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(#2) Whenever You Bring Up a Problem to Him, He Treats YOU as the Problem
In logical argumentation, there’s a fallacy known as argumentum ad hominem. Basically, when you commit this fallacy, you attack the person making an argument rather than responding to the argument that they’re actually making. Gaslighters are argumentum ad hominem PROS.
So, one way to tell if you’re being gaslighted is to notice how your partner is responding to you in arguments. For example, say you bring up the fact that his late nights are making you nervous both for his and your own safety, and you ask him to call or text if he’s going to be out later than he thought. If his only responses are about you - that you’re crazy or you’re too controlling or you’re being too sensitive - and he ignores the substance of everything that you said, he’s employing a classically fallacious gaslighting technique.
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(#4) His Covert Manipulations Make You Second-Guess Everything
Gaslighters are legendary in their ability to make you feel like your memory is failing you. And for the most part, it’s in their vested interest to make you feel this way. When you want to revisit a conflict that you had with your partner, if they’re a gaslighter, chances are they’re going to have a very different version of events in mind than the one that you bring to the table.
Usually, their version places you at the epicenter of the trouble, and you walk away from the conversation blaming yourself and doubting your ability to remember what actually happened.
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(#1) He Has to Have Things His Way
Does your partner have to have everything, even the weirdest, smallest situations, their way? Do they make you feel stupid, irrational, or just plain wrong for having a different opinion? Obviously, (before you say it) all couples have their disagreements, so this gaslighting symptom isn’t just that naturally occurring, inevitable difference of opinion. It’s serial control where your partner REFUSES to drop a topic until you agree with them.
If, for example, your partner forces you to listen to his ideas about the merits of spaghetti noodles vs. linguini noodles until you change your order (and it’s not just in jest, or it feels weirdly serious to you), you might be dating a gaslighter.
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(#8) There’s a Sense of Foreboding That You Can’t Pinpoint
Being in a relationship built on gaslighting is tough for a lot of reasons, but one of the hardest things is the difficulty of pinpointing just why or how you’re feeling the way that you’re feeling at a given moment. Gaslighters are really good at making their partners feel crazy, oversensitive, and bad at remembering things, and they make them feel like they’re losing touch with reality. So, one of the signs of gaslighting that you might feel, even if you don’t know why, is a deep sense of foreboding, the feeling that something bad is always about to happen.
When your partner can turn on a dime, they force you to feel concerned or worried about how they might react. If your relationship is making you feel foreboding rather than bringing you joy, you might be being gaslighted without knowing it.
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(#5) You Blame Yourself for Being Oversensitive, Crazy, or Jealous
When you’re with a gaslighter for a long enough period of time, you start to internalize their abuse, which can change the way you perceive yourself. If they’re always telling you you’re oversensitive or your point of view doesn’t make sense, chances are you’ll start to believe these things about yourself too. This is especially true since victims of gaslighting often don’t share the negative behaviors of their partners with those around them, opting instead to protect their narcissistic partner.
If you begin feeling like you’re inadequate or that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you because your partner tells you that there is, you’re being gaslighted.
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(#9) You Sense That You Weren’t Always So Sad or Depressed
Odds are, you didn’t always feel as terrible about yourself as your gaslighting significant other makes you feel. You can probably even remember - no matter how out of touch the other person tries to make you feel with reality - times when you weren’t as sad, depressed, or irrational as you are now.
And, if you really think about, you can chart these feelings alongside the appearance and behaviors of the gaslighter in your life, regardless of how crazy they make you feel.
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About This Tool
Gaslighting is a common form of mental abuse that can cause someone to doubt their sanity or opinion. It usually occurs in power-imbalanced relationships and social interactions. Gaslighted people may feel confused, anxious, or defensive about the behavior of the abuser, and such people tend to become less and less confident.
If your spouse or partner often tends to belittle you or downplay your concerns or doubts about their unnormal behavior, then you are likely to have been Gaslighted. They may say something like: “you are just too sensitive!” The random tool lists 12 signs your boyfriend may be gaslighting you.
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