You’re in the right place if you want to know how to spot gaslighting in your relationships and the warning signs to look out for. However, before examining if there is gaslighting in your relationships, let’s look at what gaslighting is.
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What Is Gaslighting?
Robin Stern best describes gaslight or gaslighting in her book “The Gaslight Effect.”
“Gaslighting is the act of undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the environment around them, or their feelings. Targets of gaslighting are manipulated into turning against their cognition, their emotions, and who they fundamentally are as people.”
When someone actively undermines your reality, manipulating your perception so you doubt yourself, you’re being gaslit. Even more, not only is this a sign of an unhealthy relationship, but it can also be a sign of a narcissistic relationship pattern.
You may be wondering, ‘Is my boyfriend gaslighting me?’ or ‘Is my girlfriend manipulating me?’
It’s not always easy to know if you’re a victim of gaslighting. That’s why below, we’ll take a look at ways you can be gaslighted and how to discern if it’s happening.
Signs of gaslighting in your relationships
If you’re wondering if you’re gaslighted, manipulated, or in an unhealthy relationship, this article will help you.
As you read through the signs and gaslighting techniques used to manipulate, be honest about what’s happening in your relationship.
Also, try not to make any excuses for your partner’s behavior.
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign One
You Often Get Blamed For Everything And Feel It’s All Your Fault
Frequent blaming in a relationship is a common sign of gaslighting.
If your partner leads you to believe ‘it’s always my fault,’ manipulation is at play.
In a healthy relationship, no one is 100% responsible for the problems.
Healthy couples know that nearly every relationship problem takes two. And both people have a 50/50 responsibility to own their half for creating the issues.
Related Article: I Think My Husband Hates Me & My Wife Hates Me
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Two
You’re Constantly Being Told To Second Guess Your Memory
First, when you’re in a healthy relationship, both people take ownership for creating the issues.
In an unhealthy relationship, you’ll find that one person blames and makes the other person take an unfair amount of responsibility for the issues.
Sure, there will be times when someone knows they messed up, and they’ll be called out for it. But when you find yourself constantly being at fault, being blamed, and taking more than your share of the blame – you’re gaslighted.
Here are some phrases that indicate there’s gaslighting in your relationship
- It’s all your fault
- If you hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be in this mess
- You need to apologize
- You’re stupid
- You need to realize it’s all your fault
Phrases like these are not about opening up a dialogue. They’re about making someone entirely at fault. There isn’t space for two people to take responsibility, talk about things, and create a solution. These words are all aimed at making the issue ultimately your fault. Indeed, when that’s happening, it clearly indicates that something needs to change.
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Three
You Feel Threatened Or On Edge With Your Partner
A healthy relationship thrives on emotional safety. Sometimes you might feel edgy or uneasy with your partner. But if you feel threatened or on edge, it’s a common feeling – take a deep look at why. Don’t make excuses for your partner. Instead, inquire as to why you feel on edge and why you feel threatened.
Partners should never feel threatened or in danger. If you feel this way, I suggest you look at this article on signs of an abusive relationship. Gaslighting is one type of abuse that could also signal more significant issues, or it could signal it’s time to seek marriage counseling.
Feel Like There Might Be Gaslighting In Your Relationship?
Feeling uneasy, uncomfortable, or even sad in your relationship is one thing. Of course, that happens in all partnerships, but feeling threatened isn’t healthy and could mean there’s a bigger issue that goes beyond gaslighting.
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Four
You Often Feel Like You’re Walking On Eggshells
When you’re with someone who is explosive, on edge, and hard to feel safe with – it hurts your relationship. It damages your ability to open up and connect with your partner.
This sign alone isn’t a clear indicator of gaslighting, but when coupled with the other ones, it’s a good indicator of gaslighting in a relationship.
Related Article: Signs He Doesn’t Love You Anymore
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Five
You Don’t Feel Like It’s Ok To Feel What You Feel
In an ideal relationship, you’re free to feel whatever you feel. In a healthy relationship, you can share your thoughts and feelings, and your partner listens. But, of course, there are times when there are disagreements, and it’s harder to open up. But when there’s a pervading sense of being unable to share your feelings, it will wreak havoc on your longevity and future together.
If you can’t share what you’re feeling, the best thing to do is seek professional help with your partner. Although not feeling like you can share your feeling is a symptom of an unhealthy relationship, the best solution is to find your voice again.
Ask your partner if they’re open to counseling together. Indeed, if they’re willing to do the work necessary to make you feel safe to share your feelings, you’re with someone invested in building a healthy relationship.
