Eventually, you-know-who will do a public records search. Be prepared.

The dude is being too hard on himself.

Poppers? Who does poppers anymore? That s###'s awful.

Yeah, methinks there's a bit of deflection going on here. LW, you're meeting up with dudes from Grindr, for goodness' sake. In the beginning, they will be far more interested in your sexual (dys)function than in your past legal issues. If you actually start dating any of these guys seriously, then you can bring it up. But for right now, nobody cares.

I've always thought of being a bottom or a top as sort of a personality trait, but it sounds like this guy is just talking about anal sex. If he's not able to bottom or top, he can still get or receive blowjobs, right? Isn't that fairly common for gay dudes?

Also, poppers mess with your head and body for a while after use, right? So, can he not drive after bottoming?

I'm surprised he doesn't simply state "Bottom. Into poppers." in his Grindr profile. That would be the most efficient and stressless way to solve that non-issue, and the people he'd meet would be tops who are into poppers, too (or into bottoms who use poppers).

Besides DUIs, here's the two most common legal bits of baggage I've seen as a woman dating men:

1) Underage girl (like 16, not 12) lied about being an adult (and/ or he met her in a bar and reasonably assumed, since the bar was 21 and up, that she was over 21). Now he's a registered sex offender for statutory rape because her daddy found out about his daughter's trysts and directed his anger at the guy.

2) A crazy ex girlfriend committed domestic violence against him, cops were called, he was dragged off in cuffs after she broke out the crocodile tears when they arrived.

If women can--and they do-- date men who, at first blush, have records that imply they are sexual predators ands batterers, I'd hope gay men can recognize someone who learned his lesson from an old couple of DUIs.

The sexual hang-ups sound like a way bigger issue to me.

I wouldn't even bring it up unless you guys are hanging out regularly. I've gone on horrible dates with guys in their late 30s who have more baggage than me (my baggage is around dealing with my mom who goes into rants whenever I try to offer forward-thinking advice, but I've digressed) and bring it up within the first 30 min of meeting for a drink.

My advice for gay men in their 30s and older who are meeting off "Le Apps" for the first time:

1. Don't bring up your shitty ex that you were with prior to recently starting to meet guys. No one wants to play therapist for the night, unless it's a role play of course.

2. Don't arrange to meet the guy while you're out with your friends. They didn't plan to meet you and your friends, get vetted by them, and to probably not flow with your friends b/c he was under the impression that he was just meeting you. Now if you say "hey i'm with some friends right now. you're more than welcomed to join us." and he accepts then sure it'll work. I've actually made platonic friends that way. and I have horror stories about meeting guys when they were with their friends and they didn't tell me.

3. Don't meet at a gay bar for drinks if it's not a hook-up. You'd be surprised how distracted you get when other attractive guys are passing by you or even being fucking disrespectful and tacky by flirting with you or your date.

4. Don't be an aggressive asshole when someone says "hey I think I'm going to call the night short and head home".

Like most subjects that are potentially uncomfortable but not likely to be dealbreakers*, you can probably wait to bring it up at the point in conversation where it would be suspicious if you didn't bring it up. Like, when you're drinking at a bar and your date asks if you're okay to drive them home. Or they mention that they think driving drunk should be punished by a year in jail (as it is in Sweden).


* potential dealbreakers should be brought up before you have sex, or before you get romantically involved, depending.

Just don't date Canadians or people who have plans of vacationing there.

This letter not only sounds fake, it sounds like it was intended as a public poke-in-the-eye at a specific individual, who may or may not actually be gay. All those layers of current sexual and psychological problems...but what he's most concerned about are telling his potential hookups on Tinder about two DUIs from over ten years ago, for which he didn't lose any school time because of his excellent teaching record and strong family support system. Righhhht.

