Dear Seaturtle:

* I just finished the post.. warning: I am shocked myself by my current understanding, so take your time reading, maybe read in parts, taking breaks, maybe read after taking a hot, relaxing bath.

“To N/ I don’t want to leave my bed,/ it’s warm under the covers/ and it’s cold out there“- N= familiar, feels safe; After N= unfamiliar, feels risky/ may be dangerous.

“Plus, there’s a man called/ Nathanael who melts into/ my skin & like the ocean/ it binds like one“- physical and emotional attachment, a force that binds/ connects you to him.

“His hair is smooth and soothing/ to touch, as is his back,/ warm to the bone./ In bed we play games, throw/ pillows and suck face,/ we even get to talking/ and gaze into space./ The way he sees the stars/ is a melody new to my ears,/ I think ‘yea’ I could listen/ to this song for years. * * */ But help me Universe I feel/ conflicted,/ is it possible the love here is/ constricted?/ I can’t tell what I feel but/ I do not like it,/ ‘it will all be ok I am going/ to fight it.’“- so far, in your poem, you didn’t indicate, not even suggest, any reason for you to feel constricted by N, all that you shared about him is gloriously positive, just like it’s been on your thread. This is why, for the longest time, I thought that your conflict, the constriction you mentioned here, in your poem, had nothing to do with N and everything to do with F whom, I thought, you inaccurately projected into N.

“Day after day coming home/ from battle/ Nathanael tells me what/ I worry about/ does not matter./ I ask him please come to/ therapy, or let’s take a small/ break? He says not, suck it up it’s/ only an ache. ‘ache’/ Dear ache, why do you/ bother? is it all because/ of my father?/ Oh yes! perhaps I can/ solve all of it myself!/ take responsibility for my part./ But wait…in the mean time,/ this growth, this battle…/ he doesn’t even start?/ I am fighting alone in/ the world of connection./ Confused and alone while/ he’s right by my side.“- first, I didn’t know that you suggested couple therapy to N and he refused? Second: The Question: is your conflict, constriction, ache in regard to N: is it all about F.. or does N have something to do with it? In other words, using your verb (which I like, in this context): is N constricting Seaturtle?

“We argue about nothing,/ the c-word, the cash./ But not 10 minutes later/ when I ask,/ ‘how do you feel?’ (as we had just fought)/ All he says is ‘are you bothered??? I’m not?’ I don’t understand this/ lack of awareness“- this right here is very important part in shining light into the relationship that I wasn’t adequately aware of: his response indicates that he negates the reality of what just happened: there WAS a FIGHT.  Either he is like Teflon, and fighting slides off him like oil off Teflon (which was not the case in the c-word incident, the bad driver did not slide off N), OR N is CONTROLLING your mind, or trying to control your brain: your brain is telling you correctly that there was a fight and therefore, the fight left some distress behind it. N tells your brain: Brain, you are Wrong, there was no fight.

“’I have to be the constant/  communication?’/  *enter unfairness*/ ‘I’ll be there all day.’/ ‘no 12’/ ‘actually 2’/ Calls me ‘see you at 3:30’/ Enters the door at 4./ As he sits on the couch like/ nothing is wrong,“- Nothing is wrong.. not because nothing is wrong, but because N SAYS (or suggests by his silence that) nothing is wrong.

“I feel exhausted, for I am sick of/ my own; communication song./ I sit and I wonder, do I bring/ this up?/ Or will he be annoyed.. there’s/ no way to win.“- something IS wrong but N says nothing is wrong, something must be wrong with Seaturtle’s perception then.. her brain must not perceive/ process information correctly.

dictionary. com: “Gaslighting is the act of distorting the truth in a way that’s intended to make another person accept the deception due to doubting their own memory, reality, or sanity. It’s considered a form of psychological manipulation or emotional abuse… The term gaslighting is often applied in the context of emotionally abusive relationships, such as romantic relationships or among family members… When the deception of the person who is engaging in gaslighting is questioned, they often react by dismissing the accusation as a delusion, an emotional reaction, or an overreaction—thus conditioning the person to internalize those assessments”.

Wikipedia: “Gaslighting, also called coercive control.. In contemporary language, gaslighting is a colloquialism, describing the subjective experience of having one’s reality repeatedly questioned by another... Gaslighting involves two parties; the ‘gaslighter’, who persistently puts forth a false narrative in order to manipulate, and the ‘gaslighted’, who struggles to maintain their individual autonomy. Gaslighting is typically effective only when there is an unequal power dynamic or when the gaslighted has shown respect to the gaslighter. <sup id=”cite_ref-Vox_18-0″ class=”reference”></sup>Gaslighting is different from genuine relationship disagreement, which is both common and important in relationships. Gaslighting is distinct in that: * one partner is consistently listening and considering the other partner’s perspective; * one partner is consistently negating the other’s perception, insisting that they are wrong, or telling them that their emotional reaction is irrational or dysfunctional.

