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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Gaslighting....how do you know?

169 replies

fairyfart · 13/02/2011 21:24

How do you know if it's happening to you?

OP posts:
JeremyVile · 15/02/2011 11:47

I was aa my friends house at the wknd, her 5yo dd got in a right strop when presented with fish pie for lunch. After much cajoling and her mum saying there would be no alternative, either eat it or go hungry, the dd said " Fine then!!! I'll eat it! And then I'll be sick all over the floor and you'll have to clean it up. Happy now???"
Dont know why I just remembered that Wink

JeremyVile · 15/02/2011 11:49

But THIS THREAD is not the problem in your life, is it?

YOU have to decide what to do, its your life, only you know all the ins and outs.

All anyone here is doing is advising.

Nobody is MAKING you do anything. Stop being so reactionary.

thisishowifeel · 15/02/2011 11:54

Blimey. You sound like my "mother".
:(

GettinganIcyGrip · 15/02/2011 11:55

lol Jeremy!

HandDivedScallopsrgreat · 15/02/2011 11:55

JV - fairyfart has other threads about her husband which give more of a light to his behaviour than this one. I grant you looking at this thread alone it is understandable why you must be wondering why everyone is telling her to leave!

However, fairyfart by treating this as a competition/game then you are playing into his hands and he will "win" because he don't have any vested emotions in you or your children. Whereas you do.

Perhaps try to take yourself out of the situation, look at it from above (so to speak). Instead of concentrating your energies on him and making him do stuff in order to make you happy, think about what you can do to make you and your family happier. Your focus seems to be pointing in the wrong direction.

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 15/02/2011 11:56

Your story seems appropriate, Jeremy.

GettinganIcyGrip · 15/02/2011 12:03

I would just like to point out that BOTH my parents were damaged.

My F was aggressive and violent, never wrong, no empathy ect etc, my mother manipulative and denying, tantrums and tears like a two year old when challenged, even on small things.

Just saying.

fairyfartflyingsolo · 15/02/2011 12:13

Have contacted my brother and he has, reluctantly, agreed to let us crash at his place for a few days, so will take as much stuff as possible to his place then collect DS1 from school and go straight from there.
Will have to explain all this to DH this afternoon, as don't think just going is the right way to do this.

JeremyVile · 15/02/2011 12:15

Good luck with it all FF.

GettinganIcyGrip · 15/02/2011 12:20

Good luck fairy. Believe us when we say that we only wish you and your children well.

There are no 'agendas' here for the majority of these experienced posters. It's easy to see it when you have escaped.

WhenwillIfeelnormal · 15/02/2011 12:24

Last attempt from me at least to cut through this nonsense and appeal to the adult in you, OP.

None of us know you or your H. The traits you have described in him and his behaviour towards you and your DCs, over the course of many threads, have led us to suggest that this relationship has long since run its course and that you and your DCs are better off living on your own. You have said yourself on other threads that you know the relationship is over.

When the Facebook issue raised its head and it put the spotlight on the flawed relationship so that others finally saw what was going on, you claimed that this was the last straw. You admitted that your H was abusive, but that as long as this was contained and he wasn't ridiculing you in public, you could put up with it.

Others on that thread expressed some astonishment that your embarrassment proved to be your watershed moment - and not your own welfare and that of your DCs, but others agreed that in the end, it didn't matter because at least you had got there.

This longer thread has attracted sage wisdom from several people who recognise NPD in your H. I can't offer you that perspective, only more generic advice about not needing proof of cheating to leave - and the effect of contempt in relationships.

The posters who have written about NPD have spent time patiently explaining the effects of that disorder, from the perspectives of child, sibling and partner. Some of their stories will have resurrected their own pain, but they write in good faith in the hope that their hard-won wisdom can help you.

Your passive-aggressive responses to those people is childish and rude, but it makes me wonder why you have become like that? Perhaps living with your H has induced that behaviour in you and it is your defence mechanism? If this is the way you behave towards people who try to help you, I have some concerns for your DCs, living with parents like this.

If you have really decided to leave your H and are not just saying this to get posters off your back, then step back for a moment and question your own behaviour too. Were you always like this, or have you become like it? Have you always seen life in fighting terms and not as a collaborative process of win-wins?

As an objective observer, I see you and your H locked in a fight about who can score the most points, a horrible war of attrition with the children in the middle of it. I cannot imagine that this is how you saw your life panning out, but I still wonder whether you understand that the main winners in this need to be your DCs and that regaining the adult in you is the greatest personal win you can achieve for yourself.

ScaredOfCows · 15/02/2011 12:35

OP - what will you do after you have spent 'a few days' at your brother's? Do you have a longer term plan?