Grindr, not Tinder. But contradictory timelines like this - "Seriously dating for the first time in 8+ years...going on a date tomorrow for the first time in over a year...since I've started dating, I've run into an issue..." and gay-baiting lines like "Go me, I'm so proud of myself for doing this!" and "HS teacher, helping to keep future generations positive" and "one of the most 'stable' dudes on Grindr" are setting off my BS meter like a Geiger counter at Fukishima.

@6: whoa, both of those examples you cite would be deal breakers for me. I may not have high standards, but child-fuckers and woman-beaters are below me. And yes, I know you presented the scenarios of innocent men who were lied to, ensnared and entrapped by conniving females and their wily fake IDs and "crocodile tears." You swallowed those stories, didja? I've heard men tell them too, but I just nod, say "uh-huh," and back slowly away. It's surely possible some of them were telling the truth, but it's not statistically likely. And hey, even if they ARE telling the truth, you're still dealing with a guy who fucks a teenage-looking girl at first sight or who has screaming, cops-get-called fights with his partner. Not attractive.

"You swallowed those stories, didja? I've heard men tell them too, but I just nod, say "uh-huh," and back slowly away."

In other words, you believe whatever the fuck you want to believe, and the truth be damned.

"And hey, even if they ARE telling the truth, you're still dealing with a guy who fucks a teenage-looking girl at first sight or who has screaming, cops-get-called fights with his partner. Not attractive."

Go read up on domestic violence. Half of domestic violence is reciprocal, when means that both partners initiate attacks (no, it's not an attack and a self-defence); and in non-reciprocal domestic violence -- that is, the kind where only one partner attacks -- women are the initiator of violence in 70% of the cases.

Try this for starters (apologies in advance if the link doesn't post):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article…

The reason why _two_ DUIs is likely to be a dealbreaker is that first, it implies a lot more drunk driving than the two times he actually got caught, and second, the first DUI wasn't enough to teach him his lesson.

@gueralinda

Yeah, in reality the "oh the evil conniving woman conspired to ruin my life by being sneakily underage or persuading the cops that I was beating her," stories are usually bullshit. At best the guy is both unlucky or dumber than a bag of hammers, but usually the guy was just straight-up chasing an underage girl because he thought she's be easier to manipulate, and straight-up abused hi girlfriend (although I'm sure he believes that she's overreacting and the cops are totally wrong as well).

Also, what is with posters that take an unrelated topic (DUIs) and immediately jump to "Oh yes, this is totally like those poor men that get falsely accused by women."

Also, btw, that "half of domestic violence is reciprocal" crap?
http://www.thecitizen.org.au/features/wh…

Xiao @6: Wow, what a misogynistic post.
Firstly, 16 is the age of consent in most states. No one would have a criminal record for fucking someone who was legal to fuck. And let's say this was in a state with a minimum age of 18. How old was the guy when he fucked someone who looked so young? 20? 35? It makes a big difference.
Also, on the domestic violence issue, holy shit. OF COURSE every guy convicted of domestic violence is going to make out like it was the woman's fault. You actually believe that version of events? If someone said that, I'd run a mile. If he actually owned up to, you know, being guilty of the crime he was convicted of and having learned from it, then maybe. But wow. If women are wholescale accepting that the "crazy ex" is always to blame, no wonder domestic violence recurs and recurs and recurs.

Knowingly committing statutory rape and then claiming the underage partner lied -- actually being misled by someone who looks older and then getting hung up on BS sex offender charges -- crazy women who attack their male partners and then get them arrested for fights that were all them -- wife beaters who claim it was her fault when the cops show up -- all of these are things that happen in real life. Just because the majority of cases swing a certain way does not necessarily tell us much about a specific instance that might be in front of us.

What threw me was the claim that these are things that COMMONLY come up in the heterosexual dating world. It seems like there must be something amiss with your dating process if you're frequently ending up with guys who have to explain their sex offender status or domestic violence records.

That being said, it occurs to me this is probably my coastal elitism talking. If one of my Trumpland cousins were to tell me that her latest guy is a keeper because, unlike all her previous boyfriends and husbands, this one REALLY didn't know the girl was 16, and that girl is a whore anyway, I would (sadly) think to myself "that does sound like a step up from her ex's."

