To think this showed a really selfish mindset?

@PipSqueal Just remembered this thread. Are you still with him?

Yeah. But at the start of the GWA description of gaslighting it says the woman will want clarity. Is that not the exact reason for the post?

Which is controlling but not gas lighting

Yes. But he is forcing her to rethink her normal choice.

I've just read your macaroni comment and I've got to say he sounds like a child and an AH.

I wouldn't say asking why something is on his plate that he doesn't think goes with the rest of the dish is a red flag. We all question things we think are strange, this just happens to be one of those strange things for him. My friend eats cabbage, beans sprouts mixed together, I even told my mum about it cause that's weird to me lol

He probably wasn't thinking when he said not to bother buying them thinking about his own plate and I think when he said it it's been playing on your mind since he said it.

Unless he's putting you down or always criticising everything then it would let this go.

Is this the only thing that's been an issue?

That isn’t what’s happening here. He isn’t making her confused about what happened or didn’t happen, or what he did or didn’t say. She knows that what she’s doing and eating is normal. She’s simply wondering why he’s being weird, she isn’t doubting her sanity.
It would be gaslighting if he had done all that nonsense about the prawn crackers and then said later “What are you talking about? I never said I don’t like prawn crackers with my noodles. I love them. In fact I had them that time you’re talking about, I never said it’s weird’. And “How could you say I told you not to get prawn crackers because I don’t like them. Of course I didn’t”. “I never said your coat looks like an old person’s coat, what a horrible thing to say, why would I say that”.
All of that is him trying to make her think she’s remembering everything wrongly, the intention being to unsettle and control her.
This man is just controlling and a total arse.
The term gaslighting is overused now. It’s often used when someone is just lying and pretending.

I do. I remember exactly what all my close friends like and don't like.

The jam was for pancakes !! How bizarre. He couldn’t cope with me having anything but sugar and Lemon. He didn’t want me to spend money on jam. He didn’t like jam. I wanted to buy a cheap pot of jam with my own money for the pancakes. He argued and argued. It was in a Morrisons aisle so everyone watching. I suggested I would buy a jar and take home with me ( I was staying at his) not good enough. I suggested a would buy a mini pot ( like you get in a cafe with a cream tea) that wasn’t good enough value for money so wasn’t allowed.
he wanted to control what I could buy and was the biggest miser in the history of misers.
he later wanted me to eat food that had gone off to save money. I refused to eat it and had a bowl of porridge for dinner. He threw up everywhere. I let him get on with it and wouldn’t clean up or comfort him.
it was a few years ago and I’m long shot of him :p my lovely DH made me realise what a god awful situation I’d been putting up with !!

It was mainly around not needing to spend money on jam, and that I didn’t need jam and I shouldn’t spend my money on jam. Pancakes should only be had with sugar and lemon sort of thing. He later controlled my spending so I couldn’t spend my own money without permission. It’s so weird to type or say out loud ! I promise I’m not normally a doormat :p it’s very insidious and under the radar stuff which makes you think you are unreasonable to think you need (in this case jam ). Later on he made me be ‘in debt ‘ to him and had to pay back every penny. He’s a wealthy man and I hope he chokes on it one day. 😂😂

Feel free to argue with a Women's Aid internet example.

1. Confusion

www.grampian-womens-aid.com/newsevents/gaslighting-10-signs/

If he's got a phobia, fair enough. If not, run.

That's still not gaslighting.

It doesn't have to be gaslighting to be arseholish.

OP I hope you've dumped him now and that you have a good old smile about your lucky escape whenever you're enjoying your prawn crackers.

Interesting how a lot of these narcissistic weirdos start their controlling behaviour with ridiculous attempts to stop you eating perfectly normal food. My ex once picked a slice of tomato up off the street after it had fallen out of his sandwich and ate it. It wasn't a clean street. Then he got really furious, like proper angry with me when I wanted to order catfish at a restaurant. Because it's a "bottom feeder" and"eats dirt", which apparently made me revolting for even considering eating it. He literally ate tomato off the street, then a couple of days later told me my food choices were revolting, so revolting it put him in a weird rage.

They are so weird. A man like this is definitely not worth spending any time with.

Yes. Making her doubt that it's normal for people to have prawn crackers with food. Making her behaviour out to be bizarre and abnormal.

Is there any chance he was joking? If it's not intended as banter, then yes, very odd and a definite red flag if it's in a controlling way, if he thinks he seriously can dictate what you buy/eat. If it was playful then definitely not a red flag but maybe you need to understand each others way of communicating. My husband takes the Mick out of my pickled onions and stinky cheese board every time I get it out, it's definitely a joke, I loathe the smell of his eggs cooking and definitely tell him, but it's all in gest.

That isn’t gaslighting.

Gaslighting is making you doubt your reality - you are made to doubt your recollection of past incidents and conversations.

If tomorrow he and OP go shopping and he picks up the crackers and says ‘I love these with curry or noodles - we should get them more often’ and protests that he never said he didn’t like them that would be gaslighting.

His current behaviour is just that if an arsehole.

Gaslighting is deliberate, manipulative, and designed to make the victim feel unsure about their own understanding of a situation. It’s emotions abuse in and of itself.

This douche is just being a selfish and self centred arsehole.

You can be selfish, a dick but not abusive.

I would say it's a form of gaslighting too. Pretending no one in their 'right mind' would be able to understand this (perfectly normal) behaviour. Makes you question if you're perfectly normal.

I'm gaslighting myself at this stage it seems! I am on here too much.

It's obnoxious, but it's not gaslighting.

But fake confusion is a bit gaslighting though? I suppose it's all degrees. Fuckers anyway.

@Chickenkeev Not really, gaslighting is making someone doubt their sanity by trying to make them believe something other than that which they know to be true. Gaslighting is a form of abuse but not all abuse is gaslighting, IYSWIM.

It's gaslighting isn't it?

I too have been here.