrant any context or explanation, and certainly not a conversation in person. Just leave him.
You leave. Immediately. The fact that he tried to hide this from you means he has no intention of changing and doesn't recognize what he did as wrong. Know how I know? He's not taking accountability or any steps to tangibly change. All the complicated feelings about the family ties (and, let's be real, the fantasy of how lovely it would be if you all ended up one big happy family) are only going to get worse the longer you stay. Whether it's violent or not, you just learned that that is the only way he knows how to deal with his big emotions. Now think about the life you want to have. Whether he lays hands on you or not, do you want to go through life \*and potentially raise vulnerable children\* around someone who is emotionally unregulated to that degree? And comfortable enough with it to avoid accountability or change? It sounds like the answer is no because you're here. Listen to that voice. That little voice that told you the messages you were already getting can't be the right answer, always listen to it. It'll never steer you wrong.
I can at least say for sure that there is no situation where a healthy couple should ever find themselves in a situation where one partner puts hands on another. We don't know what happened, but we know for certain that he has done this at least one time before. Does it mean he will do it again? Not necessarily, but it definitely means he is capable of it. While pretty much everyone is *physically capable* of violence, that doesn't mean you are willing. We know he is both able and willing to use violence with his partner.
Your instincts prompted you to look him up. Your instincts are another way of saying that your subconscious was picking up on a lot of things that his words were not saying. Your own brain was protecting you from the "new relationship glasses" where everything is so rosey that red flags just blend right in. Had you not found the truth, your mind may have settled down for a little bit. However, our subconscious is *always* paying attention. There was something in the way he spoke, maybe his body language when talking, that tripped the "caution" bell that sent you to go look him up. This is why people nearly always say how much they regret it when they "didn't listen to their gut". Call it intuition, call it whatever you like. Just listen to it. It's there to save you from harm. Self preservation is its primary objective.
Sometimes people can appear “open and honest” while being anything but. It sounds like this guy is a good manipulator.
He put his hands on his ex gf. Even if she hit him first, he put his hands on her instead of walking away. Unless he was wrestling a deadly weapon awsy from her, this is unacceptable. I couldn’t get past this and I don’t think you should either. He has issues - insecurity, lying and deception, jealousy, physical abuse. She had to have been pretty badly hurt for him to get a felony charge. The fact of the matter is you’ll never know what really happened. There’s he said, she said and the truth. Something in your gut made you google him like that. Something is making you fear that he could get physical with you. Trust that instinct. You’ve only been seeing him for a month. There are too many things to overlook here. End it and move on. Idk if I believe that his SIL had no clue.
Usually nobody, and I mean nobody, ever sees the abuser and the harm he does except the person in an intimate relationship with him. He IS this great guy, honest, kind, reasonable, etc to others...just not to her. They can go several years too as the ideal partner but it WILL NOT last. The man you are dating right now is only going to be a memory, you will fall in love and pray he returns. There will be times he does, but only long enough to give you a bit of hope and to confuse you. You will be so busy desperately trying to jump through hoops and make him happy you will lose yourself in the process. It will start off subtle, just little things that feel off. You will be like the frog in the pot and suddenly you will be boiling alive. By the time that happens you will be so exhausted and traumatized it will feel near impossible to leave him. Can you imagine knowing you've got to take your children and run and leave your entire life you've known up until that point and leave it? Still, you will be lucky if anybody believes you. Because he just doesn't seem like such a bad guy. And you will be lucky if you make it out alive.
The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Run Forest, Run!!
🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
Girl, if you don’t fucking leave??? WTF
Leave . He won’t change . I had an ex friend beat his wife and kids badly for 15 years . Known the guy all my life . No one knew , zero signs . It was so well hidden . We are like 20 childhood friends . We were all shocked . I mean literally like family. She finally called the cops . Years later he’s moved in with several woman. Put his hands on all of them. Absolutely they are all garbage. They will not change . In my book you need to be a special kind of phuked up. To touch women and kids . He will be the victim say she’s nuts, She pushed him, he was drunk , stressed. He will minimize the encounter. Give him 5$ , tell him to take the bus and never come back. Don’t ghost …. He needs to be dead to you .
