Is DH gaslighting me or have I lost the plot?

[Pregnantanddown]

I'm feeling really confused. This evening i started peeling carrots and the peeler wouldn't work properly. I called through to my husband to ask if he had noticed anything wrong with it and he picked it up and showed me he could use it, but by pushing the blade away from him rather than pulling towards him which was how it worked previously. I was really confused about why it had changed and asked him if he had done anything to it. He said no, several times, then picked it up again and removed the blade then changed its direction so that it worked the way i expected it to again.

I feel like i am going crazy - but i got the distinct impression he was lying to me and that it was him who had changed the blade in the first place. This feeling got stronger as i watched him remove the blade and switch it over - he had clearly done it before.

I asked him repeatedly if he had changed the blade over but he denied it. When i told him i felt confused and didn't understand how that could be true he changed his story and said he must have done it but he had no memory of doing it at all. Then he said he had changed the blade around on his mum's peeler before which was how he knew how to do it. He didn't say any of this initially so it felt like he was making up the story as he went.

This sounds so completely trivial, and of course the peeler itself doesn't matter at all. But the lying has really frightened me. This isn't the first time he has lied about something trivial to me and then doubled down on it. I am feeling really unsettled and actually quite frightened about being married to someone I can't trust.

I honestly don't think i would have reacted at all, other than to ask him to change it back. There's bo obvious reason why he would lie, i think it's just a habit now

On its own, this seems trivial and you should just not give it any more thought.
However, if it's part of a larger pattern then you're right to feel wary.

He doesn't sound very apeeling

I believe you too OP. I understand that this is part of a bigger picture. Any other examples?

I agree with a pp that if the effect of lying to cover up your own muddles has the effect of confusing another, then it's gaslighting by another name.

I get you OP.

My mother is a habitual liar. She will lie about literally ANYTHING. The weather (until she came to live with us), things people have said, thing people haven't said at all. And - importantly - she'll say anything to avoid being caught out doing something. Even something which caused the smallest inconvenience to someone. He first reaction is to say 'no it wasn't me'. Then you see in her face her panic as you say something like 'there was no one else in the house' or whatever. And she'll stick to her guns and come up with some weird reason. When it was in fact her.

It's more to do with her own character flaw though, never wanting to be wrong, than actually being malicious. Even though it does feel bloody infuriating that she's happy to watch us all trying to work out wrf has gone on while she knows all the time it was her!

Sorry for the long ramble.

Aarrrgggh y'bugger 😂

I think I know what you mean, OP. Nothing like a husband, but I’ve had two male colleagues I’ve liked and worked with closely, who had a similar infuriating habit of just sometimes taking the easy way out and dissembling or even actively lying to me. For instance, I used to do casework with one of them and he’d get small details like names or dates wrong. I happen to have an excellent memory for details like that so I’d correct him (it matters when you’re dealing with sensitive legal issues) and he’d come up with some elaborate back story as to why he hadn’t been wrong, rather than just admitting he made a small mistake which I wouldn’t have thought twice about.

I never could work out in either case why they did it, but suspect in both cases it was down to parents who were demanding to the point of abusive and who were probably unforgiving of small mistakes. And both had also been to boarding school.

The net effect was that I could never fully trust them and always quietly double checked anything really important they told me. It was a shame because I really liked them both but it got in the way of a properly trusting professional relationship. It must be much harder if you think your husband is behaving this way.

Can i just add, about my mother, she REALLY gets the hump when you happen to prove it was her, or that she's been fibbing about things people have said.

Really furious.

And brings up some ancient history about one of us and twists it so we were in the wrong. It's scary how she always seems to have some ammunition ready.

I'm just wondering whether he's trying to avoid an argument - maybe it's not happened with you, but maybe with someone else.

I have this sort of conversation with DP all the time. The truth is that he has a right temper and wants everything a certain way. Meanwhile I regularly forget or don't pay attention to inconsequential things like changing a peeler. It's a truly shit combination. I could well change a peeler if it came off by itself then deny it because I can't remember. DP gets aggressive and starts demanding if I changed it. I get defensive because I don't want a fight and double down without really thinking about it. I walk on eggshells and my sole aim is often to avoid getting shouted at. He realises I'm not being entirely honest or am not trying hard to remember and loses it anyway, calling me a fucking liar and telling me to go and fuck myself.

So in essence I experience this in reverse a lot. I am not suggesting that you are aggressive like mine, but maybe there is something else about the two of you that makes for a bad combination too.

I understand OP. I had an ex partner who did this. It turned out that he struggled with being ‘blamed’ for something he had done. So he would avoid blame by denying that things had happened or that he had said XYZ when I knew he had. The fear of getting into trouble stemmed back to his upbringing. It drove me nuts because, like you say, I couldn’t necessarily believe he was telling me the truth.

No advice except if this is part of a pattern of behaviour then talk with him when things are calm. He may still not admit it though.

You have my sympathy.

They all do it!

Me: “I’m short of a cup husband. Have you seen it?”

Him: “No.”

Me: “You haven’t broken it by any chance because I’ve looked everywhere and can’t think where it can be.”

Him: “No.”

Me later: “I’ve just been out to the recycling bin and my cup is in bits in the bin! Did you break it?”

Him: “No.”

Me: Sigh but thinking (you’re lying again. Why??)

They just can’t help it. It’s pathetic. He eventually became my exH.

