These Red Flags Mean Walk Away! (4-Video Compilation)

From reading hundreds of letters sent by people who follow this channel, certain patterns emerge. One particularly worrying indicator that someone is deteriorating in an unhappy relationship is when their messages focus on how wonderful their partner is and then proceed to detail that partner’s past, traumas and family history — all of which lead to the explanation that this person isn’t treating them well now. Trauma can help explain behaviors like cheating, stonewalling and mistreatment, but it does not excuse them. Sometimes labeling harmful behavior as “trauma” becomes a way of gaslighting yourself into believing the mistreatment is acceptable and that you must keep tolerating it. Today’s letter comes from a man whose girlfriend’s trauma-related wounds are undermining their relationship. He writes: hello fairy uh I’m a 33-year-old man and my girlfriend, who’s 32, and I have been together for a year and two months and we live together. I proposed three months ago because I honestly believed everything would be fine with her.
Okay, I’ll mark a few things I want to return to, but let’s walk through David’s story. She’s an architect — very bright, bookish, disciplined, with a solid job and a cool vibe, although she sometimes keeps somewhat odd friends. She had a difficult childhood: an emotionally absent, manipulative father who didn’t care for her, and an overbearing, clingy mother. Her parents divorced and she cut off contact with her father. All this background sets up why she struggles to express emotions or show love; he says he figured that out after a long while — her emotional withdrawal became a defensive pattern because every time she showed feelings, her father would respond in ways that harmed her.
I’m an artist and graphic designer, doing various creative work; I lost my job a month ago and am job hunting now. I come from a loving family — my mom and dad are still together and happy; I have a brother and sister. Like everyone, I’ve endured my share of problems and trauma, but I’ve addressed most of it through therapy and introspection. Our relationship started oddly — we met on Tinder (maybe that’s bad, but we live in modern times). The first few months were amazing: we clicked instantly, texted, sexted, had great sex, and she shared stories about her childhood. I met her friends and took a short trip with her — everything felt wonderful.
Then, around month three or four, she mentioned a man she considered a father figure. That made me uneasy. I later discovered, through contacts and information from her friends, that this man and my girlfriend had been romantically and sexually involved for a month or two when he was in our country; he lives abroad, is married with two kids, and cheated on his wife with my girlfriend. They continued to communicate even after I told her it bothered me, and only stopped when I asked her to cut contact. They had been communicating for five or six years about many topics; I even found screenshots of them sexting while we were looking at pictures on her PC — all before our relationship began. I don’t like having a third person hovering in our lives and making me uncomfortable, so I told her it was either him or me. She chose me, but until then we fought a lot about my request that she sever contact, and she tried every strategy to make me accept him as a friend while maintaining some connection. I couldn’t accept that — it was my boundary. One day I even noticed a notification from him on her work phone; she switched phones so I wouldn’t see it. I should add I was in a seven-year relationship before this one and I was cheated on, so I have trauma around being betrayed again. I’m aware of it and working on it in therapy.
After she cut contact, she sank into depression: sex disappeared, her mood turned strange and the atmosphere between us soured. We argued roughly every three days over that and other minor things. Over time I realized she can be somewhat selfish and emotionally unavailable to others. Trust is damaged — I still have some, but she seems to have none. She constantly accuses me of snooping and controlling her to the point that I can’t simply ask, “How was your day?” without tension. Despite this, she’s a fundamentally good person and I’ve always wanted someone like her. We tried couples therapy; the therapist agreed almost entirely with my perspective: her childhood traumas are being reflected onto me. He said she has CPTSD, which might explain why she sought out that friend and why she gravitates toward emotionally unavailable people — that may explain the choice but it doesn’t justify secretly maintaining contact that undermines her current partnership. Now that she’s lost that connection she’s depressed, afraid of the future and worried I’ll be a bad husband, even though the logical side of her believes I’d be a good one. Her mother is aware of our problems and seems to side with me, as do her friends. She’s exhausted and doesn’t want to continue therapy. I’d like to give us another chance: she’s an amazing person, we share so much and I’ve never felt this way about anyone else. If only things could improve and the constant cycle of arguments would stop. I’ve tried everything I can think of — clearer communication, presence, dates, travel, showing affection, therapy together and alone, keeping the house tidy so she has more free time, and so on. I’d like our trust restored, to love and support each other and move toward a bright future, perhaps helping her heal or learn to manage her trauma. Sorry for my English and any grammar mistakes. She watches your channel; it would mean a lot if you could help me anonymously.
