¶ Dating Red Flags and Relationship Advice
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All right , babe , here we are back again .
Hey everybody , welcome back to dates , mates and babies with the Valentines . Good to be with you .
We are going to be focusing on dating today , so hopefully this is helpful , but we're actually going to give you a list of 20 dating red flags that you shouldn't look past in your relationship and before we dive in and get going , we should just say that for the purposes of this conversation , a red flag is not necessarily a instant deal breaker , but a red
flag would be something that you'll want to pay attention to if it sticks out in your spirit .
Like if you're kind of going on the dating journey and something happens and it sticks out to you , we would just say pay attention to it and discover what's behind it a little bit , and then we're going to do some exploring and asking questions , because you'll want to know the reason behind whatever it is that sticks out to you .
So we're going to give you our list of 20 , and it's not exhaustive and it's not in any particular order , but hopefully it's helpful for those of you who are dating .
Yeah , I also think like we've all been in relationships that have either gone on too long or ended up hard , you know hurtful and you look back and go . man , I wish I would have really paid attention to these things that were happening . Maybe the lack of boundaries or gossiping , or it doesn't even have to honestly be a like dating type of relationship .
This is going to be a good list , too for people who are making friends and who you start to go like , hmm , I should have paid attention to this , this sign , this warning sign , this red flag , and instead I just kind of ran right through all of these and then I end up in these bad relationships that don't work out .
Yeah , we could even say that this list would be kind of like a filter list that helps you actually gauge how close are you going to be to someone , because we've talked in other episodes about boundaries and things like that . These you know , when you're , oh , crack open , that I'm diving into it man .
This would be potentially a good way to understand , like , if you're in a dating relationship , you're pursuing intimacy with someone on a certain level and you're not going to go to deeper and deeper and deeper levels of intimacy with someone if these red flags start cropping up .
Like Jay said , similarly , in friendship , you're only going to get so close to someone if some of these red flags start popping up inside of your friendship .
So yeah , All right , I'm going to do the first one . Okay , go , no relationship with God . If someone doesn't have a good relationship with God or a relationship with God and I hear this a lot , especially honestly , with women so I have women contact me and they go there's this really awesome guy , but he doesn't have a relationship with God .
What should I do ? And the truth is is , like man , someone could have a whole bunch of things , but if they don't have a relationship with God , to me this is one of those that is a no go .
Right .
It's . It's if you're just having a friendship , like got a guy friendship and a guy doesn't have a relationship with God whatever you know , got lots of fishing friends , lots of hunting friends that aren't Christians . Yeah , they're great people . But when you're going to anchor your life to somebody for the rest of your life , that thing's got to be solid .
They have to have a relationship with God .
Yeah , absolutely Okay . Number two incompatibility of core values .
Okay , so if you're in a relationship and you discover that your core values are not shared , you're going to find yourself in a world hurt at some point or another , because , ultimately , you would be protecting different things inside of your relationship , like you don't want to be married to somebody who's not protecting the same thing that you're protecting .
So core values could be , um , you know , core values around family , core values around morality , core values around your relationship with God , core values around money , uh , relationships .
Everybody's core values can be different to some degree , but if you start recognizing that in my life as a human , I'm protecting certain things and that that other person that I'm in a relationship with doesn't protect the same things , you're just going to have to be aware of that .
Yeah , and that will be tough . Um number three doesn't show consideration or respect Um seems like a no brainer . It does .
But you would be surprised how many I would say again , probably women get into relationships where there's not a lot of respect and somehow an infatuation with someone overrides the common sense of like . This person doesn't know how to be respectful or be considerate . That's not something that you sorry .
I interrupted you because I'm like , wow , you felt powerful Well no , I just think .
I guess maybe I want to precursor some of these and say it might sound like common sense , but when you're in a relationship , some of these things get overlooked .
Well , I think the the word consideration to like when somebody's thinking about you .