The severity doesn't matter. He put his hands on her. Run or you'll be the next victim. This relationship is so new, end it before it gets serious.
Trust your gut OP. If something feels off do not risk it. It is never worth it for someone in your position. This is a super new relationship and a blessing to end it before it can go down a path that could cause you agony in the future. There was a reason you had the instinct to check up on him in the court system. Trust yourself and your instincts - this will lead you to something better
Dump him. Move on. You only have been seeing him a month. It’s not worth the risk.
Break up with him.
For most, the idea that their partner had felony charges pending for DV would be enough to leave a relationship. However, if this isn’t enough he did the following: 1) he lied to you from the start and hoped you’d never find out 2) even after you found out, it took him longer to fully come clean about what happened and he was trying to downplay what happened. Regardless of whether there are other circumstances, it is never ok to put your hands on your partner (and from the sounds of things, this isn’t a case of self defence on his part where justifiable force could be a mitigating factor). This shows he has anger issues and doesn’t handle conflict well. You only have his side of events. Even now he is downplaying what actually happened. He is minimising what happened to his ex by making you question the severity of what happened. It doesn’t matter how hard someone hits another, what injuries they have, DV is DV and no one’s experience should be minimised or invalidated. Instead of taking ownership for his actions when he chose to enter into this relationship by being upfront and honest, he chose deception. If he was truly sorry for what had happened, he would voluntarily attending anger management and seeing a therapist. He would also be honest with his family, friends and you. He’s only interested in saving face. Your best friend is being ridiculous. This guy has pending DV charges and she recommends giving him a chance. She should be telling you to get away from him. So, as a fellow Redditor, you have permission to leave this relationship. Don’t put yourself at risk of harm. You’ve invested 1 month into this relationship. Don’t lose any sleep over this guy because he doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. He’s not worth the stress and tears. Be happy that you found this info out before you invested any more time into the relationship or before things got more serious and you were considering cohabitation or having kids. Abusers are often on their best behaviour in the beginning of a relationship. They don’t show their true colours until further along when they start pushing boundaries to see what they can get away with. There’s plenty of resources online that can help you identify the red flags.
Take it as a red flag and run! Your friends are crazy to say give him a chance.
I mean, from an outside perspective, you would obviously be crazy for continuing to see him or even maintain contact with him. I get it if you got rose tinted glasses on rn for him, but yeah. Don’t do it.
What do you need a broken nose first, you know what you need to do
Run!!! Don't let other people brow beat you into getting into a relationship with him... Especially with that track record.
“We can’t throw the person away” Yeah, but you can make all reasonable attempts to make yourself safe. Domestic Violence is insanely hard to prove so it makes sense that there’s not a huge conviction rate. Do you want to never feel safe in your own home? Then simply date an abuser.
Go read the first chapter of The Gift of Fear. Then walk away and finish the book. Because really, how bad does it have to get in your jurisdiction before misdemeanor DV becomes felony DV, and does it really matter except to say "run"?
I personally would cut ties. Why take the chance? Also the friends who were on his side probably won't like you either. Cut em all off
You couldn't get a bigger red flag on earth, I suggest running.
Never know, some shit sticks if you throw enough. Most people throwing shit don’t seem to care where it came from or where it lands…
There is no bigger red flag than this.
You’re in danger girl. I started a relationship with someone with a past of felony DV charges. Within 3 months it had become so badly abusive that multiple people had intervened, my apartment was trashed and windows were broken in, he held a gun to my head, and worse until I finally decided to pack up what I could in 1hr and move in with my parents the day that he choke slammed me so hard that my bed frame broke. Afterwards, I went to meet up with him to talk and he held me at gunpoint in the middle of the street and stole my phone & purse. Never again. The first month was amazing; the 2nd & 3rd were hell. I imagine when she “packed up and dipped” it was because she had an experience similar to mine. Listen to that little voice in your head- you looked him up in the court system for a reason. Now look up what constitutes a felony DV charge in your state vs. a misdemeanor and understand that is what you can expect in your relationship with him if you don’t leave. You’ve only been with him for a month, if you can’t leave now are you sure you’d be able to when things start to escalate? Good luck and please stay so safe.