Back to DUI's situation, I think it's quite sad that anyone feels they need to justify why they don't drive after drinking.

I had to re-read XiaoGui's post @6 again in case what she was trying to say was "the two most common prior offenses men have been convicted of are A and B, and the most common excuses they offer for those are X and Y." But no. There's no acknowledgment of even the possibility that men might actually be guilty of these pesky bits of legal baggage they now have to carry around. No admission that some men knowingly sleep with underage girls and that some men initiate violence against partners. No, all these men are innocent victims of vindictive women and their fathers. Poor dears.

(Yes, sometimes the guy indeed is the victim, but really? Wouldn't a much safer, and more accurate, assumption be that most men whose records imply they are statutory rapists or wife beaters be that they are??)

The LW is seriously dating after eight years out. It sounds like he's a recovering alcoholic. He needs to be kind to himself. Look for someone you like, try to take rejection in your stride, treat it as an adventure. Believe that someone will be really into you--eventually that someone will love you. Enjoy the ride. 40 is the time to re-engage with life!

The hang-ups he describes do not need to be hang-ups. 'Can't' top? Rather just 'doesn't' top. I can top successfully 10-20% of the time. So I don't top. Or I top or switch in situations where I and my partner know the score and are comfortable with what might or mightn't happen. The sensations on my prostate are more important to me than those in my dick, which I experience as some kind of feminised or non-gendered genital cluster anyway. Almost any way the LW comes to understand and be at peace with his sexual functioning, through his shrink or by himself, will be fine. Part of what I mean by this is that he'll find lovers (or just one) to accommodate him.

As regards the driving record, say when you feel ready. If the LW is into a guy, he may think of making lemonade ​his second drink of the evening. He should show he's a responsible and stable individual before bringing up his past infractions.

I had to google 'poppers' ...

As for the DUIs, it might be a deal breaker with me, depending on how much time has passed and how old he was at the time. I'm really strict about not drinking and driving though, and while I understand people make mistakes in their youth and sometimes cops are heavy-handed in giving tickets to people who are barely buzzed, two of them is a red flag. It would depend on the circumstances, and I agree with Dan's advice about letting the other guy get to know him first so it's not a part of the first impression and the other person can see how responsible he is now.

Regarding the sexual hang ups, I'm not gay so I don't understand if that's a big deal or not. I don't think there is a straight parallel to this sort of thing.

The underage thing, if the man were really young when it happened, I'd believe that. If he were my age, I'd be turned off that he was fucking 18 year olds in the first place, frankly.

The domestic violence situation- yes it sucks when anyone hits anyone, and it is true that the cops will carry someone away frequently enough when there is a call. But for this scenario to lead to a conviction? Bullshit, that's rare enough even with repeated assaults. If it's all crocodile tears and she got a conviction out of it, I'd have to think there is something more going on. I mean, I'm not saying that's never happened- people do get convicted of things they didn't do- but unless I know the guy's friends and family and backstory so that I'm sure, I'd definitely walk away after finding that out. That might be unfair, but we have to pick our risks. If it were just an arrest and charges were dropped, why does he need to go on and on about it anyway? Can you do a public records search on arrests for which the charges were dropped? And if the charges were dropped, then does he need to go around explaining himself all the time?

@11/Capricornius does have point. LW "started seriously dating again for the first time in 8+ years," he is "going on a date ... for the first time in over a year," yet he "keep running into an issue..." That really doesn't make sense. How is running into an issue if he hasn't dated in a year, and is only beginning to date after 8 years?

In any event, I think that the timing of disclosure of a criminal history should be predicated on the level of seriousness of the crime and any aggravating or mitigating factors, as well as any current or future impediments stemming from the crime. How long ago did this happen? Was this a misdemeanor or a felony? Was your record expunged? Are you able to pass a background check and get a job? Was someone seriously injured or killed? Were you incarcerated after your conviction?