I wonder — I will change people’s names, but I suspect she might recognize herself. David (fake name), I don’t think you and she are in good shape to marry right now. That may be wishful thinking; you don’t necessarily have to leave immediately, but it sounds like the cart is way ahead of the horse. You’re living together and you proposed, yet there’s a lot in your relationship that loudly signals it isn’t ready for that next step. First, I noticed your letter focuses heavily on her and far less on introspection about yourself. When people really don’t want to leave a relationship, this kind of emphasis often appears in their letters: couples counseling gives them psychological language that can be used to explain and justify behaviors that aren’t loving, committed or consistent with the idea of marriage.
She slept with a man who cheated on his wife — that’s serious. You tried to set a boundary about this friend, but she repeatedly walked over the preference you voiced. A genuine boundary means you enforce it, even if enforcement means breaking up. I don’t like that either, but that’s what a boundary entails. It’s possible for people to maintain friendships with members of the opposite sex or with very old exes when no emotional charge remains and no one feels threatened, but secrecy or the need to lie about such connections is a huge red flag. The screenshots and hidden communications suggest she wasn’t being fully transparent. Even if the relationship with him was now “just a friendship,” if it makes you uncomfortable she isn’t restructuring her life to respect your feelings. You’re not wrong to be upset by that. You were honest about your boundaries early on, and she nevertheless kept going. That’s a clear sign she may not be willing to change in ways that matter to you — someone who’s unwilling to stop doing things that hurt their partner is not someone to marry.
When making decisions about a relationship’s future, base them on how things actually are, not on how they might be if everything changed. If your everyday experience feels like living under constant fear of infidelity or being dragged through arguments, that’s not healthy. Pausing the wedding is my advice. It’s important, before marrying, to put everything on the table so both people know what they’re stepping into. That’s advice I was once given myself and it proved invaluable: to disclose any lingering secrets and get clarity through counseling before committing. It’s heartbreaking to imagine entering marriage without that level of honesty. You don’t necessarily have to walk away from the relationship now, but take the wedding off the table and see whether honest, sustained change happens.
Now a brief note about gaslighting: usually the term describes a pattern where someone manipulates another’s sense of reality, making harmful behavior seem ordinary or nonexistent, and insisting the problem is the other person. That’s a form of emotional abuse. But people can also gaslight themselves — convincing themselves that unacceptable behavior is tolerable. That self-deception is what I want to highlight.
I also received a letter from a man I’ll call Steve: Dear Anna, I recently found your videos and they struck a chord given the challenges my wife Sharon has endured and how her CPTSD affects our marriage. My name is Steve (I’ve changed names here). Sharon and I have been together almost nine years and married seven. We have two wonderful children with special needs; both have autism and are five and two years old. Sharon holds a fairly senior role in healthcare, and I’ve been the family’s stay-at-home parent since our first child was born over five years ago. Overall, we agree that our marriage is strong — perhaps 75–80% of what we want — but that remaining 20–25% of emotional and physical intimacy, vulnerability, acceptance, desire and admiration is missing.
Sharon has long struggled with anxiety and depression and has taken various medications over the years, some more helpful than others; currently she’s on Prozac and Wellbutrin. She has, at times in the past, self-medicated with alcohol. About a year ago, while in therapy together, she was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). Sharon believes this diagnosis stems from her childhood, centered on problems with her mother, and from a later toxic, abusive relationship she had between ages 15 and 27. Multiple professionals and I have consistently encouraged Sharon to find ways to build self-esteem and learn to love and respect herself first. That message seems to be sinking in, and she’s actively searching for tools and skills to cultivate inner acceptance.
I love my wife and children dearly and would do anything to keep our family healthy and happy. I know neither of us is perfect; I acknowledge I missed key chances in our marriage to offer the love and connection Sharon needed, and I need to get better at listening and tempering my naturally dominant manner, which can be forceful. My greatest hope is that Sharon will still want and love me as I love her. We both must bring positivity, determination and mutual support to recover the missing elements in our marriage. Yet my wife has shown signs of avoidance and emotional withdrawal; she’s put up walls and sometimes feels the urge to flee. We are pursuing help through counseling, reading, videos, medication and prioritizing quality time together. It worries me that she still struggles to find the courage to open her heart to me the way we both deserve.
Some of our recent conversations have been encouraging and produced breakthroughs, but they’ve also included devastating remarks. She says she loves me, but she doesn’t feel “in love.” Sharon doubts that one person can meet all of another’s needs; she’s questioned monogamy and expressed curiosity about polyamory or an open marriage. Last week she told me that the idea of me having relations with another woman wouldn’t bother her. I have told her repeatedly that monogamy is the only model I can imagine being happy with, and I cannot envision setting a different example for our children now or in the future. I firmly believe that if she opened her heart to me and we worked together to rebuild our marriage, we could experience love, fulfillment and happiness within a monogamous partnership.