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Six
You Don’t Feel Strong Or Confident Anymore
Watching documentaries about sexual predators and manipulators, you quickly learn that one of their tactics is to take away their partner’s confidence.
Your partner may make you lose confidence in yourself. You may even feel worthless or undesired by your partner.
Therefore, if you feel less confident and you also resonate and connect with the other signs on this list – you are being emotionally abused by someone who is gaslighting you.
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Seven
You Don’t Feel Safe Speaking Up And Stay Quiet
Being silenced will wear down your sense of self real fast. Not feeling like you can talk to your partner works to erode a healthy relationship like rust to metal. Little by little, your inability to share and your feelings of being trapped will take away the love, connection, and intimacy you have with yourself and your partner.
For example, you may feel like your husband wants sex but not intimacy. However, you don’t feel like you can share your concerns and needs with your husband without negative repercussions.
It creates an unhealthy power dynamic when you don’t feel safe opening up and sharing. It will ultimately destroy your self-esteem and well-being and corrode your relationship intimacy.
Gaslighting In Your Relationship Sign Eight
You Often Feel Confused About What Happened
When you talk about issues and your partner constantly works to make you feel doubtful of your perceptions -you’re not with someone who is learned how to listen and hear you.
The difference between a manipulative gaslighter and an average person is that a normal person won’t actively work to make you feel confused. Furthermore, an average person might mess up, come back and apologize and then actively work to hear your side of things, and they’ll validate your side of the story.
Finally, a gaslighter will just let you feel confused and then try to tell you how it is and that you’re entirely wrong.
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Nine
Your Partner Frequently Makes Excuses
In the renowned research by Drs. John and Julie Gottman identified four warning signs that your marriage will end in divorce: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
These four warning signs indicate that a relationship dynamic is unhealthy, maybe even abusive, and definitely on the path toward ending.
These warning signs are such clear indicators of an impending divorce that the Gottmans can predict a couple’s divorce with 94% accuracy.
One of those warning signs is that someone (or both people) cannot take responsibility. When you ask your partner if they paid a certain bill, picked up the milk from the grocery store, or something else, and they respond by making excuses, it’s a warning sign of an unhealthy pattern.
Gaslighting In Relationships Sign Ten
Your Partner Tells You And Others That You’re Crazy
If your partner tells you you’re crazy, you’ll unlikely feel safe and connected with them.
One of the ways that an abuser will gaslight a relationship is to tell that person and everyone else their partner is crazy. By doing that, an abuser asserts power and control. If you find your partner telling you or your friends and family members that you’re crazy – seek professional help.
Even more, this behavior is a form of emotional abuse that will wreak havoc on your sense of well-being in the long term. The best solution is to seek professional counsel before you wake up one day and your self-esteem is destroyed.
Related Reading: He Gets Defensive When I Tell Him How I Feel
The Solution For Gaslighting In Your Relationships
Start to take notice of these gaslighting examples in marriage and acknowledge the ways that your partner is hurting you and manipulating you.
If you’ve realized ‘my husband gaslights me’ or ‘my wife displays signs of gaslighting,’ seek professional support immediately.
Take back your voice and ask to be acknowledged.
If your partner shows signs of listening better, acknowledging you more, and taking 50/50 responsibility – the gaslighting can be fixed.
If you’re worried that you have gaslighting in your relationship, feel free to schedule a complimentary marriage consultation.
By allowing gaslighting to go on longer, you could find yourself in a relationship that isn’t good for you.
Your mental health and relationship deserve the support and help of an expert. Finally, when both people are willing to tackle the issue of gaslighting, you can create a healthy relationship.
Angela I wish I could reach out and give you a hug. I completely understand you, my husband is an amazing father and provider, when we first met and got married he was the best husband. We have been together 18 years, I have not been working for most of those years (raised our daughter who is now 14 and went to college to get my degree), so he has been the bread winner and he pays all the bills. As a stay home mom I have tried to do as much as I can, but many times this is not enough for him. My husband can be a loving person today and that lasts a couple of days, then turn into someone else for any small reason. Many times when we argue about something he can get so upset that he starts name calling, he also throws in my face the fact that he pays the bills, which makes me feel worthless. I get upset because I never wanted to stop working, I did it after we both agreed that we didnt want our daughter in strangers hands. Once she started school full time I was trying to find work and he suggested I go back to college in order to get a better paying job… I did. I recently graduated and because of the pandemic havent been able to find work, which has stressed us both. I look back at my life and realize this is not what I envisioned it would be. I had dreams and wanted to do things, now I am 50 years old and feel defeated. I have even told him I was ready for my next life, because this one I screwed up. Just a night ago he was cuddling with me in bed and hugged me, told me he wants to life the rest of his life with me… then at about 4am he wakes up and realizes our daughter was up at that time and on her phone, he became upset and startled me up to complained about how I am not parenting and how he is fed up about being the only adult in the house that always does everything. Words and actions like these are the things that make me feel worthless and wanting out. I used to be very independent, happy (to the point of being silly), proud of my accomplishments. I used to work, have friends, go out, have a voice… I no longer feel like that person and the saddest part is that I know that person is still in me but its afraid to come out because of him. Angela I hope you have found help and things have gotten better for you.