Presumably, if you arrested for a criminal offense, you sought legal counsel. Unless the charges were dropped or plead down and resolved without trial and incarceration, you would have had significant contact with your lawyer. Somewhere, there should have been a discussion about what, if anything, you need to disclose to employers or others. That should be a guide to disclosing to a potential partner.

The more serious the legal issue, the more quickly you need to disclose, probably on the second date. A misdemeanor, long in the past, that you don't have to disclose to employers can wait a while.

@11, @23: I don't think the timeline is necessarily contradictory -- as I read it, what he is saying is that for the last 8 years he mostly did not date, though there was the occasional odd date here and there, the last one being a year ago. The running-into-an-issue is him getting ahead of himself on a topic he's particularly anxious about. Before you actually go on the date, you're messaging and making plans. The other guy proposes meeting for a drink. The LW is already jumping ahead to his DUI/drinking anxiety and must figure out a way to respond because look, it's coming up already, he hasn't even gone on the date yet, how does he explain he can't have a drink at the bar because he has to drive to work the next day and he needs to abstain for 24 hours, but that makes him sound crazy, but there must be a low-stress way to make it clear it's over a decade in the past, etc etc etc total anxiety spin-out.

I had a similar thing -- over different issues -- but the format was exactly the same. Not seriously dating for years, not putting any effort into generating dates myself, but occasionally something would come up and I'd go out with a guy. When I finally started to put myself out there more, I'd start getting incredibly anxious about how to unpack or explain my issues, sometimes before I even messaged a guy. After some time with a great therapist, I realized it was as simple as: stop projecting yourself ten steps ahead, just go on the date, take it as it goes. When the issue you're anxious about comes up, express your feelings or explain your backstory then, but express it simply (Dan's last paragraph is perfect).

Part of this also depends on where this guy lives. If he lives on Capitol Hill or in NYC or SF...he doesn't have to worry about DUIs because transportation is readily cheap and available.

If he lives in the burbs (for a local example Redmond) and he still goes to gay bars far away (in Seattle or Kent or wherever), then it becomes a huge problem.

He didn't say he gave up drinking. Just drinking and driving.

HAS to take poppers to bottom? Really? Even as a straightish lady who has only recently discovered the joys of anal after a decade of it being a hard limit, this seems a little strange to me. I get that poppers might be the only way to be ready to go quickly, but has he tried giving himself a little time/warm up with toys/fingers? Inflatable or gratuated butt plugs? Those lube suppositories or anal eaze? I might be way off base, but I've been amazed at what I can take anally with enough patience, time and lube...

Holy macaroni, BiDanFan. Sorry I didn't write a book of qualifications on an internet comment to satisfy your standards. I'm sorry I didn't put in a three- paragraph disclaimer that I considered that I was getting only one side and that I took it seriously and watched for other warning signs. And way to victim-blame with, "Well, if women buy this load of crap, no wonder they keep getting the crap smacked out of them!"

So allow me to elaborate.

I live in Texas. The age of consent in Texas is 17. There are no "Romeo and Juliet" laws in Texas, which means a 16 year old can end up a registered sex offender for sleeping with another 16 year old. Lifelong shaming, address and headshot a matter of public record. It is not infrequent in the Bible-thumping rural region in which I live (where purity balls are a thing) for daddy to press charges on his teenage daughter's boyfriend.

I have never dated a registered sex offender. My husband once did hook up with a girl he met in a 21 & up bar who it turned out was a teenage runaway. He was in his 20's at the time. It did not lead to criminal charges, but it easily could have, and he is very fortunate that it did not. He had no reason when they first hooked up to suspect that she was a teenager. Do you think he should have checked her ID? Do you think I'm naive for accepting this and letting it slide?