“Gaslighting typically occurs over a long duration and not on a one-off basis. <sup id=”cite_ref-Haupt_2022_4-2″ class=”reference”></sup>Over time, the listening partner may exhibit symptoms often associated with anxiety disorders, depression, or low self-esteem. Gaslighting is distinct from genuine relationship conflict in that one party manipulates the perceptions of the other…<sup id=”cite_ref-Vox_18-1″ class=”reference”></sup>Motivations:  Gaslighting is a way to control the moment, stop conflict, ease anxiety, and feel in control. However, it often deflects responsibility and tears down the other person… Learned behavior: <sup id=”cite_ref-JacobsonGottman1998_26-0″ class=”reference”></sup>Gaslighting is a learned trait. A gaslighter is a student of social learning. They witness it, experience it themselves, or stumble upon it, and see that it works… Habilitation: <sup id=”cite_ref-Stout2006_28-0″ class=”reference”></sup>It can be difficult to extricate oneself from a gaslighting power dynamic… Those being gaslighted must learn that they do not need others to validate their reality, and they need to gain self-reliance and confidence in defining their own reality”.<sup id=”cite_ref-Vox_18-5″ class=”reference”></sup>

Psychology today: “… ‘Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others.’ —Paramahansa Yogananda… Here are seven stages through which a pathological gaslighter dominates a victim, excerpted from my book How to Successfully Handle Gaslightgers & Stop Psyhological Bullying. Depending on the situation, there may be variations in the order and the number of gaslighting stages involved: 1. Lie and Exaggerate. The gaslighter creates a negative narrative about the gaslightee (‘There’s something wrong and inadequate about you‘)… 2. Repetition. Like psychological warfare, the falsehoods are repeated constantly in order to stay on the offensive, control the conversation, and dominate the relationship. 3. Escalate When Challenged. When called on their lies, the gaslighter escalates the dispute by doubling and tripling down on their attacks, refuting substantive evidence with denial, blame, and more false claims (misdirection), sowing doubt and confusion…. 4. Wear Out the Victim. By staying on the offensive, the gaslighter eventually wears down their victim, who becomes discouraged, resigned, pessimistic, fearful, debilitated, and self-doubting. The victim begins to question her or his own perception, identity, and reality. 5. Form Codependent Relationships… the gaslighter elicits constant insecurity and anxiety in the gaslightee, thereby pulling the gaslightee by the strings. The gaslighter has the power to grant acceptance, approval, respect, safety, and security. The gaslighter also has the power (and often threatens to) take them away. A codependent relationship is formed based on fear, vulnerability, and marginalization.

“6. Give False Hope. As a manipulative tactic, the gaslighter will occasionally treat the victim with mildness, moderation, and even superficial kindness or remorse, to give the gaslightee false hope. In these circumstances, the victim might think: ‘Maybe he’s really not THAT bad,’ ‘Maybe things are going to get better,’ or ‘Let’s give it a chance.‘ But beware! The temporary mildness is often a calculated maneuver intended to instill complacency and have the victim’s guard down before the next act of gaslighting begins. With this tactic, the gaslighter also further reinforces a codependent relationship.

“7. Dominate and Control. At its extreme, the ultimate objective of a pathological gaslighter is to control, dominate, and take advantage of another individual”.

Back to your poem (which I didn’t read yet): “I love this bed, don’t get/ me wrong/ It’s comforting and beautiful,/ what could go wrong?/ Do I worry about nothing?“- the gaslightee doubting reality.

“No I do not“- no you do not.. except when you do.

“This next one won’t be so easy/ to proceed,/ I’m also assuming it won’t be easy/ to read./ I know you so hate to be/ controlled“- his fear of being controlled motivates him to control.

“.. If you can’t rely on one half/ the other must control it./ At some point you started to/ see me as weaker“- gaslighting, a form of coercive control where one is strong and the other is weak

“You think my strengths a/ weakness but you’re wrong“- he needs you to think that you are weak. If you believe that you are strong, in his mind, it means that he is weak. So he needs you to feel weak, mentally weak. It reminds me of the quote above: “Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others.“

“I see, I feel, I touch, I/ smell./ to certain things I am/ repelled./ You think it’s fear, but it is/ not./ I can sense when an area is/ rot./ As much as I love this bed/ we are in,/ it is starting to smell deep/ within.“- it smells of.. gaslighting to me.

“You claim it is not about/ the money/ But you see, it is, it controls/ you, honey./ I do not mean to sound/ condescending“- he is the one condescending.

“But admit it, you think I owe/ you something“- here is one area where N and F share, both controlling you, or trying to control you by the money spent on you.

