Protect your WOMB.

Having a baby with the wrong man can lead to a lifetime of struggle and stress.

I’ve seen one too many friends deal with co-parenting nightmares with men they should have never looked twice at.

Guard your WOMB by increasing the protection that YOU have control over, for example, a female condom, bc pills and/or other forms your physician can talk to you about. If he tries to pressure to NOT using condoms, dump him quick.

If you don’t know what “stealthing” is, read up on it. Just because the term is not trending anymore doesn’t mean that it is happening less.

Some men will purposely try to get you pregnant because you are doing too well and they want to ruin your life plans or they want to keep you chained to them forever and be a thorn in your side for all your future relationships.

VIOLENCE of any kind is unacceptable.

Whether it be verbal, emotional, or physical, it is all a hard NO.

If he punches holes in the walls to scare you, leave.

If he forces you to do things you don’t want to do, leave.

If he hits you once, he will do it again.

At the first opportunity that you can do so safely, leave.

Do not listen to his apologies.

Do not give him a chance to escalate with threats against you, your kids and your family if you leave or tell the cops.

As you’ve heard time and time again, your abuser is only as strong as your silence.

Don’t be ashamed to get out at the first signs of VIOLENCE.

If you have to give him an ULTIMATUM about taking your relationship to the next level…

Sis, do I really need to finish that sentence?

Ok, I guess I do…

Don’t give any man an ULTIMATUM. Please, please and please don’t do it.

If you feel the need to do that to a man, it likely means that you haven’t been putting yourself and your needs first.

Scroll back to my A is for Action post and reread all of my posts.

Don’t let him waste your TIME.

Your TIME is valuable and though you may think that you are “young enough” and that you have a lot of it left, think again.

TIME stops for no one.

If commitment, children and/or marriage is what you want, don’t let him drag you along for 10 years if your limit is 2. Decide how much TIME you are willing to give the relationship but keep it to yourself. He doesn’t need to know about your time frames are. If he really wants you, he knows what he should do.

And don’t stay with him just because you have “invested” years in him and don’t want to start over with someone new.

It’s better to start over now with someone better for you than to stay with him and be miserable.

SAFETY in all ways is of the utmost importance so here are a few random tidbits to keep in mind:

• Don’t let him isolate you. Keep in touch with your friends/family on a regular basis so that if they don’t hear from you, they will know that something may be wrong;
• GPS is your friend. Think about sharing your cell location (like Google maps location sharing) with a few close friends/family s they know where you are at all times;
• Learn about the domestic violence hand signals that exist like this one here. Teach your friends and all the women in your life so that you can recognize someone’s cry for help;
• Create a “personalized” code question or statement that will immediately let others know that you are in trouble. The code question/statement does not need to be fancy, just something simple that you normally might not say but that will fly right over an abusive man’s head if he is monitoring your texts, phone calls and everyday conversations, for example: asking your friend for her coconut bread recipe when she hates baking and has no such recipe, telling your best friend that you are thinking about buying the latest shade of MAC lipstick when she knows that you are not into make-up or asking if you can borrow the best-seller she just bought when she never reads. The important thing is that you discuss these statements prior so that she realizes that you need help.

There are plenty of other tips but those are just a few food for thought.

There are so many excellent articles online that speak to RED FLAGS so I’ll simply post a few below.

What I will say is that you often see the red flags AFTER you’ve found yourself in a bad situation, you know, hindsight is 20/20 and all that…

I wish that we would teach our girls about red flags long before they ever encounter them.

Read these articles below and if you find yourself nodding to more than a few of them, get out as soon as you can because you deserve better.

24 Relationship Red Flags You Should Never Ignore

11 Red Flags in a Relationship Not To Ignore

13 Red Flags You Should Never Ignore When Beginning a New Relationship

Again, if you find yourself nodding to more than a few of the above RED FLAGS, RUN!

We are allowed to have dreams and fantasies.

But impractical romantic ideals need to be balanced with a good dose of reality.

Big chivalrous gestures and romantic deeds may not last forever but compatibility can go a longer way.

There are good men to be found but in a sea of boys, avoid being impulsive on the shiny and exciting bad boys.

Unless you are Anita Baker, avoid getting caught up in the rapture 🙂