And yes, I am well aware that there are sleazebags who take advantage of those too young to know any better. I am well aware that oftentimes rape of a victim who happens to be underage is prosecuted as "statutory rape" when it's rape by any standard, because it's easier to prove in court. I know that abusers and aggressors-- both male and female-- often slant stories to make themselves appear as the victim. So I take any such claim with a grain of salt, and seek to verify.

As for the domestic violence call, that was also something that once happened to my husband. His girlfriend at the time was rip-roaring drunk and started waving a gun in his face. He tried to call 911, she tackled the phone away from him. He left because he was scared. This was the days before cell phones, so he couldn't call 911 from his cell phone. Of course, once the police arrived at her place, she flipped the story between aggressor and victim, and he was arrested.

I spoke to several other people who knew the ex, and they confirm that she was violent, erratic, and a pathological liar. They told me that she made false accusations against people to try to drive wedges between them and isolate victims, that she drugged people without their knowledge because she got bored and wanted to get the party started, that she instructed her friend to shoot her dog because she didn't want it anymore (taking it to a shelter, selling it on Craigslist, or even taking it to a vet to be put down wasn't good enough--she insisted on having it shot in front of her). Pretty much everyone I spoke to who ever encountered her confirms that she was an extremely disturbed person.

And having known him for years, I know that he is not a batterer. Do you think I'm naive for believing him?

Misogynistic? How so? I didn't say "women are evil, lying monsters." But I know that evil, lying monsters exist, and some of them are women. That's not misogynistic.

I will clarify that the laws were recently changed regarding sex offender registration, and now people who were sex offenders as minors are no longer registered. But a few years ago, they were.

Avast @13 and Traffic @15, I don't know what the real ratio is of attacks on men by their female partners vs. attacks on women by their male partners. But I do know two things:

First, Avast wins the citation battle hands-down. Avast cited actual peer-reviewed research and Traffic cited an article that relies on quoting people saying things like "We know that from all the evidence that exists that women are overwhelmingly the victims of family violence and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators" without actually mentioning what any of this evidence is. The article features people agreeing with each other, but no resorts to actual evidence. It's crap.

Second, women are overwhelmingly the ones who are harmed by domestic violence. I am a LOT bigger than my wife. Neither of us has hit the other, other than as sex play or lightly in jest, but if she hit me in anger I would be very unlikely to suffer any pain. I don't think this situation is unusual. Even if a woman hits her male partner, in most cases this will not be a big deal for the guy. Reverse the roles and we're talking about possible serious injury or death. That's why there is (and should be) such a stigma around men hitting women.

And, yes, I recognize that there are women out there who could beat the living daylights out of my, but that's unusual and I've never dated anyone like that.

JyLckhart @17, "Knowingly committing statutory rape and then claiming the underage partner lied " would be pretty stupid since the underage person lying, the older person believing it, 20 fake IDs and an angel from heaven vouching for the fact that's she's over they age of consent would be zero defense in a statutory rape. It's the relatively unusual crime that does not require any proof of knowledge or criminal intent.

That said, most criminals are stupid, so I'm sure a fair number of older guys have tried this excuse.

XiaoGui @27: Okay, so instead of "these are the two most common situations," you meant "these are two isolated experiences which I have had in my dating life, and these were the circumstances behind them."

A very different comment to make.

@26 Allycatz I've wondered about this myself regarding men and anal sex. Even when Dan talks about it. I don't know if this is just anecdotal, but it sure does seem like men have a lot more trouble with anal penetration than women do. I mean, all this advice about deep breathing and relaxation and poppers and men who claim they can't bottom- these conversations come up pretty frequently. Likewise, the disbelief with accidental anal with women (remember those conversations?). My own experience is just lube on asshole and go, it doesn't seem to require any major preparation. Likewise with other women I know though of course I don't go around asking. When the last accidental anal conversation happened here, and Dan expressed his disbelief, it made me start to wonder if anatomy or body shape have something to do with it. Like, women's wider hips and buttocks- could that make anal penetration easier? Or do guys just make a really big deal out of it? I'm just surprised that so many people find it so difficult. Not talking about pleasure here as that would vary for all sorts of reasons, just the ability to easily be anally penetrated.