It feels so good and so connected , but it's not just to me , it's not somebody that doesn't show respect , it's like , well , they don't really consider me very often and I can I be honest and say this is an area that I grew in as we were married , because when we were , when we were first married , I would make breakfast for me .
Mm-hmm and you'd be like there's four other people in this family and it wasn't that I was trying to be inconsiderate , but I wasn't being considerate . I wasn't thinking fully through oh , what does somebody else need ? And so part of it for me is , this would be an area that you'd , that you can grow in and help help that person .
See , like , hey , I don't feel super considered in this area and see if they grow or not .
Yeah , it's good , all right . Number four would be lack of emotional maturity , and this is a broad umbrella .
This is a big one , but just in general , if you start finding that you're in a relationship with someone who seems to not actually be able to read the room , they're not actually able to , in a mature way , navigate through their own feelings , their own thoughts , their own emotions . They can't actually piece together what's going on inside of them .
Maybe a lack of self-awareness would be in this umbrella . But yeah , you want to be in a dating relationship with somebody that has an a level of emotional maturity that's , you know , able to interact with you as a you know .
I think it's like this , I think it's we . We got into a tight , a tough spot and they didn't handle it good at all . Yeah or , and they always have this drama around them they just have these relationships that constantly end up in drama . Yeah it's that type of stuff .
Yeah , or they , you know a mistake was made and they , they took it really personally when you know , yeah , yeah , those kinds of things and then you're going am I making too big of a deal out of this ?
Well , it's like , hmm , that's probably . It's a red flag .
You need to watch that Absolutely .
Okay , I put this one on here because I do think that it's a red flag and it's dead . I think it is is that Everyone has had debt before and it's not a no-go . But if you don't know how to steward finances , and how to how to make sacrifices and make good decisions over a long period of time . Finance is a big issue in relationships .
Yeah , just put so much pressure , and so you know it's . It is a sign of maturity .
It's a sign of not having debt is a sign of maturity .
Yeah , it's a sign of maturity and so you know , if you're gonna be in a relationship With somebody who's got a lot of debt , then you have to really know why and know that you're probably gonna carry a bit of a burden . That's the other piece too , is when we first got married . I had that . I had what 30,000 in debt from my divorce and we .
That was a little bit of a burden . Oh yeah , I think two years . We paid it off . It was a lot yeah , so anyways , but there was good again . It was a red flag for her and for me to go like I've got this debt . Can I really be married and pay this debt off ? What's my plan ?
So big deal , yep , okay , number six would be defensiveness .
So In a relationship , somebody who is really defensive all the time Usually doesn't know how to take a lot of ownership , and that is a big red flag because as adults , we're looking for other adults who know how to take ownership of their lives , who , when something comes up Maybe a weakness or a growth area in their lives , if the people closest to us bring
up a weakness , maturity says I can actually take a look at that , I can respect you for bringing that to my attention and I can figure out what to take ownership of when people are defensive or easily offended by input . It's a real sign of lack of ownership and that would be a red flag to me for sure .
Yeah , and you don't want to have to say everything perfect all the time . Yeah because somebody gets really offended right . Number seven is not connected to community . So again , a red flag . There's lots of reasons why people don't have friends . Could be they just moved , blah , blah , blah . But it does become a thing .
When you're thinking about Bringing someone into your life long term and they don't really have good friendship or good community , you start to think like well , can they foster good relationships ? Yeah , healthy community .
So it's a , it's definitely a place to take a look , ask some questions , get to know what that person's relational history is , especially if they have a cycle of broken relationships . I think lack of . I have a really good friend who married somebody who , until they got married , he just didn't have a lot of great friends and he worked really hard .
His life was kind of like work , played a little bit of golf , had like one close , close friend , but not a huge community , and she had like a huge , booming community .
That's a great example of a red flag , cause at the bottom of that , it wasn't that he had a pattern of broken relationships , it's that his personality and his season of life didn't lend itself well to building a robust community . That's actually a strength that she brought to their marriage and he's so happy and thankful inside of that .