I also think you're getting an unfairly hard time here. If he's the sort of person who lies over the smallest thing just to avoid the discomfort of saying, "Oh yeah, that was me - sorry, if it bothers you I'll change it back," then while he may not be deliberately gaslighting you it has the same effect. You are not going crazy and you are not overreacting (at least assuming all your factual premises are true, i.e. that he did change it and he did lie). It might be nothing, if it's a one-off, but feeling horribly uneasy about trivial lies is understandable precisely because they're trivial - how can you trust someone who won't even tell the truth about a carrot peeler? Total, pathological moral cowards who will say literally anything to avoid any suggestion of wrongdoing or even conflict - yes, these people do exist and they are a fucking nightmare.

What you do about it is another question... Wishing you luck and courage!

This is all very strange OP. In the gentlest possible way, my first thought was to wonder if you might be a little unwell . Have you been under a lot of stress lately? It seems strange to assume you DH was lying about this very trivial issue, but even if he was - say in the moment or for convenience- it seems even stranger that it would evoke a fear response in you? Annoyance perhaps? The only way this can really make sense is if you can provide a bit more context. You say you have caught him in lies before, can you give any examples to provide a better sense of what the backstory is? Without that context, it’s really hard to make sense of what might be happening hear imv x

I sometimes lie about little minor things like this, I don’t plan to lie but sometimes if I’ve done something which then causes a minor annoyance to somebody else and they ask me about it I deny it. I think it comes from being a child and having parents who blew up over anything they deemed me to have done ‘wrong’ and reacted disproportionately with physical punishments etc. I think that’s just made my default reaction immediately lying and trying to deny responsibility because I have that fear of getting in trouble, even though as an adult I’m not really in situations where the other person is going to hit me etc. Once the lie has slipped out I do tend to kind of double down as well because I feel awkward about admitting I’ve lied. It is a fault in myself I’m aware of, I have discussed it in therapy and am trying to change it as whilst it’s never intended to be malicious or create mind games I appreciate it could still make the other person feel that way but it’s hard to change behaviours that we’re embedded in childhood and to be mindful all of the time. I’m not excusing my behaviour but I guess just kind of trying to offer an explanation, was your DH’s childhood one where he would get disproportionately punished or where there was a lot of anger in response to things he’d done ‘wrong’?

I believe you, OP. My EXH used to lie so much it would drive me insane, and it’s exactly as a pp explained for gaslighting - the triviality is the point. You’re not going to (or expected to) go mad or be able to prove some tiny thing like a peeler, and that’s the point. It’s the building up of all these small instances of bewilderment that is the abuse element. You’re supposed to feel like you’ve got yourself all confused and mixed up over something silly.

One of my EXH worst bullshits which made me really deeply know that he was a cunt and was definitely messing with me, was when he deliberately smashed my precious glass Christmas decorations. He hasn’t realised that I’d anchored the tree to the wall before decorating it. I can home to find him saying that the tree had so sadly and unfortunately overbalanced, and the decorations were all smashed in a pile on the floor. The non-glass ones hadn’t somehow even moved 🤷‍♀️ and then I looked and the wires were still where I’d attached them and attached to the wall. Impossible to have fallen over. Impossible.

He also broke my ‘mum’ mug, which had been in the cupboard so no need to have even been out or in the sink or anything. He pretended to have not seen it and for it to be some sort of baffling mystery…. One day, weeks later, I found the tiniest shard of it and knew he’d either accidentally smashed it and lied, or deliberately smashed it and lied. Sad to say, I think deliberate. He did things like take my house keys out of my coat pocket before I went out, which I caught him doing! And if I asked him specifically not to/to do something he’d go against my wishes and then swear blind I never said it.

When you know they’re lying, and you really know why they’re lying, to fuck with you - you never trust them again. Gaslighting is a very real tactic of abusers, so if your husband is abusive in other ways, I wouldn’t be assuming he’s above gaslighting you.

feel like i am going crazy - but i got the distinct impression he was lying to me and that it was him who had changed the blade in the first place. This feeling got stronger as i watched him remove the blade and switch it over - he had clearly done it before.

This is pretty much the dictionary definition of gaslighting!

You and other posters are clearly (luckily for you) ignorant of this sort of behaviour.

It’s not always as clearly calculated as “I’ll change the peeler and lie about it so she feels like she’s insane as I’m systematically destroying her sense of self in order to boost my own.”

Sometimes it’s like a weird compulsion with people. They change it and when the opportunity presents itself to discuss it, choose to lie and make the other person out to be wrong/losing the plot/confused/etc. These little opportunities build and build with the habit of making these little changes, until the power dynamic has totally, insidiously, shifted.

He lies easily and immediately as a first response. In the spur of the moment he thought it would be easier to say he hadn't done anything than have you tut at him about it. Then he had to double down to save face. This is a horrible character flaw as he'd rather lie than have the smallest unpleasantness/criticism. It's a really small incident but it's revealed a really big thing about him. The only advice I can give you, is to try retraining him. Call out every lie and don't let it drop until he learns lying leads to more hassle than the truth. It doesn't always work though if the behaviour runs deep.

A friend of a friend purposely tries to confuse his wife by doing things like this as he thinks it's funny, so it does happen. It shows contempt and a nasty side IMO.

I wouldn't in a million years think DP would do something like this to me so if your instinct is telling you something isn't right, listen to it.

Yes, this is exactly it

Sounds like a mountain out of a molehill to me. I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
I think you’re totally overthinking this OP

I’m really hung up on peeling toward you so I wouldn’t know.

If the trust is gone, is there really a relationship left?

Yes but OP hasn’t given any other examples so it’s impossible to know whether this is what is going or or not.