The relationship red flag no one warned me about

There was one key moment on a European holiday that Kassia realised she was in an abusive relationship, and it was a red flag no one warned her about.

In my very early 20s, my then boyfriend and I decided to take the typical uni Euro trip. On trains and buses, we made our way around far too many countries in the space of a month – and we fought constantly.

Well, more like he fought constantly and I just had to take it – nothing physical, but there had been several long, teary and even aggressive fights revolving around him threatening to break up with me for reasons I still don’t understand, and looking back I think just didn’t exist.

Towards the end of the trip we were staying in Barcelona, and on our last night we tried a new restaurant in a more touristy part of town than we’d spent time at before.

Long story short, we misread the prices and we didn’t realise until the bill came that we had to pay a lot more than we expected for a meal that wasn’t great.

‘We fought constantly … well he fought, and I just had to take it’. Picture: iStock.

To me, it was a bit annoying but obviously our fault for not checking properly. For my ex, it was yet another thing to get furious about.

While I started off trying to calm him down and pointing out our error, it soon became clear that this was just making him angrier. This was a man who once screamed at me because he dropped an open bottle of milk and I hadn’t somehow predicted it was going to happen, leapt across the kitchen and caught it before it hit the floor.

It was an anger that I knew from experience would be turned on me the second we walked into our hotel room. So I switched teams.

I stopped being on my own side, and started being on his. I even started a loud and heated argument with the poor waitress – something I have literally never done at any other time in my life, and believe to be appalling behaviour.

Even while it was happening I felt terrible for her, and the turning heads of other patrons made me even more humiliated. Yet, none of this was as daunting to me as another fight with my ex.

In the course of my relationship, I became someone I didn’t like at all. Picture: iStock.

There’s no excuse for picking this fight, and it was never even a fight I believed in, but it was 100 per cent done out of self-preservation.

By now you’ve seen the footage of an angry Will Smith walking on stage to slap Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife. Smith’s first reaction to the host’s G.I. Jane joke about his wife, was to laugh quite a lot.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith at the now-infamous Oscars. Picture: Robyn Beck / AFP

It was only after seeing Jada’s reaction – something which largely happened off-screen – that he became so incensed he made the terrible decision to turn to physical violence.

Smith’s extreme change in mood to obviously get on his partner’s wavelength didn’t sit well with me. In fact, it made me incredibly anxious.

It made me remember a time I had acted out of character because someone close to me demanded no less. It made me remember how terrible it felt, but how little choice it felt like I had to act any differently.

I can have no idea what was really going on in this far more famous pairing.

But for anyone else who has seen this happening and relived their own shame the way I did – I see you.

Originally published as The relationship red flag no one warned me about