I’m trying to remain positive and mindful, but keeping intrusive negative thoughts at bay is a daily struggle. I do my best to demonstrate how much I love her, yet lately I feel I’m walking a tightrope between trying too hard and not doing enough. A few days ago, after a date day, she admitted she couldn’t understand why she feels so anxious around me and why she holds resentment toward me. That wall between us is blocking our healing and our ability to forgive the impact of her past trauma, even though we are making time for each other and seeking professional help. Sharon knows she is emotionally unavailable; I feel neglected, lonely and inadequate. It’s painfully difficult because we both want emotional connection, support and romance — and I want those things only from my wife. I’m looking for clarity, advice and encouragement. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Alright, this is going to be a tough one, so strap in, Steve. Thank you for your letter — it’s tender and candid, and it’s clear how hard you’re working to keep things together. I made a video about people who gaslight themselves because that’s exactly what I suspect is happening here: you are minimizing or reinterpreting painful realities to make them feel less threatening. From your words I picked up that you adore my videos and that your wife relates deeply to the struggles I talk about — but here’s the thing: you appear to have poured your hopes and emotions into her, as if fixing her feelings will automatically restore your marriage. That’s a heavy burden to carry, and it sounds like you’re trying everything to make that miracle happen.
You mention you have two young children, ages two and five, and that both are autistic. You don’t dwell on that, but it’s huge: caring for two small children with additional needs while being the full-time caregiver is an enormous task. I suspect that fear of losing your wife — and the practical nightmare of how to manage the household and the kids if she left — is driving a lot of your current behavior. When you and she repeatedly say “we both feel” certain things, what you quote from her doesn’t line up with that mutuality: she has explicitly said things like she’s not in love with you, that she wants to sleep with other people, that she might leave. Those are not small, transient complaints; they’re clear signs of withdrawal. You’ve managed to compartmentalize some of those harsher statements, but I hear that the emotional connection — the love piece — is missing, and without that, everything else becomes unstable.
You write that your wife has long struggled with anxiety and depression and takes various medications. You provide a lot of detail about her symptoms and history, and almost none about your own inner life, Steve — it reads like you’ve adopted a caretaker stance toward her, cataloging her medications and moods. You mention that she’s “self-medicated” with alcohol in the past; I want to be blunt: substance abuse is substance abuse. Calling it “self-medicating” sometimes sounds like denial — all non-prescribed heavy drinking or drug use functions the same way clinically. That phrasing flagged to me that there may be some minimization or avoidance around what’s actually happening for her, and perhaps for you as well. There’s a running impression in your letter of someone who wants to run away, escape, or self-soothe through external means, and that pattern is something you need to prepare for.
Let’s zoom in on what she’s actually said and the consequences for you. You’re doing absolutely everything you can — therapy, books, videos, medications, prioritizing time together — and that makes sense given the kids and your desire to keep the family intact. For children, especially those with autism, stability is important, and it’s understandable you want to preserve that. Still, you confess you “messed up” on some crucial opportunities to connect with her, but you don’t explain what those were. From the rest of what you say, it feels like you may be taking on responsibility for her emotional distance that you don’t actually have the power to fix. You also note you want to be less domineering and more calm and present — that self-awareness can be useful — but your predominant hope seems to be that if she only “opened her heart” and you both committed effort, monogamy could restore everything. You speak with hopeful certainty about that, but she has already said she’s not in love and is interested in exploring sex with others; she put that on the table. If you’re hoping to move forward in monogamy, you must acknowledge that her stated desire to pursue other people is a direct rejection of that outcome.
Please do not talk yourself into acceptance of polyamory or an open marriage just because you’re desperate to keep the family together. If monogamy is a non-negotiable for you — as you say it is — then you need a clear boundary: you will not consent to her sleeping with other people. You also need to stop gaslighting yourself by insisting that relentless positivity and mindfulness alone will save this. Mindfulness includes clear-eyed acceptance of hard realities, not emotional wishful thinking. There’s no “no-pain” route through this; there may be immense grief, but there’s also the possibility of freedom and eventual peace if you stop trying to control outcomes and focus on what you can manage.
A few practical suggestions: read No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover if you find yourself falling into patterns of people-pleasing or codependence — many men find its direct, boundary-orientated approach helpful. Look into Al‑Anon if alcohol has been a problem in her past or present; it’s designed for partners and family members of people with substance issues and can help you shift attention back to your own health. Begin doing pragmatic research about co-parenting options in the event of a separation. If you’re the non-earning partner now, figure out part-time or other income opportunities and a plan so you aren’t left scrambling financially. Above all, bring the focus back to you for a while: what do you need? What does your body and intuition tell you? Can you create some internal calm that doesn’t depend on controlling her choices? No one should shoulder the blame for another adult’s unavailability, and sometimes the “answer” is to stop taking responsibility for someone else’s emotions.
