Is this gaslighting?

[Ghaunj]

Dh went to collect DS on the school run, I stayed at home with our other child. It was raining heavily so I suggested he take my (new, fancy) umbrella.

He came home and for some reason decided to go round the back of the house where there is a narrow alleyway and tons of brambles. I stood at the window and watched how he walked through there with my new umbrella and basically tore it to shreds getting it caught on every bramble and at one point getting stuck and yanking it, at no point did he try to take it down and walk the last 2m getting a little bit wet.

When he came in I was annoyed, I said "why didn't you put it down!? That's too narrow to walk through with umbrellas!"

To which he shouted back at me that he thought he could hold it above the brambles and it was fine, it didn't get stuck at all only the dangly bit you popper it together with.

I replied that I saw it with my own eyes.

It's not damaged badly thankfully just a bit plucked.

After this he was in a huffy mood and didn't speak much for the next hour.

I finally asked what was wrong.

"You have been snappy with me all day and I didn't like the way you spoke to me about the umbrella!"

I am upset because I haven't snapped at all today. I was annoyed about the umbrella but I mean I think that was justified? He really struggles with any kind of criticism or negative feedback especially when he is feeling embarrassed about his actions.

Is it gaslighting?

Nb- I am not THAT bothered about the umbrella, more just annoyed at the complete lack of common sense?

It's men. They have no common sense whatsoever but if you ever point it out to them they get really offended and defensive. It's just a guy thing though and he was being a thoughtless idiot but no not gaslighting as such. Just normal man child behaviour. 🤣

A Wally isn't the same as a gaslighter

No it’s not gaslighting. I think if he knew you were watching and purposefully caught it on every branch and then acted like this then maybe. Sounds like he was just being careless and embarrassed he got caught out. It’s not nice and if he knows he wasn’t careful then lying to save himself having to apologise but it doesn’t sound as malicious as gaslighting.

Not gaslighting.

He was probably pissed off that he had to go out in the chucking rain to ‘do a chore’ when you got to stay at home and ‘not do a chore’. I know this isn’t the case as it’s parenting in both situations but I reckon many men I know would see it as ‘a chore/not chore’.

I’d be annoyed about the umbrella. However, it wouldn’t occur to me to offer mine as he’s an adult and can work out himself what he needs to keep dry - if he can find it.

@Ghaunj were you bothered at all about your child in this narrow alley full of brambles? Umbrella takes priority?

I hate how therapeutic/psychological language gets co-opted by people with grievances, to lend weight and gravitas to their issues. As has been said upthread gas-lighting is a very specific psychological manipulation tool named after and old black and white movie of the same name where a woman lives in a house where her abusive partner turns down the “gaslights” and when she questions if it’s getting darker he replies that nothing has changed thus making her question her own senses and perception.

The whole object of the exercise is to degrade the victims confidence in their own self by questioning their own perception of reality. What you have in your situation is a common garden difference of opinion. To you the damage to the umbrella was significant enough to upset you, and to feel the cavalier trek through the brambles was unwarranted and it was worth him getting wet versus any damage to the brolly. He conversely didn’t want to get wet and putting the umbrella at risk of damage was worth his relative comfort.

Newsflash neither of you are objectively right or objectively wrong. You are both entitled to your authentic experience and emotions surrounding it. I’m also sure you’d both like it if the other saw it “your way”. It’s not automatically gaslighting to try and convince the other of what you believe is right in a sincerely held personal perspective.

For it to be gaslighting he’d have to I dunno buy several identical umbrellas and have you watch him seemingly damage your umbrella, only to switch it out with an undamaged one by stealth upon you confronting him about it to “prove” your perception about events seemingly objectively wrong and make you appear unhinged in the confrontation and repeat it several times.

You also may not have been snippy at him all day either but it still can feel that way to him. However as you point out he doesn’t like his shortcomings pointed out. I mean who does? This is a common avenue we can all take when we are pivoting away from a sense of personal responsibility when we have erred or even when we are losing an argument, by refocusing the issue to tone. It allows our egos to reframe the event in our favour and maintain our sense as the injured party in the exchange. I still don’t qualify that as legitimate gaslighting as we kind of have to fool ourselves with it and true gaslighting requires quite a cold and sociopathic desire to almost expertly play with someone else’s perspective in a calculating manner. Whereas what I just described is just pure emotional reactivity.