Dear Ivonne,
Your words really resonated with me. I’ve had the same thoughts and framework behind them. I have two sons…ages 2 and 1 and no immediate family on my own side. When I always felt successful in my career and excited about the future, I now feel this incredibly foreboding feeling that I can’t shake.
I’m working now, but it’s been put forward that I stay home and care for the kids full time. I fear that when that happens, my situation will deteriorate.
Wishing you the best.
Your experience sounds very close to mine. I feel like at times I have made a big deal about the way that I feel. But reading what you said helps me realize that I am not irrational. My husband too has been the bread winner and has paid all the bills. I have been a stay at home mom since our 9 year old was born and we now also have a 5 year old son together. He too would treat me good for a day or two the last few years. Sometimes not even a complete day. And I stayed because I always thought “maybe he will change this time.” And he would not change. About the last two years things have progressed negatively in our marriage. I finally decided to leave home with my children two days after the school year started. The mental and emotional abuse became unbearable and often it was done in front of our small children and my two adult daughters as well as my 16 year old. I couldn’t take it anymore that he was hurting our children by being abusive to me. This has hurt all my children tremendously. I have started therapy so that I could learn to deal with all the emotional pain and so I could be strong for all my children and my grandaughter and be a good example to all of them of having self respect. My 16 year old has been in therapy and so is my 9 year and my 5 year old will start soon. And I want to say that I do love my husband and I have asked him to do marriage counseling with me. He refuses to do so because my 21 year old confessed in court regarding his treatment towards us after I left home with our littlest ones. And of course my heart is broken because I was hoping that he would want to mend our marriage. Especially because we have two little ones that want more than anything to have their parents together. And everyday that goes by I feel like I was wrong for leaving home with my children. Even though when I did leave I felt like I had to and I had no choice. But I miss the one or two good days we would have that were “our good days” or our “ happy days” when we would have special moments with our little ones or even when we would go on trips together and have special memories. Although I look at the pictures knowing that just a few hours before the picture were taken he had thrown a chair in my path so I could trip. Or he was putting me down so bad before we left home that I cried in silence in the passenger’s seat so none of my 5 children would see me or hear me all the way up north to our family vacation destination. Anytime we went on a trip he would put me down. He told me I was only good for “one thing” and he meant intimacy. He told me one night when I was up late doing his laundry that I don’t look good anymore. He spit on me, threw his cell phones at me, left me bruised. Hit me on my arm in front of my two little ones. Told me hated me as he knelt down to hug and kiss our two little ones and that was probably one of the most painful moments for all of us. The night before I left, he threatened me that if I didn’t go with him out of the country with our two little ones in two days he would make us go the good way or the bad way. I didn’t want to find out what the bad way would be. I was scared. And he said that if I didn’t go he would take the kids. And he also said to me that my ex husband had to cheated on me so he could get rid of me. And he told me that I was going to suffer alot in life. The next day he kept telling me to shut up and that I am stupid as we walked our two little ones to their second day of school and my son just starting kindergarten my 9 year old just going back to in person school from being at home over two years virtually. It broke my heart knowing that they heard him putting me down. And even though there had been many more horrible things he had done to me over the years, that day that I left was just the last straw. I was afraid because he was now threatening me more. He had hit me on my arm a week before. He had hit me with the phones a few weeks before that. He was telling me that I was only good for one thing just before that and that I didn’t look good anymore. And he was right. I have lost so much weight, that I look at some pictures right before I left home and I look sick. And I was terribly anxious all the time, especially when he was coming home. And now, I am not at home anymore and I am sad and heart broken because I always wanted our marriage to last forever and our little ones to have their parents together. But it isn’t that way, even if I tried. Now I just have to make the best of a difficult situation. And give my children all the love and attention that I can. And try to rebuild my strength and confidence once again. I will keep you all in my prayers. Because we All need prayers. What I do know is that one day the suffering will stop. And that I am confident of. ❤️
Standing here frozen after reading your words Yvonne. I can’t even find the words to express how much of your reality has been mine.
