[Treasur]

Good article on gaslighting here, worth a read https://lessonsfromtheendofamarriage.com/2018/11/26/what-makes-people-susceptible-to-gaslighting/

Not about why people do it, but about what makes us easier to gaslight perhaps. And different weak spots for different folks. For me, yup, a trusting nature bc I had never experienced anything like it before and being naturally given to seeing two sides of a story. Both are strengths too, but also why it took me so damn long to trust my own sense of 'no, this is not ok and not normal'. And for me, placing too much weight on words bc words matter to me and I rarely say things without thinking of the effect or without intending to keep my word. So again, it took me a while to realise that other people's words did not carry the same significance as mine did.

My conclusions, just for me as part of my own mirror work?  And because I don't want to throw my own babies out with the bathwater of my xh lol.

Trust my gut when it shouts loudly. Without needing to justify it to myself or anyone else.
Actions carry more weight than words.

Only took me 55 years 

[Milly]

Good article. I see myself completely in the description of who is more vulnerable to being gaslighted. The risk is to become colder and distrusting. I think the trusting our gut sensations might just be the answer.

[Anjae]

I never believed what was going on was normal and never believed what Mr J said when his replay started.

I knew there was an affair even before he left. He denied, of course, but I didn't believe him.

During his ongoing endeless crisis I didn't fall for his stuff.

There is nothing wrong with being open minded, trusting or kind-harded. MLCers lose those and we don't like them one bit.

The husband in the article does not resemble real Mr J nor do I resemble the woman (be it now or before).

For me, it is very simple, Mr J's personality changed.

[Treasur]

May not 'fit' for you and others' Anjae.
Depends on our individual experiences, I guess, but for some of us the gaslighting was a huge WTF bit of our own 'fog'
And as Milly says, most LBS who recognise that want to learn from it without losing the ability to trust, have empathy or feel as if they have to be unremittingly on guard against an unfriendly world. So, it's about finding the balancing point that works for us individually after we realise that we were gaslighted by someone for their own self-obsessed agenda.

And I've found the site overall pretty useful for dealing with the challenges of a vanishing spouse bc it focuses mostly on recovering and rebuilding whilst not denying the maelstrom of emotions and just how very weird an experience it is after so many years of something quite different.

[Anjae]

I am not saying Mr J didn't gaslight. He did - pretty much all MLCers do. Just that there is a difference between someone in MLC gaslighting and someone who always did.

That is, if a LBS always had a spouse who gaslighted for the whole relationship, the behaviour is not new.

Since gaslighting was a new, MLC behaviour for Mr J, and quite an obvious new, strange behaviour, I never believed a word he said. He did trie the "you are imagining things", "you're crazy~", etc. My reply always was, "No, I am not. You're lying and there is someone else". He would protest further, I keep not believing him.

What confuses me is LBS who seem to think their spouse was always like the MLC, that gaslighting was always there, etc. If that was the case, what is so surprising in the MLC behaviour?

I only notice a change in behaviour if there is one, not if it something that was always there.

It is far easier to recover and rebuild with a vanisher than with a clinger. A clinger never goes away and never allows us space to rebuild and repair. I know, Mr J has been both. When he was a super clinger it was impossible to recover or rebuilt. He was always in contac. There was no space to breath and his craziness was always present. His vanishing self is a blessing. At least to me, that experienced the opposite, it is.

[Treasur]

I am not saying Mr J didn't gaslight. He did - pretty much all MLCers do. Just that there is a difference between someone in MLC gaslighting and someone who always did.
Fair point. Same for me, it came with his 'crisis'/depression, not before which was partly why it was so difficult to adjust to. He used his mental health diagnosis as a kind of cover really and I wanted to believe that he wasn't as horrific and cruel as he seemed to be, that some bit of my old h still existed and would reappear. So less that I believed all of the lies, although I believed some, more that I couldn't wrap my head round the scale and depth of it.  Once I actually accepted that he lied about almost everything, including stupid things, it just became pointless to try to communicate with him at all.  But I think the principles hold true regardless of the circumstances of who/how/when?

That is, if a LBS always had a spouse who gaslighted for the whole relationship, the behaviour is not new.



It is far easier to recover and rebuild with a vanisher than with a clinger. A clinger never goes away and never allows us space to rebuild and repair. I know, Mr J has been both. When he was a super clinger it was impossible to recover or rebuilt. He was always in contac. There was no space to breath and his craziness was always present. His vanishing self is a blessing. At least to me, that experienced the opposite, it is.
My inner jury is out on this. I just don't know. Both the likelihood of it or how easy or difficult it might be. Simply don't have the experience to say and don't see a consistent pattern, more a combo of the individual and how hard the karma bus hits them.
But I agree with you on the blessings of a vanisher for sure.

[Anjae]

But I think the principles hold true regardless of the circumstances of who/how/when?

More or less. But with the MLCer, if they weren't like that before, we know it come with MLC and is only MLC related. If so, there isn't much reason for us to believe a single thing they say nor are we in the same as someone who was vulnerable and a non-MLCer person took advantage of the situation.

We have spouses who flipped and are out there where the buses don't run.

Is your real husband as horrible and cruel as the MLC person, or is the MLC horrible and cruel?

Since Mr J was physically abusive, it was easy to know his MLC person was horrible, nasty and cruel. His MLC person is all kinds of horrible. There is nothing good or nice about his crisis self.

Is the real Mr J still there? At times and briefly. I barely have contact with him, which is good. Had enough of his clinger insanity.

Pity he wasn't a vanisher from the start. I would had been easier.

[Nas]

Here’s a good article for all of you who have had to endure OPs who post the relationship all over social media:

https://hellogiggles.com/lifestyle/brag-relationship-facebook-heres-really-means/amp/

[Ready2Transform]

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42460315

A great read. Resources for jurisdictions where this actually breaks a law.

Cheating and manipulation: Confessions of a gaslighter

For Greg, there was a third quality that the women he gaslighted all shared. They were all intelligent and successful. Intriguingly, he says this was a key factor in how receptive they were to being gaslighted.

"I've dated a doctor, an engineer, a well-known social media personality.

"From my experience it's not true that it is vulnerable or insecure women who are susceptible to gaslighting. These were successful women but that came with a perception of what they thought a 'successful' relationship should look like and they shared that. They gave me a blueprint to what they were looking for in a man."

The women, he says, approached relationships like they did their careers. With a checklist of qualities, often from relationships depicted in films, and high expectations.

[Nas]

Very interesting, thanks Ready!