The solution here is just a judgement free expression of everyone’s feelings about it. Everyone doesn’t have to necessarily agree just respect where the other person(s) are coming from. Hope that helps…

No, it's not gaslighting, the term gaslighting comes from the 1944 film of the same name, where Ingrid Bergman's character is manipulated into doubting her own sanity.

To that end it's a quite specific type of abuse, the victim has to start to doubt their own sanity and beliefs.

Its an over used term, coined by tabloid psychologists, true crime authors and self help authors in the US during the 1970s and has seeped into the vernacular over here.

Its not really a recognised term in professional psychology and it's genuine occurrence is somewhat rare - being lied to and believing the lie, or being lied to and realising that you are being lied to are not examples of gaslighting.

It’s a different perspective as a pp said. Also you initially said he “tore it to shreds” then said it wasn’t “damaged badly”.

👏👏👏

Looks like faults on both sides here. OP seems prone to exaggeration ("torn to shreds" does not equal "not badly damaged") while her husband does not like any form of criticism.

Gaslighting is deliberate, pre-planned psychological abuse and yes, deliberately destroying something, replacing it with an identical copy then pretending there was only one item all along is classic gaslighting.

Challenging your spouse claiming you’ve ripped her umbrella to shreds when you’ve done nothing of the sort and claiming she’s been snappy all day (whether or not this is true) is not.

If anything, youre closer to gaslighting than he is

Not gaslighting but I understand the frustration because my husband also seems to have a lack of respect or care for “stuff” too. If I say, don’t do blah, because it’s damaging the blah, for instance, he will just keep doing it and even do it more because I said he shouldn’t. It’s so incredibly annoying living with that attitude daily. He’s the same with cars also.

Did your school aged child have to walk down ' a narrow alleyway and tons of brambles.' ?

Why have the brambles been allowed to grow / get out of hand ?

No it is not gaslighting.
But you are no better:
He 'tore it to shreds' but also it's 'not damaged badly'. So which is it 🤔

WILL NOBODY THINK OF THE UMBERELLA -WELLA-ELLA eh eh…?

If you say so … they must have a lot of time of their hands.

"I stood at the window and watched how he walked through there with my new umbrella and basically tore it to shreds"

"It's not damaged badly thankfully just a bit plucked."

How can both of those things be true?

You say he struggled with criticism and negative feedback - how often are you criticising him to notice this pattern.

I can see it would be annoying for your brand new nice umbrella to be damaged but it sounds excessively micromanaging to criticise him for the way he held the thing!

Was he doing you a favour doing the school run (was he WfH?)). Did he think after heading out in the rain he might get a thanks, but instead got berated for holding an umbrella wrong?

No, hes not gaslighting you. You sound like the unreasonable one, for having a go at him the second he walked in the door and it sounds like it wasn't actually broken even though you first said it was.

I'd send him YouTube videos showing how to open and close umbrellas - just for informational purposes and purely out of interest. I'd then send links to purchase new one.

Moral of the story is: don’t bother buying pretty, expensive umbrellas because they all end up with broken spokes and tattered material after one puff of wind or incident with a bramble, except for the huge golfing ones.
2) Cut the brambles.
3) Educate yourself on what the term Gaslighting really means (excellent examples in this thread).

Okay. Wait a sec here. OP has made two conflicting statements:

This;
"he walked through there with my new umbrella and basically tore it to shreds getting it caught on every bramble and at one point getting stuck and yanking it,"

And:
"It's not damaged badly thankfully just a bit plucked."

Which is it? 🕵️🤔

She said it was new and fancy. No way of knowing how much it would cost to replace this specific umbrella

i have been in a marriage where I was subjected to gaslighting. What you’ve described is just sulking, immaturity and a lack of communication.