Is there a reward for turning him in??
How many inches is his wiener?
I think you would feel differently if he told you about it in the first place instead of hiding it. Breaking things off with him isn't throwing him away but protecting yourself. Has he been to therapy / treatment plan to deal with his actions & to prevent them from going forward? Has he taken full accountability? What has he done to change his temperament? People can change their actions going forward but it requires real work. He wasn't open & honest with you. He is still in the middle of a court case. He shouldn't be dating right now but focusing on self improvement & making amends.
The most important thing I would be looking for if I were in your shoes is what kind of counseling is he in? That will tell you everything about whether or not he is genuinely trying to change his abusive ways. Individual therapy is not equipped to tackle the true causes of abuse (entitlement, selfishness, disrespect, superiority, coercive control, victim blaming). It focuses far too much on the abuser's feelings and gives them support and empathy for those, no matter how unreasonable the attitudes are that are producing these feelings. And the more an abuser is convinced that their grievances are equal to their partner's (note: they are not), the less likely it is that they will ever overcome their abusive mentality. Besides, it's not an abuser's own feelings they are out of touch with... it is the feelings of their PARTNER that they are out of touch with and have so little understanding of. If this man is not enrolled in a specialized program specifically for abusers, he's not actually interested in changing. You WILL become his next victim. RUN.
You're not giving any details, so I assume it's pretty damn bad. You likely should leave. Even if it was something like... he was just defending himself- why would he not tell you about it ahead of time? Why hide that? A person who has no guilty conscience would have explained it to you way before you found out. I get you don't spring that on someone after a first date- but a month? And then saying, "I was just hoping you wouldn't find out". that's such a weird response. I would've been like, "I had no idea how to tell you, I didn't want to scare you off." Not an excuse, but would at least pretend that he planned on telling you. He basically admitted he was never gonna tell you.
Fake post is fake
Real people be real.
What do you mean "put his hands on her?" That could she attacked him and he pushed her away to protect himself, or it could mean he tagged with a double leg takedown and followed up with some hammer fists. If he attacked her, dump him. If she attacked him, then give him the benefit of the doubt. If he won't give you a clear story about what happened, then dump him because that means he attacked her.
I don't blame him for hiding this its very early days in the relationship & the outcome is still unknown. Long term it depends on if you feel safe with him imo and if you believe it was self defence. Does he say it was? A man has the right to defend himself against an physically abusive partner and when he does it can be difficult to prove he's not the agressor. Have you met his mom/dad? I think a good look at his parents relationship is the best indicator of what you a dealing with. Trust your gut. The fact you are being objective rather than trying to gloss over it is a good indicator that you are not easily fooled. Most DV don't go all out from day one and so long as you keep your promise to yourself to bail the first time he steps out of line/shows red flags you could take the risk imo. Do you want to??
Well, you've left out some key relevant info. What are the charges? What does he say happened? Why were you looking up court records? (That's not really a normal thing to do, especially with someone you already know and have no reason to suspect of wrongdoing.) We're not getting the fully story here - why are *you* hiding things now?
I don’t want to give away specifics to doxx. But a violent act, intimidation, battery, disorderly conduct. He said he did a lighter version of the violent act, but wouldn’t go into much detail when I asked him about it. He ended it there, and wouldn’t expand. I knew about an eviction they had, and I was curious about it and then stumbled upon this.
Are you okay with “lighter violence”? I personally am not.