You asked for clarity, advice, help and encouragement — so here goes: be clear about the boundary you will not cross (polyamory isn’t okay if it destroys your relationship), get honest help for patterns of codependence, prepare practically for co-parenting if separation happens, and focus on your own recovery and wellbeing. You can be loved without having to manufacture that love by self-sacrifice. There will be pain, but the best path forward often involves letting go of coercive control and opening to the reality of what your partner is choosing. Your children’s welfare is the top priority; protecting them from drama and creating a peaceful environment — whether together or as co-parents — is the most responsible aim.
Now for the letters you included. First is Deia’s story: she dated Joe long-distance from age 27 to 29. Right away she felt anxious and guarded, yet Joe had charisma, stability, and intelligence on the surface. He also had a history of addiction and had recently left a long-term relationship. Their bond became tender and playful, but Deia’s insecurity and fear of abandonment made her clingy and constantly in need of reassurance. Joe made a new friend — a colleague — and their chemistry worried Deia; after months of uneasy signs, she discovered incriminating texts on his phone. When she confronted him, he responded with shame and fear, cut contact with that woman, and promised to make amends. She stayed, but never truly forgave. Over time she turned cold, resentful and critical; he became withdrawn and eventually relapsed into drug use. He confessed, she supported him in seeking help, but he kept using until the relationship ended. Deia believes her insecurity and controlling behavior helped push him toward cheating and drugs; she wonders if she ruined a good thing.
This is a familiar pattern: trauma‑triggered hypervigilance plus a partner who lies and hides creates a volatile, unsustainable dynamic. You did not “ruin” something good, Deia — you stayed in a relationship that was already compromised by deception and active substance use. Lying about addiction is a major breach of trust and a legitimate deal‑breaker in the dating phase. Recovery from addictive patterns is slow and uncertain; someone newly “clean” still needs time and proven stability before they’re dependable as a life partner. Going forward, be explicit about your non-negotiables: lying and active drug or alcohol use are valid deal‑breakers. Don’t convince yourself that charm or intermittent kindness cancels out systemic dishonesty. You deserve honest, reliable love, and part of healing is writing down what you truly need in a partner and refusing to settle for less. Dating with structure helps: go slowly, insist on transparency, and prioritize people who demonstrate long-term stability and integrity.
The second letter is from Annie, who describes a long pattern of “situationships,” unreciprocated friendships and limerence. She spent about two years on the fringes of a mostly polyamorous friend group; she’s not interested in polyamory, but she hoped she could keep honest boundaries. Then she met a man in that group who told her up front he was poly; she tried to make it work anyway after her friend encouraged it, but it hurt. She lashed out when she discovered the friend and the man had slept together in the past, apologized, was cut off by the group, then later reconnected with the man. Their time together felt intense and promising, but he later told her it wouldn’t turn into anything serious — and she finally ended it. Since then she’s tempted to unblock and reconnect, struggles to let go of fantasies of “what could have been,” and feels like dating is a rote exercise. She asks how to stand firm and resist looking back.
Annie, this is a classic trauma-driven pattern: when you have an abandonment wound, you’re far likelier to “crap‑fit” yourself to people who don’t meet your needs, hoping that love will appear if you just try harder. That’s why the first rule for you is: be very clear about what you want before you let sexual or emotional attachment happen. For people with early trauma, intimacy can lock you in quickly; a first sexual encounter often creates the neurochemical bond that makes it almost impossible to see reality objectively. The safest path is structured dating: slow things down, require clarity about intentions before sex, and insist that relationship vs. casual status be explicit. If you are not poly, don’t try to adapt to people who are; that typically ends in self-abandonment and pain.
You also need tools to process the fear and obsessive thinking — the “daily practice” techniques are designed to help move overwhelming feelings out of active rumination so you can think more clearly and make better choices. Use healthy distractions that nourish you (creative projects, study, gardening, books), cultivate friends who will reality‑check you, and practice redirecting your thoughts when fantasies about exes arise. If you’re tempted to go back, remind yourself of why the situation didn’t work and what you truly want long-term: stability, reciprocity, and someone who chooses you exclusively if that’s your value. Set firm boundaries and keep them.
Across all these stories the same themes recur: trauma and insecure attachment can distort perception and push people into tolerating bad fits; substance abuse and deception are serious and often disqualifying; codependent rescuing behaviors erode attraction and personal safety; and practical planning (finances, co-parenting logistics) matters when relationships are unstable. The antidotes are clear-eyed boundaries, focused self-care, slowing the pace of intimacy, therapy and community support (Al‑Anon or similar groups if addiction is present), and concrete skills for calming and processing intense emotions. You didn’t cause other people’s choices; you can, however, change how you respond, protect yourself and your children, and build a future grounded in dignity and honest connection. Healing is possible, but it requires truthfulness, clear limits, self-focus, and the courage to let events unfold without trying to force outcomes that aren’t genuinely mutual.