They really compliment each other well . So , again , not a deal breaker , but something to really look into . Okay , next one would be doesn't ask good questions .
Yeah , people are gonna have to grow in this area , right , it's a red flag , so it's not a no go . But if you're with somebody and they don't do a great job at really taking an interest in you and I know this one's yours- no . Then it's just hard to feel known by then , and hard to feel seen and understood .
People that don't ask good questions often don't know how to engage and inside of marriage it can be very lonely if you don't feel your partner really engaged with you . So I would also say people that don't know how to ask good questions often think a lot about themselves and that's not fun .
Yeah , or they don't know how to find their own needs . So that's what I've noticed a lot with men is they don't ask great questions because they're not actually aware of what's going on inside of them . Interesting , yeah , yeah so it can just be a skill set . It can be a learned thing . Not aware of boundaries or has .
Obviously , if they have bad boundaries , that's not awesome either , but not aware of boundaries too . Those to me are two kind of different but similar things , and it is a red flag .
Have you ever had that friend who just constantly pushes past the boundaries in social settings , in a relationship , and even if they don't mean to , all the time it's like so annoying and frustrating ? And I'm thinking about a person right now .
Oh gosh , shall remain unnamed .
Yeah , and they're just a little bit young , but they constantly push past the boundary in a social setting and it just gets really awkward , constantly awkward and frustrating . But in a relationship too , I think .
If you're in a dating relationship and someone's always pushing the boundary , they're always let's say that not touching your boobs and whatever physical boundaries .
If you're with somebody and you're the one that's always having to hold the boundary , it's like man , I'm doing all the work here , and that's gonna bleed over into your marriage , where they either are aware of the boundary or again , you're the one that's constantly having to establish and re-establish the boundary , and it just becomes a lot of work .
Yeah , ultimately , being aware of boundaries , initiating boundaries , keeping boundaries that is how you build trust in a relationship . So if you're in a relationship with somebody that doesn't seem to be aware of boundaries , it's an indicator that building and maintaining trust is gonna be hard .
So true .
All right , number 10 , number 10 , red flag being critical . If you're in a relationship with somebody that you know you noticed is really critical , that is . That's tough because ultimately you wanna be in a relationship with somebody who's making space for you to be fully who you are .
Now that doesn't mean that they're not allowed to have any criticism of or communication of , like hey , I've noticed that , you know , I don't know a great example of them .
Well , criticism comes with judgment .
Yes , Right , and I think that that's the big problem with criticism is like if I come to you and I say , hey , I'm really I'm in a lot of pain because of what happened yesterday , or hey , the way that you talk to the kids didn't feel super good , I'm coming to you with compassion , but criticism is typically filled with judgment and it just feels yucky .
Yeah , well , what I was gonna say was criticism is different than input . Yes , and feedback . Criticism is not the same thing as feedback .
¶ Important Factors in Healthy Relationships
And in a relationship , we're looking for it to be in relationships with people who can take feedback , who we can actually have a healthy communication with about you know , input is important but ultimately , in marriage you're looking to be in a relationship with somebody who you are free to be yourself around me .
And in relationships where there's a lot of criticism and people don't actually feel permission to be themselves , that's not . You're never going to find a thriving place you walk on eggshells , yeah , you walk on eggshells . You don't feel free to be yourself . That is on it . You know that's not an authentic relationship .
I would say this is a big one , just in relationships outside of like dating , like being friends with someone who's really critical . That will really wear on you Something to look at , because you can have a really great friend , but man they're then they just have this thing where they're critical .
It's not fun .
11 . It don't handle conflict well .
Yeah .
This is going to be a big one to me because it's like they we do really great in relationship until we get into a conflict and then it every time it just blows up and it melts down and the repair attempts are super hard . And this is going to be one that that , yeah , it might be a no go for me especially because at all of life is conflict .
