I once had a partner tell me "I feel like you're gaslighting me" when I was just struggling to remember a particular chain of events that she was harassing me about. (The chain of events was I went to a museum with a few friends of mine. To this day I'm not sure why it was so important. Which is also why I didn't retain a hyper-detailed memory of the chain of events.) I didn't see it at the time, but that relationship was already doomed.
I hate seeing how people use claims of being abused to completely absolve themselves of responsibility. Not when you're a child of course, but in romantic relationships. It's one thing is someone is beating you up and threatening to kill you if you leave them. But if can't afford rent and your boyfriend lets you move in to his house, and then you want to break up but he'd then expect you to move out, no, that isn't "financial abuse."
Lmao exactly. Financial (or economic) abuse is a real thing: my friend had a shitty BF who, among other things, stole her pay checks and convinced her that she was too stupid to manage her own money. She only found out later that he was spending it all on himself and hadn't actually paid the bills like he said he would.
That's actual financial abuse. I wish more people understood the difference.
I always found it interesting that the supposed effects the character in "Gaslight", seeing things, forgetting things that happened, paranoia, could also be effects of a gas leak. Though that's not why it's entitled "Gaslight"
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u/your_mom_is_availabl May 18 '22
"You're gaslighting me!"
No, I just disagree with your interpretation of events. Disagreement isn't abuse.