Tell him once you feel comfortable enough to talk about past relationships. I wouldn't go into it on the first date, but definitely bring it up once you start getting serious. Don't worry about the guy being scared off. Any decent guy will want to pummel your horrible ex like he's The Thing putting the smackdown on The Hulk. (Come on. Ben Grimm could take the Hulk anyway. Smarts over brute strength. Point, set, match, Chic Geek.)
If you're getting serious, you'll want to let him know as soon as possible. Because your past abuse will likely affect your ability to get close to someone. He'll think you're pulling away because you don't have feelings for him, when in fact you just need time to trust someone. Better to be as honest as you can about this. It was a tough point in your life, but you're ready to move on and date a good guy. This way you can approach things slowly, and weed out the jerks who are just looking for sex. Any guy worth dating will be willing to take things slow and help you get over your awful ex.
If you're getting serious, you'll want to let him know as soon as possible. Because your past abuse will likely affect your ability to get close to someone. He'll think you're pulling away because you don't have feelings for him, when in fact you just need time to trust someone. Better to be as honest as you can about this. It was a tough point in your life, but you're ready to move on and date a good guy. This way you can approach things slowly, and weed out the jerks who are just looking for sex. Any guy worth dating will be willing to take things slow and help you get over your awful ex.
By all means, listen to Nick. My ex was emotionally, mentally, and verbally abusive. I thought I was over it, until I got into a relationship with a really great guy, and started overreacting to things he said or did. After talking to him about it, I realized a lot of it was residual trauma from my ex, and it nearly cost me the relationship.
In the meantime, seek therapy if you can afford it. You have to be able to heal yourself in order to trust in love again. It will be a long process, but it CAN happen!
Best of luck to you!
I definitely agree. Honesty, its none of anybody's business if you are only casually dating. When/ if it becomes more serious, then you can tell him. It really only has to do with your comfort level.
From a guy's side of things:
My wife was married to an abuser. It was after a few dates that it was brought up. "Why did you get divorced" is a common (and fair enough) question (for both of us - both divorcee's). Part of what I wanted to know were some of the things that asshole said and did in his rage so that I would never say those things and do those things.
And like Kim said, sometimes I would see the way she reacted to something and WAY over reacting but after we talked about it, found out why. Example: he constantly stole her money. So once we moved in together (we were getting married, I had already bought the rings at this point) I gave her access to my bank account but didn't ask for access to her's. We would sit down when bill time came and I would ask her to transfer X dollars to my account and we paid bills together. After a while we closed the extra account and it's all good.
So like Nick said - you'll know when the time is right, and the right guy will not be put off by it.
Good advice...
actually i asked MM the very same question a few months ago (http://www.guyspeak.com/answers/mm-jadore-how-you-handle-this-topici-recently-skirted-my-emotional-abuse-history-on-a-date-by-joking/). i followed his advice, which as you can see is very similar to Nicks, and i'm still dating the same guy i was asking my question about. i just want to say though, it is easy to give this advice, tell him tell him. he needs to know, he deserves to know, etc. it is very hard to do that. it is very hard to say some of those things out loud. i still have only had two conversations with the man i am dating about this, one that is discussed in the thread with MM's answer to me, and another a few weeks ago. the second conversation was about, 3 minutes long. maybe. he knows about it, acts the way that Nick has said is the appropriate way to act, that's enough for me, for now. just go at your own pace, and any man worth his salt will respect that, you don't need to tell anybody anything upfront if you cant. honestly, it's none of their business, nobody is owed any answers by you.