You're doing conflict so much . I'm a little bit conflict today and I do conflict with my kids all the time , and if they have the ability to handle conflict , you're like you can tackle anything right . But if they don't , then like life just becomes again . You're walking on eggshells .
It's super tough and you never ultimately build the bond that conflict is supposed to build between two healthy people , right , and so your relationship ends up being really weak .
Yeah , I would say too , this one makes a great case for hey , maybe don't consider marriage at all until you have gone through some measure of conflict together and it goes well .
Yeah .
Like I wouldn't say yes to marrying somebody if we've never had an argument about anything .
Yeah .
You want to know how arguments go before you say yes .
For sure .
All right . Number 12 gossip Again . That's you know you're looking for . To be in a relationship with somebody where there's a ton of trust and you're building trust through your interactions , and gossiping is a trust breaker .
You know to to have a relationship full of gossip or to be in a relationship with somebody who is constantly talking about other people behind their backs , not actually , um , doing powerful communication or conflict resolution .
You know somebody does something and instead of going to that person and actually working it out with them , they just go and talk about it behind . You know that all should be , that that is an indicator for you that it is hard to build trust with the person who who has a habit of gossiping .
Can I add one to this ? Yeah , they talk bad about their exes .
Oof .
I to me when I think of gossip , I think , man , there's , there's still talking about that last relationship , that they're in and talking bad about the person , like just their inability to resolve the past and their inability to find peace and to honor somebody who maybe wasn't honorable is a that's a big thing .
Totally .
Okay , um , lax communication . So , uh , and I think , when you're in a relationship where someone isn't great at communicating , not even just through conflict , but communicating where they're at and what their intention is , and how they're feeling . Yeah , how you're feeling and where you're going . It's really hard hard to be in a .
It's not hard to be friends with someone like that casually , but it's really hard to be in a lifelong relationship with someone who has a hard time communicating where they're at .
Absolutely Okay . Number 14 . Controlling behavior . So yeah , I mean , we all know what it feels like to be in an interaction with somebody that feels controlling and ultimately , again , it's just not fun .
It can be , um , you know , when you feel like somebody has strong opinions or strong ideas of how things should go , you know that's okay for a little bit , but ultimately , if you find yourself you know this person is so controlling that I'm actually not free to be myself or to bring myself to the table .
You're not going to be able to do that for very long before you start finding yourself really resentful and feeling trapped .
I think too , especially in a relationship , when it gets into , they're controlling out of jealousy and out of fear .
Yeah .
Then there's no way to win in that relationship , right ? Because they're ? They're also suspicious often and so you're in a relationship with someone who's trying to control you because they don't know how to manage and regulate their own emotions . And there's not a lot that you can do really to get that to , to calm them down .
Right .
Cause they want you to prove that you're not cheating . You're not looking at that person , you are doing the right thing , but really it's it's their internal world , it's their own problem . Absolutely and that's going to be just a disaster .
Yeah , I remember when I was dating Jay and considering marrying him . One of the most helpful conversations we had was when he said to me hey , listen as you think about whether you want to spend your life with me .
If your life doesn't feel bigger and broader and more full of opportunity for saying yes to marrying me and taking on this family , I don't want you to say yes . That's like the opposite of control . Jay wanted me to feel like my um within , saying yes to this finite thing which was one man and three kids .
He wanted me to feel like my world got bigger because of saying yes to him . Now , in contrast , I had been in relationship , the first person I ever dated , um . We were really young and he didn't want me to go away to college because he wanted to control our relationship out of insecurity and fear , and I mean , that was that was a deal breaker for me .
I remember as a young girl feeling like , oh no , no , no , no , no , no , no , no , no . This is not what we're doing . My world needs to get bigger for being with someone ,
¶ Red Flags in a Relationship
not smaller .
Yeah , number 15 , we're plowing through these inconsistencies and lies and , yeah , okay , it's hard sometimes it's hard to not hide the truth when you do something wrong .
