A lot of people have dated at least one person who made your life a living hell either before or after you broke up, so if your partner has a “crazy ex-girlfriend” story or two, it should come as no surprise. But if it seems like this guy has literally never dated a woman who WASN’T “nuts”, be on the lookout for these signs that he’s actually the problem:
- All of them are “crazy.” Really? He’s never even had ONE ex who wasn’t a psycho, jealous control freak? Some people really are super unlucky in love, but the chances of dating five completely terrible people in a row are pretty slim. If this guy seems to have only dated crazies, then keep in mind that he’s the connection between them all. In other words, he’s probably the crazy one.
- He never accepts any responsibility for his past breakups. Most of us can look back on past relationships and take at least some responsibility for the way some of them ended. If your boyfriend is swearing up and down that he was nothing but an angel throughout all of this relationships and all of his exes just coincidentally turned into terrible people overnight, he’s not being completely honest with you.
- He compares you to them. The moment you tell him you’re not cool with how close he is to that one female coworker, he says you’re “just like them.” Whenever you have a disagreement, he rolls his eyes and says, “I really do only attract nutjobs.” Don’t fall for this BS — he’s trying to mess with your head and get you on his side using the power of fear. This dude’s a manipulator, and you can bet he used the same tactics on the women who dated him before.
- They were all “crazy” for the same reasons. One woman who had ridiculous jealousy issues is one woman who had ridiculous jealousy issues. Six women who had ridiculous jealousy issues were dating a man who gave them every reason in the world to be jealous. A lot of us have at least one ex who was a bit obsessive or just plain weird, but when all of your boyfriend’s former girlfriends had the same symptoms of being “psycho,” that’s no coincidence.
- You’ve met them before… and they’re fine. To be fair, some people are really, really good at hiding their crazy. But if you actually know your partner’s exes and not one of them seems like the type to take things to the extreme in a relationship, he might’ve been lying to you about them. If you’re unsure, see if you can creep on their social media pages; if they don’t seem like the type to passive-aggressively stir up drama online, it’s not likely that they’re doing it in their real-life relationships. It’s not a fool-proof method for uncovering the truth, but it could be one more piece to the puzzle.
- You can kind of see why they went “crazy.” Even the most rational human beings will start to become a little unhinged in the right (or rather, wrong) circumstances. If your boyfriend throws a tantrum when he doesn’t get his way, talks down to you, or seems to constantly be on the verge of infidelity, chances are you’ll eventually start to feel like a slightly less sane version of your former self. If you’re feeling like that already, you’re likely not the first woman he’s dated to experience this crap.
- He gaslights you. Have you ever listened to him say something or watched him do something only to hear him deny it when you called him out on it? That’s classic gaslighting, and even though it seems like such a bizarre, obvious manipulation tactic, people who are good at lying know how to use it to make you think they’re always right and you’re losing your mind. If you start to notice he’s doing it to you, it’s guaranteed that he also did it to the girlfriends he had before you.
- Everything is your fault. He only threw a plate across the room because YOU made him so angry. If YOU had just given him more attention, he wouldn’t have felt the need to reactivate his Tinder profile. Everything that HE does is somehow your fault, and if you think that you’re the only woman he’s dated to get this kind of treatment, you’re wrong.
- His stories don’t add up. Have you ever brought up one of his ex’s “crazy” instances to one of his friends, only to have the friend raise an eyebrow in confusion? Or has he ever given two different accounts of what his exes actually did that made them so nuts? If your boyfriend can’t keep his wires uncrossed, it’s because, well, it’s harder to remember a lie than the truth. It’s time to start questioning what really happened if your partner’s stories about his exes don’t line up.
- He’s called you crazy before, too. You’re probably a pretty rational human being, so if your boyfriend throws that word at you during an argument, it’s a pretty solid indication that his standards for insanity are pretty low. If he’s so eager to put that label on you, you can pretty much guarantee those women from his past were also put into that category unfairly.
