5 Times Your Partner Gaslighted You Without You Noticing

Gaslighting is one of the most toxic and tricky forms of emotional abuse because it is usually invisible, and therefore, difficult to identify.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, it refers to a technique used by abusers to manipulate and control their victims by making them question their sense of reality, as well as their memory and sanity.

Psychology Today defines gaslighting as:

Gaslighting can be so subtle that you might not be aware it’s happening until it’s too late. In fact, your partner might have been bluntly throwing you gaslighting phrases for a while now, only for you to ignore them, considering they’re harmless.

What follows are some common seemingly innocent phrases that in reality constitute gaslighting. If you’ve heard your partner saying them again and again recently, you might be involved with a gaslighter.

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#1. You Know I Love You, but…

Gaslighters will use affection and fake compliments as a weapon in order to throw you off balance emotionally before they hit you with a gaslighting phrase in their attempt to manipulate you.

• “You know I love you, but you’re overreacting right now.”
• “You know I love you but you’re being insecure.”
• “You know I love you but you’re always making things up.”

They use the word “love” because they know it’s what you want to hear, and it makes them seem compassionate rather than manipulative.

They also give the impression that what they’re saying is for your own good when in reality, it’s a subtle way to manipulate and gain control over your feelings.

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#2. You Weren’t Paying Enough Attention

This is probably the most common yet often overlooked phrase gaslighters use to manipulate their victim’s feelings.

Remember that a gaslighter’s intention is to make you question your reality and throw your perception off the window. A great way to achieve this is to twist and reframe the conversations you had in the past or retell past events in their favor.

And when you try to tell them what they’re describing isn’t what you remember happening, they’ll throw you a phrase like,

“Honey, you weren’t paying enough attention.”

As a result, they replace your memories with theirs so convincingly that you might start second-guessing yourself constantly and even thinking you’re insane — something that’ll slowly make you more dependent on them.

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#3. You’re Overthinking It

Not acknowledging your feelings and thoughts and trivializing your emotions is a technique that allows a gaslighter to emotionally exploit you and gain control over your actions.

When they see you being upset and emotional over something — especially something they did or said — they’ll rush to tell you “you’re overthinking it” and that “you should get over it”.

That might give you the impression your gaslighter is just trying to make you relax and feel better, but in reality, it’s an attempt to trivialize your feelings and make you question them as well as yourself.

Over time, you might become hesitant of expressing your thoughts and feelings to anyone close to you, out of fear they’ll trivialize them just like your partner does. And that’s exactly what a gaslighter wants: to make you feel insecure and isolated.

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#4. It Was Just a Joke

Have you ever had someone severely insulting your looks, clothes, beliefs, or behavior, and then brushing their behavior off by saying something along the lines of “Relax — it was just a joke.”?

This subtly gaslighting phrase represents an attempt to take the attention away from their rude behavior and make you feel like you’re the problem — like you’re taking everything too seriously, are too sensitive and lack a sense of humor.

It’s a defensive approach and a personal attack at the same time. On the one hand, the gaslighter makes comments that aim to undermine you and hurt your self-esteem and at the same time, they deny their wrongdoing and make you feel guilty for confronting them.

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#5. It Wasn’t My Intention to…

“It wasn’t my intention to hurt you.”

“It wasn’t my intention to make you feel this way.”

“It wasn’t my intention to upset you.”

If you hear these phrases often beware, as a gaslighter might be hiding behind them. When your partner hurts or upsets you, and, upon confronting them always responds by telling you “that wasn’t my intention”, they:

1. Deflect responsibility from themselves.
2. Don’t own up to their mistakes.
3. Prevent you from further examining their behavior.

Remember, there’s a huge difference between recognizing your bad behavior and sincerely apologizing to your partner and minimizing the impact of your actions/words by saying your attentions weren’t bad.

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What Comes Next?

Let’s be clear about something: all of us might say one of the above phrases to our partners at one point or another.

For example, you might have been indeed overthinking a certain event of your life so your partner felt the urge to tell you to stop thinking about it over and over; or maybe, you indeed weren’t paying enough attention during a conversation you and your partner had and you don’t remember everything they said.

However, there’s a problem when your partner keeps saying most of these phrases again and again and frequently makes you question your memory as well as your perception of reality.

If that’s the case, you need to recognize that, since gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse, you’re dealing with an abuser. That’s something that’s difficult to accept, especially if you’re emotionally attached to your partner, or have been dating for years, but it’s necessary in order to change your situation.

It might seem easier to close your eyes to your situation and stay with your partner in hopes they will later change, but abusers can’t change — at least not until they seek a therapist’s help. In fact, emotional abuse progressively worsens as the relationship continues and might even turn to physical abuse.

Staying in a relationship with a gaslighter will bring you much more confusion, harm, and pain as time passes. Being brave and walking away from it is the only solution to stop the emotional pain and frustration.

It might seem like a tough decision, but you’ll thank yourself later.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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