Or I can think about in different places in our relationship where it's like I spent that money whatever on my hobby and I don't want to tell you that I spent an extra 20 bucks , you know , because you'll be frustrated or angry or and so I've remember . I remember calling you at one point .
I can't remember what it was about calling you back and being like hey , I didn't tell you like the full truth , I Don't remember that , yeah , I know it's okay .
And I didn't make mark .
Yeah , it wasn't like , I wasn't like , oh , I just flat out lied to you . Yeah but it was like I was scared to tell you . Yeah the whole thing and it's not . Obviously you wouldn't be in a relationship with someone who just lies all the time , but I think having someone who's able to tell you the truth when it costs them something .
Hmm and to be really consistent in their behavior is what you're looking for in Because , again , like it's hard to , I'm thinking of a person right now in a relationship and one of the challenges that they have is he often has a hard time telling her the whole truth , and it's not because he's a bad person , it's actually because he's afraid yeah , he's afraid of
punishment . Yeah and afraid of what will happen . It's like , well , that's not ending their relationship , but it is a burden on the relationship . Yeah , and if he , if he would , just If you do a better job at confronting his own fear so that he could be fully open with her , then they could build trust in that area .
Yeah so it Breaking down some of their trust .
Absolutely All right . Number 16 disrespect or insults .
Um , this again this might feel like a no-brainer , but it is interesting how you know , inside of relationships it's wild what we tolerate sometimes because we feel this Emotional connection to somebody or we have a fear of losing them , or , you know , we we want to believe the best and so we kind of look past some of these things .
But if somebody is disrespectful in their language , or they often put you down , or they are overly critical of you , especially out loud in front of other people , if they're making other people uncomfortable by how they Do or don't talk about you , it's these are the things that you should not look past .
I think too , oftentimes sarcasm , like a sarcastic sense of humor , can , and we talked about this Again when , when we were dating , this is an issue that came up . Yep and because I was really Honestly , I was disrespectful to my friends mostly and it was .
it was basically around when I felt insecure About other guys Because , because of my past relationship , yeah because you know my wife had left for somebody else and you had confronted it in me Like hey , when I'm with you , your you feel really disrespectful with your friends and I'm . I was like no , that's just how we joke , that's just how we play .
Turns out like that actually was I needed to confront my insecurities . Yeah and that was really helpful .
Yeah so yeah , I I've been in a few settings where there's , you know , a guy and a girl in a relationship and in this situation I'm thinking of the guy would often make these like Underhanded , weird comments about the girl and you could have laughed it off Like it could have been like a funny thing or some sarcasm , but at the end of the day , like you ,
you leave that social setting and you kind of wondered yourself like why in the world did he just say that about her ? That was so rude . You know , girls like do not , or or guys like do not . Oh my gosh . I'm thinking of another couple actually at the moment where the wife always makes remarks about the husband being you .
You hear her and you think that he must just be an absolute moron Because of the way that she talks about him and sometime , and I know him and I want to be like Not okay . Yeah that is not okay .
Yeah , it's a sign of immaturity . Yeah so Unwillingness to compromise is number 17 . Yeah , if somebody has to have their way all the time Again leads to so much , I think , frustration and bitterness down the line , because Life is about compromise . There's so much compromise I mean , every night when we go home where I'm compromising .
I don't want to do everything I need to do right and either do you , and so in a relationship it's back to , am I being thought of ? yeah and am I being considered ? Is somebody really caring for my needs ? And If somebody doesn't want to compromise , that's gonna be a tough relationship to be in yep , all right .
Number 18 lack of empathy . Yeah , some people are a lot better at showing empathy than others . You know that's a gift being able to empathize with people . I have friends who are just bleeding hearts . They they're great at empathizing with everybody all the time and you know , ultimately people love to be around other people who they feel empathy from .
People want to feel like you understand where they're at and that you can get in their boat and stand in their shoes and know where they're at . You know that's a personality to some degree , but everybody , if you're gonna be in a healthy relationship , you need to be in a relationship with somebody who has the ability to understand and care about your feelings .