The only exception, the conversation to decide if Mom should continue working or not. The mere opportunity of entertaining the discussion was completely off the table.
I always thought this was odd given the fact, the women in his family have always stayed home to raise their children through high school.
Nope! He did not agree and made it quite clear way before we were married and I was focused on my college degree. Even my Sister-in-law admittedly found this fact odd.
Long-winded and completely went on a tangent, only to say…I hear you and understand you.
my husband always makes me feel stupid and worthless. When he’s angry he tells me the same plus many other awful and nasty names. Hf constantly says I’m crazy, that everything is my fault, he controls the money, I have to ask if I want to buy something, go somewhere, see my family, what he wants for dinner, etc. I’m told to keep my mouth shut yet when I don’t talk I’m being moody and childish. I should be happy but when I aim then I’m too happy. I should be grateful for what I have. There are many women who would love to be in my shoes. I don’t have a college degree so I apparently know nothing about life. People always say we are the perfect couple because what they see is not what always is behind closed doors. He can be very caring and loving and giving. Unselfish at times. Yet when he’s angry, he becomes another person entirely. Seems like some days he just wakes up and has decided I’m the worst person in the world, that he hates me, can’t stand to be around me and from them on it’ll be days of me doing and saying or not saying absolutely everything wrong. It’s been nearly 11 years like this. I’m tired. So tired of it all. I don’t think he can change or ever will. Yet I feel trapped. I love him but I don’t love his mean and cruel ways and seems they are becoming more and more. I can’t keep taking the blame forever. I’m only human too. Despite what front I try to put on, I do have feelings. And right now I feel completely and hopelessly broken
Angela – Thank you for sharing. That sounds incredibly painful. I’ve worked with many couples who have the same dynamic. I know you’re going through something really painful, and research even shows that women who are treated like you’re being treated hurts their health and shortens their typical lifespan (according to various data sites).
I hope you won’t mind my sharing some insights and ideas that come from 12+ years working with hundreds of couples and spending thousands of hours in the relationship counseling space.
Your partner can change. You deserve to be treated kindly and with love. To have that though, you and your husband will need to make some big changes. One way to make that shift happen is by laying down boundaries. One of the fastest ways to help you set boundaries will be through counseling (either as a couple or just you). The way he treats you is also about you. I am not saying it’s your fault because it’s not. It’s sad to hear you’re being treated that way and you don’t deserve it. Someone’s specialness is not in what they earn, their education, or their career. You are special because you exist and you are special because you give that man love. What I am saying is – you can change and that in turn will force him to change (if we change, our world must change too).
Have you considered seeking counseling or coaching? This can be done with me, or with someone else. If money is an issue, I am happy to point you towards low-cost counseling that is helpful and I’ve even used. And if it feels right you’re also welcome to reach out to me for services – but what I am most interested in is your health, happiness, and you being treated with the dignity and respect you deserve.
It sounds like your husband has some great qualities. It’s nice you recognize that. now the question is – is it possible for you and him to create new dynamics so that the bad doesn’t get so bad? I know that the answer is yes – but it may require some discomfort, some new conversations, and maybe even some support to help speed up the process.
I hope that helps. Feel free to reach if you wish to speak with me as a coach or if you’d like me to point you to some low cost options. The main thing is, you are happy and have the life that makes you feel as often as possible.
I am a stay at home mom so my husband bosses me around he thinks I am stupid we have 2 kids which he cheated on me during both pregnancies we got back together nothing had changed I am going on 8 years and I’m in hell he treats me like straight garbage because he can i put up with it since he works and pays the bills I have always been a strong willed women but I guess after years i feel ugly and disrespected he never spends time with me I have to ask for affection and attention (and I am not ugly what do ever I have a lot of confidence) but with him I feel like the ugliest person in the room I am a women with figure I love my body but I’m not his type 🤷🏻♀️ He wants bone stick skinny and I can’t do that around his family he allows them to speak to me rudely his mother can be mean but I am not allowed to talk back if I don’t do what he says he threatens to kick me out I’m so exhausted but I don’t leave I know I need to leave but I don’t I am so alone I feel so alone and if I tell him how I feel then I am crazy