Mouseface · 15/02/2011 12:36

Excellent post WWIFN

Fairy

The safeest place for you and the children is far, far away from this man.

No amount of 'insider info' or you now having a 'heads up' as it were, will change him.

The only way that you can stop him treating you badly, is to leave by not being with/near him.

You don't have to end up in a hostel/hovel.

You don't have to end up in a council house.

But you DO have to think about your children and their future.

Small steps.

Take control of your life, take the power away from him.

Please, take care of yourself and your children.

Houses/belongings etc can be replaced, children's safety, emotional wellbeing and their innocence can not.

fairyfartflyingsolo · 15/02/2011 12:46

Have tried not think about what will happen after bro gets sick of us trashing house house.
Will just have to wing it I guess and hope something comes up.

Mouseface · 15/02/2011 12:51

Fairy - there is lots of practical help out there....
Here

And also CAB. Solicitors can help too, especially those who are involved with family law.

You will be okay, as long as you are not with this man.

MummieHunnie · 15/02/2011 13:09

FF, I think getting your brother to rescue you is a short term fix, you need a long term solution, you don't have to go today.

If I was in your position, I would get money, passports, birth/marriage certs, statements and other paperwork together, find a new home so that your dc can stay in their current school and do this with an adult mind, women's aid will be able to advise you better.

It seems to me more games going to stay with your brother, a big drama involving more people, and making you out to be a victim, stand on your owh two feet you are an adult mother.

ScaredOfCows · 15/02/2011 13:51

MummieHunnie I quite agree. OP if you are serious about removing this negative influence from yours and your childrens lives, you will need a well thought out plan, a long term plan, not just a bolt-hole that will mean disrupting your children's lives for a few days and ultimately mean you will probably end up going back home again.

Please, stop, think and plan.

MummieHunnie · 15/02/2011 13:54

ScaredofCows, that is the sort of thing I Mother did, she never did leave my father when I was little, she would look for people to give her short term rescues, and we were so upset as we were 4 and 5, if she had planned it out like an adult to give us a real home, rather than behaving like a toddler having a tantrum to use leaving as a way to have him beg and grovel and promise and for her to feel superior and to WIN the game in the short term!

Mouseface · 15/02/2011 13:54

Just to say Fairy - my 'Here' link in my post above, is straight to the Women's Aid home page.

MummieHunnie · 15/02/2011 13:54

My Mother did, I never left my exh, wish I had!

Mouseface · 15/02/2011 14:01

Fairy

What time is your H coming home?

What are you going to say to him?

Are the DCs at school?

MummieHunnie · 15/02/2011 14:04

FF, if you read this after going to your brothers, you know you can go back to the house when your dh is at work and get the rest of your stuff, legally he cann't change the locks and you can have access to the property.

I would speak to wa from your brothers and find somewhere more permanent, and get him to write you a letter to say he can't have you stay more than two nights, so you can be housed elsewhere.

Mouseface · 15/02/2011 14:12

Mummie - he can change the locks if the house is in his name only.

If it is in joint names, then he can't.

TBH - I doubt that any of that matters, he'll do as he pleases. Sad

thisishowifeel · 15/02/2011 14:14

Yes MH, this was the kind of thing I was put through as a child too, to the point where she was told that we would be taken into care. She went back to my dad for a while at that point, after we'd been to various relatives, her boyfriend's etc etc. She still carried on with her melodramatic, selfish and toddler like behaviour though.

The damage it has done is being passed down to the next generation.

I can't stress enough fairy, the need for you to stop and think about what is best for you dc's. STOP and think of things from their point of view. Running away in a melodramatic fashion will only serve to do more damage. Is that what you want? Think things through, like a grown up. A grown up whose absolute duty is to the welfare of her children.

Have you personally had any kind of counselling/therapy?

AgeingGrace · 15/02/2011 14:16

Fairy, I'm only responding in general to your thread. I completely screwed myself over by trying to outwit the Narcs in my life. I won a small but significant victory, but am still - years later - recovering from the damage that fight did me.

The reason I made such a rewarding victim for those people is that I was 'trained' by my parents, who were personality-disordered (undiagnosed). For readers with children in this situation: You cannot mitigate the harm your family set-up WILL wreak on your DCs personalities.

People with "faulty wiring" do not choose to be that way. They play games, yes, but their game is not amusement to them - it's a matter of survival. They are incapable of seeing things from any other point of view. I like to compare NPD/APD sufferers to a dangerous animal: it doesn't maul you from choice, that's just its nature.

Possibly you can be a 'lion-tamer'. But why put yourself and your children through the daily danger; why not lock the cage and walk away?