Nobody wants to be in a relationship with somebody who you know You're having a hard day and they don't even know where to meet you . In that moment you can't actually share about something and feel their heart connect with where you're at . That's not gonna be a fun relationship .
Yeah , for sure . Number 19 and this might trigger some people but a A previous history of abuse , I think is is a red flag . So if and why it's red flag is because you want to make sure that that area of their life has been cleaned up . You know our pasts . We are not our past .
Unless you haven't done anything about your past , then you're you're bringing that baggage into your current relationship and that's the power of being open and being honest and Sharing your life story .
You know I had past history coming into this relationship and being able to share about what I did to work through it is what brought up ton of trust , and Lauren has past history and us talking through it .
You know , for me I'm like , okay , I want to know what she did well in the relationships and what she did bad and what she's done to clean those up and so . If somebody has a past history you know of abuse , you want to be able to talk through that and make sure that they feel powerful about it and that they've worked through it .
And If somebody doesn't want to talk about their past , giant red flag . If they avoid that conversation , it's a giant red flag and that's not gonna work out good for you in the long run .
Yep , so absolutely okay . Finally , although Again , this is not an exhaustive list and it is not ordered in With regards to priority last but not least for this conversation is number 20 being overly dependent .
So If you're in a relationship with somebody that's overly dependent on you for emotional or financial support , it just leads to this imbalance that is not gonna be helpful or fun in a long-term relationship . You're you're looking to be in a relationship with somebody who is Thriving on their own .
You know like to be in a relationship with someone who is a living a , a healthy , thriving life apart from you . Ultimately , that's the goal that to really whole , healthy people would come together to make this beautiful life .
So if you're in a relationship with somebody who seems to be like overly reliant on you in order to be okay emotionally , or overly reliant on you to help them problem-solve , or overly reliant on you to help them work through Relational issues in their life , whatever it might be , if you feel like you're carrying their load , you know each person needs to be
capable of carrying their load and ultimately sharing each other's burdens . But carry your own load . That's important in a dating relationship and I wouldn't say yes to a long-term relationship With somebody that didn't feel like they had the ability to carry their own load .
Yeah , it feels like this . I feel trapped in this relationship . Yeah , I feel like you know , when I have , when I have a need or when , like when I want to get time , you know a way or time to myself , like he , he doesn't do a good job or she doesn't do do well with that .
Yeah , it's like man , when somebody's overly dependent upon you , so wearing so Awesome babe , yeah , well done . Yeah , 20 red flags in Relationship .
I think if we , if you , just if you're in the dating , you know phase , it's not like you walk around with these lists and , like you're , you're measuring every person , but I do think that these are really helpful To think through .
If you're in a relationship and it's starting to feel a little weird , he's , when you start to read through these , you go , oh , that's why it's feeling weird . Is he's more critical ? He is critical or she is being critical ? and that's not super fun . It's a way to have the conversation and really confront what's going on .
Yeah , in the relationship , hey , I'll put this list of 20 in the show notes , because if you're listening and you're like I'm in my car and I couldn't write these all down , well you can go and look at the show notes and actually copy paste and maybe add your own notes or look at them later , add to it what not . It'll be there for you .
Yeah , and for those married couples out there , lauren and I have a marriage intensive . We've got pre registration open . We got an early bird special . That's actually happening right now . Yeah , you want to talk about that for a sec .
Yeah , if you go to our websites , jason and Lauren , valentine calm , it'll take you to a landing page . They'll explain what we have to offer married couples , and we love doing this six-week intensive . There is a Early bird price that'll run through the end of October , and the course itself starts the second Tuesday in January .
So registration is up and open and we'd love to have you join us .
Yeah , it's such a good investment to your marriage , right ? So that's what we're doing is helping people invest in their marriage . All right , everyone . Well , hopefully this was super helpful for you and we will see you all next week on dates , mates and babies .
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