Red Flags I Ignored with My Husband

And why I think 'red flags' have risen past their station

Happy ‘Happy Endings’ Monday, dear reader. I have a beachy read for you in honor of a holiday weekend in my homeland. But before you dive in, if you’re extra-interested in consuming my love life, you can listen to me talk with Tash Doherty from Misseducated on her post ‘We write about sex 💦,’ where you’ll find new and familiar stories 🙂 Now, without further ado…

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6 Red Flags I Ignored with My Husband

I never had a list of what I wanted in a partner, but I did know what I didn’t want.

They couldn’t be senseless. They couldn’t be cents-less. They couldn’t be friendless. They couldn’t be immature.

This was my list of red flags to avoid, and I stand by it. The problem was, when I met my future husband, extraneous flags I hadn’t considered but were embedded somewhere in my culturally influenced psyche popped up and made me pause.

Over our courtship—starting the first night I went home with him—questions presented themselves in my head, and I had to decide: Does this matter, too? These supplanted ideas of ‘wrong’ from the culture I consumed made me momentarily doubt love.

I chose to overlook these ‘red flags,’ and I’m fucking glad I did. (We’re happily married, duh!) And through this consideration process, I’ve decided these supposed signs of what's wrong with a potential partner say more about the one pointing than the one supposedly holding it.

***

imagine this but 2010s Hackney and American Apparel baby rib briefs

MY HUSBAND HAD LEOPARD PRINT SHEETS

Something in me believed playboys wrapped their bedding in prints to present a wild, animalistic persona. And to hide stains through contrasting colors.

But when I listened to my gut, I knew that wasn’t him. He has taste. An aesthetic opinion. I admired that about him. His whole flat had a mood that was not performative but very him. Not only him, but me, too—I felt at home in his home even before I felt at home with him.

MY HUSBAND HAS FEMALE FRIENDS

His best friends were women—some older, some younger. They went to gigs together. They worked together. He was the one guy in their gang at festivals. This trope unsettled me, but when I looked beyond that cultural bias, and actually watched him with them, I realized how lovely of a person he was to make his motley crew of punks feel safe, accepted, and have a laugh.

Besides, it was proof that he had real, long-term, genuine friendships—one thing I knew I needed before falling for someone.

MY HUSBAND DISAGREES WITH ME

I was utterly shocked when the party lines of the internationally young and hip were met with anything other than the calls’ response.

I’d known smart people, but I’d not known someone with such sense to appreciate open discussion and not accept thought from ideology without question.

MY HUSBAND HAS THIN HAIR

Joe had a horrible haircut. He had a partially grown-out undercut and long, thin hair over the top that he’d flop into what some may call a man bun, but I called a messy, saggy bun because that didn’t have the cultural baggage.

I didn’t realize I’d let society convince me these were unfavorable traits. I had a thick hair bias. My lack of experience meant I had no idea how much his new dad haircut would transform him (hot! (He was with the long ‘do, too, okay!)).

MY HUSBAND SHOWS UP TO WORK LATE AND LEAVES EARLY

He had cents. He owned his flat (though he got the deposit from Bitcoin, which could’ve been another red flag). He had a job. He didn’t have superfluous assets or debts. But he didn’t take his work seriously either.

I didn’t just ignore this one. I embraced it.

I loved that he loved living more than working. I knew he had principles, a sense of responsibility, and a point of view on ‘success,’ but I wanted to spend time with the man I loved and was glad he did, too.

MY HUSBAND ADMIRES MACHIAVELLI

(This one is a snub on the uninspired list of literary red flags on Dazed the other day that inspired this essay.)

After our first date, I could’ve hyper-analyzed my husband for lending me a copy of ‘Convenience Store Woman’ by Sayaka Murata. Is he trying to show that he reads international female authors? Or for reading (re-reading) ‘The Prince’ by Niccolo Machiavelli while waiting for me to arrive at the rendezvous point before our second date. Is he so captivated by historical philosophy that he’d not be a modern partner? Does he see all life as cold opportunity to grasp? Was he too ‘masculine’ for me?

Fortunately, as he read and sat at the picnic bench, his posture was so unbelievably sexy (he had one ankle balancing on the opposite knee, a cigarette pinched low near that foot, and the opposite arm—elbow bent on the table—held the book open near his face) that I had more than a second to stop myself from superficial psychoanalysis.

Because, regardless, reading is never a red flag. Any analysis of another person’s belongings and habits says more about you than it does about them. It says you’re immature. Something that I knew he wasn’t.

**

‘Red flags‘ have a use. But talk of them fly at new heights. People are waving ’red flags’ in an arbitrary army of overkill warnings.

And, I wonder, what are you overlooking while looking for love?

Soundtrack:

Tell me:

• What red flags are you glad you looked past?

• What red flags do you wish you’d looked past on the one that got away?

• Should we burn simplified relationship-help nomenclature all together, or is it useful?

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