Gaslighting can be a confusing and insidious form of emotional abuse, as it makes you question your sanity and perception. It’s a truly cruel manipulation tactic, but sadly, it is common in toxic relationships. Here are 17 subtle signs your partner might be gaslighting you so you can recognize the behavior and protect your mental health.
Twisting Your Words
As the Newport Institute points out, in conversations, your partner might distort what you say to make it seem like you meant something else. This gaslighting tactic can make you question your communication skills and memory, and you might even find yourself second-guessing your own words.
Dismissing Your Feelings
When you express your emotions, your partner might belittle or ignore them–this is a form of gaslighting. Instead of acknowledging your feelings, you might be told you’re overreacting or being too sensitive. Constant dismissal can make you doubt the legitimacy of your emotions over time, but you should never let this take over your feelings.
Denying Events Happened
Partners who are gaslighters might deny certain events ever happened, even when you remember them clearly. This denial can make you question your memory and perception of reality, which is deeply troubling. Over time, it becomes challenging to trust your recollections.
Blaming You for Their Actions
Rather than taking responsibility for their behavior, your gaslighting partner might blame you for their actions, playing the victim. You might hear things like, “You made me do it,” a form of blame-shifting that can lead to unnecessary feelings of guilt and confusion.
Withholding Information
Another subtle way your partner might be gaslighting you is by deliberately keeping information from you, making you feel left out or uninformed. This tactic can create a power imbalance, making you dependent on them for knowledge and understanding.
Making You Doubt Yourself
The easiest way to summarize gaslighting is that it involves subtle comments and criticisms that cause you to question your abilities and decisions. Over time, this erodes your self-confidence and makes you more reliant on their approval; you’ll even start doubting your judgment in various aspects of life.
Isolating You from Loved Ones
Outrageously, partners who gaslight their partner might gradually discourage you from spending time with friends and family. This isolation can make you more dependent on them for emotional support while reducing the likelihood that someone else will point out their behavior.
Using Your Fears Against You
If you have a gaslighter for a partner, your insecurities and fears might be weaponized to manipulate you. They might bring up your anxieties in arguments to destabilize you, a tactic that keeps you on edge and more susceptible to their control.
Offering Insincere Apologies
Gaslighters always struggle to apologize sincerely, so when they do apologize, it will be given without genuine remorse. They might say “sorry” to shut you up, but their behavior doesn’t change. This insincerity can leave you feeling unheard and invalidated.
Creating Confusion
Your partner might tell conflicting stories or change their narrative frequently as a means to gaslight you. This creates a sense of confusion and uncertainty, leading to it becoming hard to know what’s true, making you more dependent on their version of events.
Undermining Your Achievements
Partners should always celebrate your successes, but a partner who is gaslighting you will instead downplay or dismiss them. This undermining can diminish your sense of accomplishment and self-worth, potentially leading you to start feeling that your achievements aren’t significant, even though they absolutely are.
Playing the Victim
It’s all too common for a gaslighting partner to often position themselves as the victim within arguments, turning the situation around to make you feel guilty. This tactic diverts attention from their behavior and places the focus on your supposed faults, which just isn’t right.
Exaggerating Your Faults
Gaslighters love to point out your mistakes and flaws, and they’ll happily magnify them while theirs are minimized. This constant exaggeration can make you feel disproportionately responsible for problems in the relationship, slowly eroding your self-esteem.
Making You Feel Incompetent
Another sign your partner is actively gaslighting you is if they make subtle comments and actions aimed at making you feel incapable or inadequate. This can include questioning your decisions or belittling your efforts. Over time, this can lead to a lack of confidence in your abilities.
Gaslighting About Gaslighting
Ironically, when you confront a gaslighting partner about their behavior, they might accuse you of gaslighting them instead. This reversal can make you question your sanity and the validity of your concerns. It’s a tactic to deflect blame and maintain control, which you absolutely must not tolerate.
Passive-Aggressive Behavior
It’s very common for gaslighters to resort to passive-aggressive tactics, such as giving you the silent treatment or making snide remarks. This indirect aggression can be confusing and hurtful, making you unsure of how to respond.
Making You Feel Unworthy
Above all, constant criticism and negative remarks are synonymous with gaslighting. This might make you feel unworthy or undeserving of love and respect, causing an erosion of self-worth that will leave you feeling trapped and dependent on their approval. Sadly, this makes it even harder to see the truth of their manipulation, so keep your eyes peeled.