BiDanFan @31: you read it wrong. Her post starts out talking about the culture in her area and why this is more common there than in some other places, and then goes on to elaborate two specific examples. Nowhere in that post does she claim these are the ONLY two examples, that's something you're adding on to it.

JyLckhart @33:
I was referring to Xiao's post @6 which says NOTHING about "the culture in her area."
Her elaboration @27 does mention it's common for consensual teenage relationships to run foul of the law in the state where she lives, yes. But that wasn't mentioned @6 where it could have been useful. Her post @27 talks about two experiences SHE has had -- one with a guy who mistakenly slept with an underage girl when he was fairly young himself, and one with a domestic violence call that "once happened to my husband." She takes these two experiences and spins them into "the two most common legal bits of baggage" affecting men, on a universal scale.

BiDanFan @34: I understood you were also referring to the earlier post. Which I just read again -- I'm sorry, but the "universal scale" inference is all you. Her actual original post is the opposite: it has qualifiers about this being her personal experience, what she's seen, etc. Isn't that the whole point of a discussion like this, to get the read of internet strangers with life experiences out of our immediate real world circles? "I see how you're having that concern, I've had a similar experience, in my case it turned out OK for these reasons, maybe something similar is going on in your situation." She's just positing a different angle to consider the situation from, not making blanket statements about all or even most men.

I mean, I was also heading the wrong way in my initial response (my post @17 -- though I was on to the Trumpland thing!), so I get it. But what you thought she was saying was always many steps beyond what her actual claims were.

But anyway, I feel like this might be about to become an internet wormhole, and I've procrastinated enough for one Friday, so checking out of this one now. :)

JyLyckhart: She could have phrased @6 much better, to be sure, because to me it certainly was saying "these two things are very common" instead of "these are two things I've encountered." But indeed, lesson to all posters, read your comments from a third-party perspective to see what you might be implying, or face the reaction you get! Happy weekend.

Ally @ 26 & Emma @ 32 - I don't think its physiological.

Here's my (potentially totally wrong) hypothesis: this LW is the type (IMNSHO) to put a lot of barriers to dating and having sex, for whatever reasons (religious baggage, internalized homophobia, etc.), so he can only "let go" and let himself get fucked once he's had enough poppers to switch his brain off - as I've been told the desire for sex is overwhelming when you're on popper. I never used them myself (they give me a headache at a meter's distance), but I sure do know that those who use them quickly become totally focused on their own sexual satisfaction and absolutely nothing else, so perhaps he needs that to remove his mental blocks.

Unfortunately, unless you're a 21 year-old stud, poppers also give you a limp dick rather fast (and they can be deadly when combined with viagra), so that may also be why he can't top. He needs poppers to remove his barriers, but once they're removed, his penis won't cooperate.

@36: I stand by this being a common issue in dating for me. It has been. It's also been a common bit of history that plagued a great many platonic hetero male friends.

It's one thing to date the guy who says all his exes are crazy. That's a red flag. Obviously, he's the common denominator. It's quite another thing if he had that one crazy ex. I'd say about 80% of men I've encountered have "that one crazy ex," and of that 80%, maybe a little over half were too young and naive at the time to get away before she got to calling the cops out of spite.

It's pretty easy to screen. If he mentions the cray cray ex, ask around about her. Heck, Google her and see how many mugshots pop up. Sometimes the cray cray ex really is cray cray. Sometimes it's him. Sometimes they're a match made in Arkham Asylum.

My point is that, friend or boyfriend, I wouldn't immediately shriek and run the other way if something like that came up. Which isn't to say it was never a bad sign-- sometimes it was. But there were enough times when it wasn't a bad sign that it was worthwhile digging deeper before casting judgment.

And I'm far from alone in that. So I figure other criminal blemishes could be treated similarly.

