Is this gaslighting?

[Captain1]

Recently suspected my partner was lying about something. (Irrelevant what it was) I dropped a few hints that I thought things seem off etc but was trying to give her the opportunity to come clean without confrontation.

Anyway she didn’t take the hint so I basically told her things didn’t add up and that if she was lying about things she needed to reflect on that and work out why she felt the need to lie.

she then admitted “ok I’m lyjng”. So I said “no problem thanks for being honest, if and when you feel you want to tell me anything then I’m ready to listen”.

a bit later she came and fessed up and then after said I had made her feel bad and guilty and that I was gaslighting her. She said if it were her or any ‘normal’ person then they would have demanded the truth etc.

now I’m confused?! Did I approach this the wrong way.

No, she’s gaslighting you now. Why do you stay with a liar?

She's manipulative.

It’s not gaslighting. I think people have started to over-use the term gaslighting to mean any situation in which they feel emotionally manipulated or coerced etc by their partner or any situation in which their partner has lied or acted in a way they don’t like.

Gas-lighting is a specific behaviour in which an abuser purposefully does things to make the victim feel like they are losing their grip on reality and denies any part in it, so for example behaviours like hiding or moving items and denying this whilst you looked for them, denying conversations you knew you’ve had or insisting things that haven’t been said were, putting the blame for something they did onto you or denying any part in something they did would all be examples of gas-lighting.

One partner making another partner feel guilty about something is not automatically has-lighting. A situation in which one partner causes an emotional response in another is not automatically gas-lighting. It’s not gas-lighting to call your partner up on lies. The lying itself could be part of gas-lighting on her part depending on the content of the lies, but again lying isn’t always gas-lighting. I think the term has become hugely overused in recent years to refer to any situation where one partner is lying or being manipulative etc.

Why is it no problem to you that she lied?

Did I approach this the wrong way

Depends which rules you're following. Which rules do you follow?

A lot going to depend on what she lied about. Whether I think she is now manipulating you or not. Whether she is trying to turn it round on you.

To be honest, I hate people hinting at things. I don’t know if I would call it gaslighting. But it’s game playing. If you have something to say, say it.

If someone thought I was lying and kept hinting I was, I would feel they were playing games. Just come out and ask me.

It does not sound like strange behaviour.
She felt bad about her original actions and felt like it made her a bad person, so she hid it from you are herself. When you called her out on it, she took it not only as being caught out and have the chance to be open, but as exposing her as a terrible person and making her feel bad about herself.
Sometimes, you are going to be the bad guy no matter what you do.

I agree people have started to over use the term gaslighting for every little thing.just have the convo , both say sorry and move on. Depends on the lie though. None of us are saints and its not always easy to explain feelings or why we do things

Gaslighting would be if she convinced you that you were wrobgand she was telling the truth despite incontrovertible evidence that she was lying. It's about getting you to question what you KNOW to be reality. It's called gaslighting because an excellent example is someone persistently turning down the gas lamps in a room but insisting that the light is as bright as ever.

I think you could argue that she is gaslighting you because you handled things reasonably and she is trying to convince you that 'everyone' would feel otherwise. Trying to make you question your own narrative and feel like you were unreasonable when you literally handled things in the most reasonable way possible.

Trying to get someone to doubt their own actions and make thrm feel reasonable is actually, very unreasonable is a sort of gaslighting.

Now here's the thing, I really like how you handled things but...it also seems like the sort of way someone who's had to deal with...difficult people might handle things. I'd wonder if you had in past, perhaps with this woman, had to be very careful not to be 'misunderstood'...walked on eggshells perhaps. Because she actually LIKES misunderstanding you. Because it gives her opportunities to manipulate and gaslight.

Her communication however, doesn't seem.the healthiest. Now, that being said, IF the lie she told was a silly little white lie and you called her on it like you did THEN I could actually understand her perspective. Because it seems like you made nothing, into an excuse to make her uncomfortable. And in that case, I'd be pissed to if I were her as you are making her out to be some liar for a tiny thing. The truth is, most people tell a few white lies here and there. It's not normal to make a song and a dance about them.

BUT if it was about a bigger thing, which I'm assuming, and now she's making out you were wrong to call her out on it...then maybe you need to reassess your choices as at best...your gf doesn't seem to have the healthiest approach to communication. At worst, she's manipulative.

It certainly isn't gas lighting. She obviously doesn't know what that means.

Why are you OK with her lying?
Why is she now accusing you of gas lighting when she is the one in the wrong?

Gaslighting is telling a person something happened differently than how it really was, so this is not it. You told her you thought she was lying and gave her opportunity to admit it, which she indeed was.
That it all came out without any demands needing to be made, is credit to how you handled it. She's not enjoying feeling guilty, so is deflecting. Because she has done wrong, her tactic is to make out you've done something wrong too to mask it, even though in reality you haven't. Therefore, if anyone is Gaslighting, it's her.

I would expect that the way she reacted is not unusual.
In the old days, the accusation was of "making me feel guilty", these days it is "gaslighting".
People feel great pressure to be perfect. Ideally, people would handle it better, but I am not sure it is a reasonable expectation.

It's not gaslighting.

It's not great she lied.

Your way of handling it was passive aggressive and weird.

It wasn't gaslighting at all, although I was a tiny bit "teacher-y".