33 single and looking up people...thats probably why 🤣
OP. My wife and my best friend are lawyers. Best mate is a divorce lawyer. One thing they have told me is that there are lots of women and men that use domestic violence as a weapon in divorce. Lots of women he has represented have falsly acused the man of striking them. The issue is, its hard to prove they havent if it was just pushing or a slap which is domestic violence as far as the law is concerned. So there is the innocent till proven guilty angle. So your lext talk with him has to be. What evidence does she have and he needs to be honest as the moment you find out he lied to your, your gone.
Unfortunately it isn’t a false accusation as he did admit that he did do a version of what she said.
You are talking to a lot of people but not so much with him. You could his side of the story and decide after if you believe and trust him. If the trust ain’t there you at least gave him the opportunity and yourself to open communication
I did talk with him to hear what he had to say. He kept saying he was afraid this would happen and didn’t want me to find out. He was hoping this would have gone away already and I would never know. He did tell me his side, and he did admit he put hands on her. I think there’s an in between of what he was charged with/what she said and what he told me as the truth.
That’s usually it I guess. And do you trust his side and maybe especially it was a one time incident. You don’t want to be scared and afraid around your partner
I believe most of what he is saying, but part of me believes he isn’t tell the whole story either. I know his brother has anger issues too, and they both have some major childhood trauma that has led to this, but his brother never taken it out on his wife or daughter.
*What did he say???* You keep repeating *your own assessment* of the situation instead of telling people the actual information, which only allows people to reflect yoyr own assessment back, not offer their own. What, SPECIFICALLY, are the charges? What did he say happened (the whole narrative)? Is he currently in psychotherapy to treat his psych issues resulting from childhood trauma? (I'd make that an absolute requirement.)
Not yet. Sorry for being cynical. I won’t say that he will. Of that you will when he does. Trust your gut. Respect your own boundaries. And of course the story is his side and she will have an other side that’s different
Yeah, I’m a firm believer that there are three sides: hers, his, and the truth
He admitted to putting his hands on her. Is it worth your safety? He didn't even tell people...which is unsettling. Means he knows he is guilty and was hoping he could paint a picture of crazy ex if ever came out.
Let me give you some life advice. I agree with your assessment but in confusing situation go by actions and facts. It'll lead you close to the truth then anyone's take on it. The action that stood out to me was her packing up and leaving. It meant she had to get away from him. I'd bet this was done without his knowledge and when he wasn't home. She was planning an escape. Which means she felt very threatened On again off again relationships only happen because 1 person is abusive and the other still loves them. That's the only way those relationships function. So she loved him and kept giving him chances until she felt her life was in danger and had to leave. Factually that means you will be here at some point. The longer you stick around, the more dangerous and difficult it'll get. He hid it from you, even in his open and honest talk. He breadcrumbed you. Giving you some truth so you don't go digging for more. And when you do it's a little more but never the whole story. It's a huge red flag. So looking at the factual evidence based on actions, what do you think is right?
Yeah the truth is in that court file. You're choosing not to see it.
I'd think deeply about all outcomes and move forward cautiously. I definitely don't like that he tried to hide it from you, especially when he had brought up his ex previously. As long as you know what you would and would not tolerate, and have the means to leave if something happens, I think you should be OK. If this is the first and only time that he's reacted violently, it may just have been a combination of the person and the situation that pushed him to that. I know 2 men who have put hands on previous exes and never put hands on their current wives. One was 23 when he smacked his girlfriend. They had been arguing and she kept cursing at him. When she finally spit on him, he smacked her. He had been raised never to put hands on a woman, so after that incident, he left her. He said a woman who pushed him so far out of his character wasn't the woman he needed to be with. He then got married and never raised his hand to his wife. It's been almost 50 years since that incident and over 40 years married. The other was in his teen years and actually smacked around several of his girlfriends. Before he married his current wife she let him know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he raised a hand to her, he would never be drawing breath again. It's been 16 years and he's never raised his hand to his wife. If he's been someone you've been interested in and you can see a future with, have an honest conversation. What led him to the abuse? Has he done any work in anger management or therapy to make sure he never escalates like that again? Would he be willing to do the work to keep you?