Xiao @38: Yes, many men (and women) have crazy exes. But not many men have crazy exes who have framed them for domestic violence offences.
You're just lucky, I guess.

@29 - Thank you, DCP123. It's thorough rubbish for @13 (Avast) or anyone else to claim that initiating a physical attack validates reciprocity when there's a measurable size / strength imbalance - in other words, when the initiator is outmatched by the partner. I lived in a home where this took place regularly - my mother (110lbs, skinny, no muscle tone or martial arts skills but a punishing way of speaking when shitfaced and an aggressive drunk overall) initiated fights with my former-Army-Drill-Instructor alcoholic stepfather who would dispatch her with ease - breaking bones, beating unconscious, tossing down stairs, etc. She threw the first slap probably 75% of the time. Did that justify his response? Anyone who thinks so is direly mistaken and might consider seriously re-evaluating their perception.

My boyfriend nearly had a weeping breakdown when he "confessed" to me that he had done sex work in his twenties. My reaction was, "so?" Sometimes we build up our past sins far beyond their real dimension.
For whatever it's worth, I like poppers, he does not. So I never use them when I'm with him.

@40
I agree with you entirely. It's shitty when women hit men. Most of the time, however, it's MUCH shittier if they hit back. It's like the difference between being an asshole that starts brawls and being an asshole that beats children. They are both assholes, but one is clearly able to cause more harm.

However, I'm not sure that this is really the scenario we are talking about. This might change by region, but it's pretty common here for the cops to remove someone from a domestic violence situation. That's usually how they handle those calls. So if the cops come out while you are in a loud physical fight, they usually diffuse the situation by removing one of the people. The person removed is usually the man, even if it's the woman behaving violently. Now for actual charges to be held and for the man to be convicted so that he has this on his record- that's a very different scenario and would be a major red flag. I know that sometimes innocent people do get convicted of stuff they didn't do, but I'd be less likely to take his word for it if it was someone I'm just getting to know if there is an actual conviction. But if he just had one incident in his past in which the police arrested him from a domestic violence dispute (no conviction) and he claims it was the ex acting violently, then yes, I would be more likely to listen depending on when/how he told me about the incident, why he told me about it, if there is a pattern, his relationship history, etc. I'm also not wholly opposed to the cops removing the man from the situation in most cases unless someone can come up with a less imperfect response considering the fact that women are so frequently killed by their partners and the cops have to deal with the situation right then and there. So again, being removed by the police and taken to jail - maybe a red flag, maybe not. Being convicted of assault- serious major red flag. These are very different things.

@Tor- I can so relate. About a year into my relationship with my husband, I confessed something that I'd been struggling with for years, felt loads of shame about, planned how to say it, etc. I mean, the stress build up around my confession was horrible. I did it in a really straightforward and nonchalant way, he responded in kind- really cool about it, then he never brought it up again. Not even once. I thought that he was being really gracious and sensitive. Then a decade or so later, an incident happened between a couple of our friends, and in conversation about them, I brought up my own previously confessed situation. Husband didn't even remember it. To him, it was so incidental that it didn't even register as important. Ha ha ha!

@ Ricardo I can't remember if it was here or not, but your little Diana and Charles joke made me spit out my coffee. I don't know how I never heard that before. Sometimes the funniest jokes are the simplest. Thanks for that, wherever it was.

@40 EmmaLiz ~ I by-passed the LW's concern in my comments; instead, was addressing @13's point specifically. Completely agree with your observations.

Will also note my appreciation for the reality that domestic violence is now considered and treated as a crime in most jurisdictions in the US. In the 60's (when I was a kid) cops had no obligation and no legal right to interfere at all unless the person being battered was willing to press charges. So when I (or anyone else) called the cops during beatings, they could come to the house but do nothing more - no matter how bloody the scene - unless the person being assaulted said Take Him/Her Away. Times are changing in this respect, and for that I'm grateful.

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