• When he does something to hurt you is he willing to have a full discussion or does he avoid showing up and abandon accountability?
• Does he treat all women with respect regardless of whether he is having sex with her or not?
• Does he stand up and speak up and / or protect a woman who is being mistreated in front of him?
• Does he tell his mates it’s not ok to put women down or does he participate in laughing at or making private jokes at women’s expense with his male friends?
• Does he introduce you respectfully and treat you like you matter around his male friends or do you get the sense that you’re just another number on the list of women he’s seeing?
• Do his friends treat you with respect or does he keep company with sleazy men?
• Does he display attunement to your mood and what might be going on for you and communicate empathically or does he ignore, avoid or shame and silence your emotions and/ or experience?
• Does he have genuine remorse and is willing to learn from how you feel when he has hurt you or does he think it’s only about you and an issue you have that has nothing to do with him and his behaviours? Does he defer responsibility?
• When you have a grievance does he listen and hold full space for you to unpack what you feel or does he cut in and talk about himself and make excuses for his behaviour?
• Does he ask you questions about yourself and show genuine interest in your life or is he more interested in sexual activity or pushing his own agendas without really seeing you, hearing you and truly respecting you?
• Does he back you when you share something vulnerable or does he invalidate your reality and side with others?
• Is he comfortable with all parts of you or does his conversation push to stay on the surface only with what’s pleasant, positive and comfortable?
• Does he have character and substance as an authentic human being or is he more interested in dissasociated spiritual, ungrounded pursuits and lifestyles?
• Has he / is he directly working on his triggers / traumas / issues with a credible professional or psychotherapist or does he believe he doesn’t need to?
• Does he honour the agreements he’s made or said yes to?
• Do his words match his actions? Does he have integrity?
• Is he courageous and honest and comes to you to communicate difficult material or does he wait for you to ask or bring something up and avoid unless you do?
• Does he communicate with you if something changes for him or does he disconnect and cut off harshly and unexpectantly with no regard for the impact upon you?
• Is he trauma-informed or interested in becoming more trauma-sensitive or does he sit purely in logic and retraumatise you through lack of embodied emotional intelligence?
• Does he repair relationship ruptures maturely and directly or does he leave and abandon the connection whenever he is triggered and turn to other women/ sources of soothing?
• Does he expect you to automatically trust him or does he know he needs to earn your trust by showing consistently trust-worthy behaviours?
• When you let him know you don’t feel safe with him does he show interest in why and want to work towards creating safety?
• Does he respect your boundaries or does he push beyond them with no regard for your requests?

WHAT TO DO IF A MAN IS NOT SAFE?

You deserve to feel safe as a woman.

You have the right to honour yourself by adjusting your distance and boundary to appropriately reflect the degree of non-safety you feel with a man.

Trust your gut if you sense that something is off or that he is not being honest or transparent.

Only loosen your boundary if he consistently shows behaviours that make you feel safer.

Get support from men, women or therapists that you trust and feel safe with to process your feelings or any shock or trauma that arises for you.