Ever heard your partner try to manipulate you into believing something is real when it isn't? Ever experienced your partner telling you that you're doing or feeling something when you're not? You could be experiencing what is being called 'gaslighting'.
Gaslighting is a term used to describe when a partner manipulates you into a reality that is being created by the partner who is doing the gaslighting. The term has become extremely popular since 2020, with Google Trends identifying a sharp rise in the term over recent years. It's also being used a lot when talking about domestic abuse.
The term comes from a 1944 film "Gaslight", where the husband purposefully manipulates his wife into believing a different reality which in turns drives her insane.
There is an ongoing debate about gaslighting vs what is said during arguments. You've no doubt been in a heated argument where someone has accused you of doing something and you deny it happened. Or perhaps you have said something that you believed to be true but unable to prove.
Things get said in arguments that are out of character and not truly how you feel. That is anger. Arguments can be resolved, apologies can be made, and life returns to normal.
Gaslighting is positioned to be more of a sinister, manipulative form of emotional abuse. Gaslighting is planned and designed to drive the other person, quite simply, crazy. It is the active denying of another persons reality, outside of an argument, to make them question their reality.
Say your partner found a mobile phone in your position that she does not recognise. It could be a friends or families phone that they innocently left in your car or at home. Your partner finds the phone, and then thinks it is a 'second phone' that you are hiding from them. Your partner then accuses you of having a second phone and running a second life. You deny it, because it isn't true - and you know it's true.
But your partner continues to believe this reality. The relationship continues when you are living your reality, a reality where you don't have a second life. Your partner is living a reality where you do. Your partner keeps bringing this reality up in conversation - and you keep denying it. You are, quite literally, being driven insane by your partners reality of being unfaithful and keeping a secret life away from her and the family. You end up believing their reality - even though it isn't the truth.
That is gaslighting. Your partner is manipulating you into believing her reality while losing grip of your own. When that happens, mental health issues start to happen, and that could to mental health issues, frustration and anger.
Using the example above, let's say your partner gaslights you by creating an alternative reality that you have a second life, using a second phone to run it with. You deny that reality, because you know deep down inside, that you believe to know something that is fundamentally true - that you do not have a second life. But now, your partner is accusing you of gaslighting. You are denying your partners reality, so therefore you become, in their reality, the gaslighter.
That doesn't seem fair, does it?
This is beyond normal relationship disagreements. This is when it becomes emotional abuse.
If you feel that you are being gaslit, here are some things you could do.
If you see something that is green, and your gaslighter is telling you it's blue, and you keep telling them it's green and then call you the gaslighter, there is simply no hope and you have to leave before you get angry.