How can you live confident that you won’t miss the red flags you once missed in past toxic relationships?

The KEY is being mindful of the yellow flags!

A big mistake I personally made in my past relationships was having a passive mindset toward the yellow flags as ‘not that bad.’ If you are coming out of years in a toxic situation, then yellow can almost look angelic compared to the hellish red flags that you lived with everyday. The circus of yellow or red flags was a norm.

For clarity, let’s look at the official meaning of yellow and red flags in racing:

> A red flag means to come to a full stop immediately.

> A yellow flag means to slow down and proceed with CAUTION due to a hazard on the road.

So a yellow flag can be helpful in avoiding a more dangerous situation like an accident. Responding to a yellow flag is taking a proactive approach so you won’t become entangled in a crisis.

How can we apply this analogy and draw a parallel to our relationships?
It’s important to pay attention to yellow flags and talk about them, even if they don’t seem extreme. If you want to build safety in your relationships, this process will help you. In my own experiences, these were some examples of smaller things I wish I’d paid attention to:

5 YELLOW Flags to Proceed with Caution:

1. Your partner makes indirect, passive comments about the way you do things. 
Making comments is not a negative thing in and of itself. But I am talking about comments that lead to more ambiguity than connection. Your partner may bring something up, but they do not make it explicitly clear what they feel or think about it. So pursuing a conversation about it will make the motivation behind their statement clearer so it can bring connection, or reveal incompatibility. Sometimes, but not always, this can develop into more overt micro-criticisms, which are red flags.

2. Your partner makes sarcastic quips.
Some people grow up where sarcasm is a love language, and it can definitely be done in good fun.
But some forms of sarcasm can feel condescending, and it slowly tears down your self-esteem and self-respect. If you are feeling uncomfortable in the slightest, communicate that to your partner. Even if they are being playful, you deserve someone that will care how their words make you feel.

3. Your partner is stoic.
If you are looking for a best friend in a partner, then you certainly want someone who can walk the everyday highs, lows, and mundane with you. They can get excited with you and validate your feelings when you have a hard day at work. This creates connection, trust, and intimacy. If you find them more stoic in these moments, it could a sign that he is emotional unavailable.

4. Your partner goes silent.
People can be silent because they are shy, introverted, or even tired. It can be really helpful to check in on the reason for their silence. If this is happening often, they could be emotionally unavailable or have low capacity for connection. I discovered this when an ex could be so chatty on the go with me one minute, but then go silent on our dinner dates. He would clam up like he suddenly had no social skills when we got face to face. Later I learned he was masking a mood disorder and had very little capacity for intimacy.

5. You physically feel uncomfortable or anxious around your partner.
You cannot quite pinpoint what it is exactly, but something inside you feels uneasy around them. Maybe it was some bad pizza…or maybe your intuition is picking up on something! Pay attention to how you feel around them!! I felt this with one ex, and only around him. The truth came out much later when he confessed to rage issues. Turns out I could sense it intuitively from the start. Trust your gut.

There are so many possible yellow flags you can address, and it does not necessarily point to something bad. But I hope this encourages you to be mindful, powerful, and proactive in your relationships. This really is about developing the practice of honoring yourself and what you need for connection in a relationship. You will want someone who is going to respect that about you. If there is something creating a disconnect between you, practice addressing it to nurture connection. If they get defensive when you bring up the small things: RED FLAG.

Because let me tell you, if he is defensive about the small things, he will be even more defensive about the big things.

6 Signs He is Emotionally Unavailable