“I want to be believed/ in, seen as strong…  It is now at the point/ where I value myself more/ than you do me. which is/ why this must end/ Because I am stronger,/ just me… Who knows what’s to come/ but I’ve cherished you SO./ This end will be painful please/ take care of yourself“- I don’t think that you can be seen as strong, not by him and not by yourself, if you continue a relationship with him. I think that his gaslighting of you is likely to get worse if you marry him.

You wrote yesterday (I am adding the boldface feature here): “I do want to end things. I just doubt my ability to express why to him… I feel he will have excuses that sound valid in that moment, or he will blame me“- in other words, you are afraid that he will gaslight you.

“for example if I say he has been controlling I am almost certain he would tell me that I gave him that control. He has spoke about this before about how we have opportunities to take control and give it and he makes sure not to give people control of him. He will tell me I gave him control and as my mental state stands currently, I will believe him.”- reads like a.. textbook example of gaslighting, doesn’t it? Your mental state is that of the gaslightee and therefore you will believe the gaslighter…

“I do not want to waste time with someone controlling. If there was a button to break up right now and move on I would press it, but it’s more complicated because there needs to be a conversation and he will say all the right things“- he will say all his gaslighting things..

“Or maybe I did give him the control? by letting him pay for things, I just feel like I am blinded a bit. I feel like I have something blurring my ability to see that he is controlling”- that something blurring your ability to see him as he is .. that something is gaslighting, isn’t it?

“because I love so many things about him. He says that if one day I was able to financially care for him he would be so happy, not saying that I needed to but he has expressed that would be his dream… So if I was able to be that for him then our relationship would be good? We have had so many good moments, and I am struggling to see the controlling as overpowering those”-

– # 6 above: “As a manipulative tactic, the gaslighter will occasionally treat the victim with mildness, moderation, and even superficial kindness or remorse, to give the gaslightee false hop.”- hope that IF you financially care for him in the future, then the relationship would be good: false hope.

Wow, Seaturtle! The gaslighting possibility- which I believe to be true to your situation with N- did not occur to me before today. I figured recently, after reading about the two examples, that he was controlling, using people skills to manipulate you, his apologies and other expressions being appearances/ style, not substance.. so there has been some evolution of my understanding most recently, leading to this.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

No reason to apologize to me.. you have done me no wrong!

“I feel like he was not always this way and I fear I turned him into..“- his father and mother turned him into what he is during his Formative Years aka his childhood, when he was formed. He met you after his formative years. You do not have this kind of power over him.

“confused about whether or not he is intentionally being controlling or gaslighting and if we just have different views that lead to this dynamic“- (1)  if he is controlling and gaslighting unintentionally but consistently, he is still controlling and gaslighting. (2) when my mother hit me (I was a child, later a teenager), her view was that I made her hit me. (“Look what you did to me“, she’d exclaim). I was confused and believed her. Did the two of us have .. two different but legitimate views about that dynamic…?

I am sorry that I cannot help further at this point. Maybe you should not meet him for a while, maybe you should have quality psychotherapy before meeting him again..? (I will soon be away from the computer).

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I will reply further in the morning, but for now: no need for you to break up with him or confront him tonight. You can just have a nice evening if it suits you. I want you to be okay, whatever it takes.

I wouldn’t say anything to him about gaslighting. How about asking him to elaborate on what he meant when he told you “are you bothered??? I’m not” 10 minutes after arguing, as in an open ended question, not accusing him of anything (you are more likely to get some of the truth this way, if not all).Try to remember his answer and let me know what it is..?

I know that you are emotionally and physically very attached to him, so this is not the time to initiate a detachment/ break from him. I hope to read from you in the morning, about how it went, or before. I will be back to the computer in a couple of hours.

anita

I am here, Seaturtle, looking forward to your update!

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I didn’t get your update yet.  I will reply to your yesterday’s posts first:

“I am recently, ever since you have started to see a more rounded image of N, confused about whether or not he is intentionally being controlling or gaslighting and if we just have different views that lead to this dynamic”-

– (1) Here is from How to Successfully Handle Gaslightgers & Stop Psychological Bullying. (nipreston. com): “In its milder forms, gaslighting creates a subtle but inequitable power dynamic in a relationship, where the gaslightee is subjected to the gaslighter’s unreasonable, rather than fact-based scrutiny, judgment, and/or micro-aggression”.

The gaslighting my mother employed was severe and overt and it included macro-aggression. On the other hand, N’s gaslighting is covert, milder, involving micro-aggression, such as when he accused you in the grocery store of having cash you were.. not supposed to have.

(2) About you being “confused about whether or not (N) is intentionally being controlling or gaslighting“, from the book: “It should be noted that not all gaslighters are intentionally malicious, or conscious of their harmful conduct… They may not be fully cognizant of the harmfulness (and hurtfulness) of their word and actions, and their painful impact on others. Other gaslighters, however, are perfectly aware of their coercive tactics, as they deliberately seek to establish power and imbalance over other people’s lives”.

