How to Turn Red Flags into Deal Breakers

And avoid future heartbreak

Any of us who have had the misfortune of being in an abusive relationship of any kind, especially with a narcissist, have experienced what it is to look back to the beginning and spot the warning signs that we either ignored or failed to recognize.

When I reflected on the first few months — even the first few weeks — of my subsequent marriage to a man with whom I would have children, build businesses and a life with, and who would later be diagnosed as a narcissist, there were enough red flags to supply a communist parade.

There are all sorts of reasons as to why we choose to avoid our gut instinct and move forward with someone who is clearly going to cause us trouble and heartbreak later on (lack of self-worth, no boundaries, an inherent belief we are hard to love), and this self-reflection is important because it serves as a tool of empowerment when moving forward in the healing and recovery process.

But what is equally important is to identify what red flags are missed (or ignored) so that the next time a narcissist or toxic person tries to walk through your door, you won’t need but a minute to spot them and then lock up that door nice and tight while sending them on their way.

Let’s first get really clear on what red flags are and why when we ignore them, we do so at our own peril. Call it your gut instinct, intuition, a sixth sense — the semantics don’t matter here.

A red flag is your soul’s warning system: Danger. Alert. *insert annoying alarm sound here*

Of course, it’s easy to put this alarm on mute the second it starts to go off. Especially if we’ve entered into the toxic combination of being a person who believes in the inherent goodness of all people and an abusive personality such as a narcissist who takes advantage of this belief to “seduce and snare” us before we realize what happened.

Combine this with a lack of self-love on our part and it’s no wonder why we’re duped into loving and trusting people who never deserved our love and trust in the first place.

However, if you’ve finally arrived at a place of been there done that never want to be there again after having your heart ripped out of your chest by the one whose red flags you overlooked, it’s time to turn up the volume on that inner warning system of yours. Because when it’s loud enough, you’ll only need to hear it once before heeding it, thus ridding your life of all those red flags flying by upgrading your self-worth and investing in only one mode of protection for it: the deal-breaker.

How do you spot a deal-breaker?

By first reflecting on all those red flags of the past. I’ll use myself as an example since I’ve already gone through the process of not only identifying all those I ignored (I’d like to say I innocently “missed” them, but who are we kidding?) but also forgiving myself for being so blind to the truth.

A red flag is anything that provokes a moment of doubt within that you then try to negotiate, excuse, and rationalize in the effort to make it go away.

This is typically done with someone we are falling hard or have already fallen for whose charm and passion and affection override the logical side to our senses, compelling us to instead believe them in exchange of our own intuition.

Red flags come in all sorts of degrees — from the giant ones that are whipped up in a frenzy by hurricane-force winds to the smaller ones that move so slightly in the breeze we tend not to notice them until they’ve accumulated like dandelions in the yard to the point where we no longer see the grass.

Identifying red flags is especially helpful to spot a narcissist who may be love-bombing his way into your heart. I could write a book on all the types of red flags I encountered when meeting, falling in love with, marrying, and building a life with a diagnosed narcissist. But I’ll stick to the ones that really stood out since they started flying early on in the relationship.

Red flags within the first few months of meeting him (examples for training purposes only, no judgment allowed):

~ He had recently broken up with his girlfriend, who he was cheating on with his good friend’s wife.

~ He called women who were complete strangers “Honey” and “Amor” no matter their age and flirted with every vagina in a fifty-foot radius.

~ Before our first kiss, he wanted to “breathe in my soul” since he claimed the Universe had brought us together and we needed to meld souls to seal the deal.

~ Before we began dating, he made me a mixed tape (it was the 90s) and told me to listen to one song in particular. It was Bryan Adams, Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman: “…when you can see your unborn children in her eyes.”

~ He was fired from a previous management position for sexual harassment.

~ When he introduced me to his mother and sister, they called him by another name because he used to live under an alias to stay in the country.

~ I found out his mother and sister weren’t actually his mother and sister. At the time I thought it was sweet because I assumed his real mom was not in the picture. But his real mom was very much in the picture and lived in Florida, along with his four biological sisters.

~ On our first dinner date he took me Hooters where I ordered chicken wings from two large breasts.

~ He recited poetry in public, once holding up the line at a pizza parlor so he could finish and then bask in everyone’s applause.

~ He swore that he was a changed man once I came into his life, and all his past bad behaviors (right up until we met) were now just that — past.

And the biggest red flag of them all:

~ He only admitted the lies that I caught him in. Full disclosure was never offered on his own accord.

Sharing this otherwise embarrassing information about my own experience (falling hook, line, and sinker for a charming narcissist who convinced me to set sail with him no matter how many red flags were actually steering the ship) is easy to do. Easy because I’ve arrived at a place of emotional freedom and detachment from my experience after putting in the hard work during the healing process of figuring out exactly how I got where I did.

The main reason being that I never wanted to set sail on that ship ever again.

Hence the need and my new love for the deal-breaker. This blocks even the possibility that I’ll be led down a path of potential future abuse by someone who relies on charm, manipulation, and deceit to weasel their way into my heart. This door is no longer open for all kinds of crazy to walk in, and it’s heavily protected with an alarm system that need only go off once.

And instead of a loud, annoying warning buzzer that might tempt me to hit Mute as I used to do, now my inner alarm is in the soothing voice of Maya Angelou who reminds me with her loving discipline, When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

The first time.

The deal-breaker.

No need for rationalizing someone else’s behavior. No excuses made. No second, tenth, hundredth chance offered. No lowering of expectations to justify the actions of another. No alibis allowed. No song and dance where apologies are thrown around like dice. No amnesty at your heart’s expense. No tolerance for the trouble. No charity for the cheater.

And here’s the beauty of relying only upon the deal-breaker as your protection: No effort on your part is required other than recognition.

There is no anger, no heartbreak, no guilt, and no love lost when you depend on your intuition because you’ve yet to form any sort of connection or bond with the one who is showing you who they are. This is not true if you’re continuing to ignore red flags because you’re trading your self-worth for the naïve hope that someone is going to change — or you’re going to change them. By the time you’ve begun collecting (and ignoring) red flags, your heart’s already been surrendered to the illusion that things may turn around and be different from what they actually are.

So save yourself from future heartbreak (and potential abuse) by refusing to add even one more red flag to your collection. And instead, turn up the volume on that inner voice of yours who won’t let you down as long as you listen to it.

And that’s one deal you’ll be glad you didn’t break.

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