“Yes I suggested (couples therapy) back when we were living together, on multiple occasions and every time his response is ‘I am not going to talk to someone who doesn’t know me at all for advice.’“- yes, I remember now, you shared this before. His response suggests to me that he doesn’t WANT to be known (by someone who might get it right about who he is) because then he’d lose his power advantage.

“Mostly I have gotten the Teflon impression. I don’t think he is trying to control my mind… I am confused again, I really am not sure if it is manipulation or Teflon, he genuinely does not let it bother him”- could be both: Teflon and SUBTLE manipulation/ gaslighting… He is perhaps gaslighting himself and gaslighting you at the same time.

I wrote to you: “something IS wrong but N says nothing is wrong, something must be wrong with Seaturtle’s perception then.. her brain must not perceive/ process information correctly.”, and your response:  “Yes, this is exactly what happens in my head and it is very confusing“.

I quoted from the article on gaslighting:  “When the deception of the person who is engaging in gaslighting is questioned, they often react by dismissing the accusation as a delusion, an emotional reaction, or an overreaction—thus conditioning the person to internalize those assessments”. Your response: “F did this for sure. As far as N, I am not 100% He has definitely dismissed accusations as delusional, but are they? Are they projections of F onto him? It is very hard for me to label N as gaslighting, and I am not sure why, I feel defensive of him. I feel guilt for doubting him behind his back“.

I wrote to you about N: “his fear of being controlled motivates him to control“, an your response: “Right, but does he know this?”. Let’s say he doesn’t know it: if you tell him (and make it therefore known to him), will he change?

If he resists your input, calling it wrong.. then he is closed to self reflection and positive change.

“So my dad 100% is this way, trying to be tall by cutting of the heads of others, no doubt he is this way“- F might be an overt, severe type of gaslighter while N may be a covert, milder type of gaslighter.

“N doesn’t do this, I don’t think.. He encouraged me to do the play! He encourages me to paint. He wants me to grow?“- you are not sure about the last one, hence the question mark. What if he encourages you to do what doesn’t bother him but discourages you to think about/ talk about/ do .. what bothers him. No gaslighter criticizes EVERYTHING about their gaslightee.

Back to the book (pdf): “Some gaslighters manipulate the gaslightee with frequent negative hostility, combined with occasional positive bribery…  In a gaslighting relationship, the gaslighter has the power to grant acceptance, approval, respect, safety, and security. He or she also has the power (and often threatens to) take them away. With this tactic, the gaslighter retains power, privilege, and entitlement”.

What if N’s encouragements are .. positive bribery?

“He talks a lot about being mentally resilient in order to achieve peace. He values peace, more than anything. We disagree on how to get it though. He thinks you simply don’t let outside factors bother you => Peace“-

– You, Seaturtle, are an outside force to him and when in conflict.. he teflons you: he doesn’t let you- an outside factor- bother him.

“N brings the people around him up, I think? He encourages his friends and works with others very well. He tends to give more than he receives in his friendships, from my perspective, but he sees their value in a way I don’t”-

– There’s the question mark again. What if N working well with others involves manipulating the people around him successfully. Some manipulation is positive, you know.

“I explained more so about how him being late often is controlling as I am just waiting for him. But he claims this is not planned, and I believe him”- if him being routinely late is unplanned.. why doesn’t he plan to be on time?

“I fell in love with someone who cannot help but to gaslight me? What a tragic love story, to be or not to be”- you need not settle for a life of being gaslit because someone can’t help but to gaslight you. It reminds me of the story of the frog and the scorpion crossing a lake. The frog carried the scorpion on its back crossing the lake, figuring that the scorpion will not bite it, because if it will, the scorpion will drown. But the scorpion bit the frog because.. it couldn’t help but to bite and kill the frog.

“I am so sorry this happened to you, although I know you do not need my sympathy I must give it!”- thank you, Seaturtle.

“I wonder why I was drawn to someone like this, I chose to be with N for so long“- because.. N is such an improvement over F, being the covert, milder form of gaslighter…?

“I am still under a belief that it is fixable and he will stop. I am not sure if this is an illusion“- makes me think of the scorpion and frog story: the frog was under the (deadly) belief and illusion that the scorpion will put a stop or a pause on its inclination to bite for the duration of the swim to safety.

“If I confront him about feeling gaslit when he does not take my worries seriously, he may change that behavior if I tell him I will leave the relationship if it does not stop, which is what I want to do tonight.”- so you want to threaten him (the one who will NOT be controlled by outside factors) to leave him so that he changes his behavior.

I noticed some time ago that you submitted your post but I didn’t read any of it. I will submit this and then read and reply to your post of 53 minutes ago.

anita