Check in. I am curious, but I also want to know you didn't turn into a puddle.
(I don't think that is a spoiler.)
It made me see myself in a new light. I should have "looked". I was very naive and trusting.
Let us know what you think if you get the chance!
I'm less than 30 minutes into the movie. So far it's like deja vu.
Telling her her reality - check Isolating her - check Making her question her memory - check
It hit really really close to home for me.
Hugs,
K
It is what it is.
Why are people like this??????????
http://narcissisticbehavior.net/the-effects-of-gaslighting-in-narcissistic-victim-syndrome
Here's what I don't get. In the movie the husband had a motivation. I'm stuck on what motivation my husband had. What could it have been? Did he even have a motivation? I'm not rich, not famous, not ever gonna be. My husband is just truly so fucked up that he did this to me just because, right? He didn't need a reason, right? He's just a sick sociopath and I was just dumb & dysfunctional enough to get stuck in his trap.
Pardon me while I go rock in a corner...
Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Your husband crosses the line in his flirtations with another woman at a dinner party. When you confront him, he asks you to stop being insecure and controlling. After a long argument, you apologize for giving him a hard time.
Your boss backed you on a project when you met privately in his office, and you went full steam ahead. But at a large gathering of staff—including yours—he suddenly changes his tune and publicly criticizes your poor judgment. When you tell him your concerns for how this will affect your authority, he tells you that the project was ill-conceived and you’ll have to be more careful in the future. You begin to question your competence.
Your mother belittles your clothes, your job, your friends, and your boyfriend. But instead of fighting back as your friends encourage you to do, you tell them that your mother is often right and that a mature person should be able to take a little criticism.
If you think things like this can’t happen to you, think again. Gaslighting is when someone wants you to do what you know you shouldn’t and to believe the unbelieveable. It can happen to you and it probably already has.
How do we know? If you consider answering “yes” to even one of the following questions, you’ve probably been gaslighted:
Does your opinion of yourself change according to approval or disapproval from your spouse?
When your boss praises you, do you feel as if you could conquer the world?
Do you dread having small things go wrong at home—buying the wrong brand of toothpaste, not having dinner ready on time, a mistaken appointment written on the calendar?
Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from. That’s because it plays into one of our worst fears—of being abandoned—and many of our deepest needs: to be understood, appreciated, and loved. In this groundbreaking guide, the prominent therapist Dr. Robin Stern shows how the Gaslight Effect works and tells you how to: Turn up your Gaslight Radar, so you know when a relationship is headed for trouble
Determine whether you are enabling a gaslighter
Recognize the Three Stages of Gaslighting: Disbelief, Defense, and Depression
Refuse to be gaslighted by using the Five Rules for Turning Off the Gas
Develop your own “Gaslight Barometer” so you can decide which relationships can be saved—and which you have to walk away from
Learn how to Gasproof Your Life so that you’ll never again choose another gaslighting relationship
I feel like I need to see my counselor...
I think it would be good to test myself and see if I can catch all of the gas lighting behaviors. Hopefully, this doesn't derail all of my work and cause major triggers.
Not to T/J but your description of the movie reminded me of some seriously sickening stunts Ex tried to pull before I knew what was going on. Before I found out about the affair that bastard tried HARD to make me feel like I was losing my mind. He started reading books about polygamy and arguing points in support of polygamy while simultaneously arguing that he does not support polygamy and would NEVER be with another woman because *I* thought it was wrong. He would sneak in insults like how I wasn't secure enough for that or that I didn't trust him enough to handle it. As if the problem was not the BS he was saying but my inability to handle something that should be OK.
He would argue that the biblical definition of adultery only applies to women and a man can be with more than one woman as long as he cares for her like a husband. And at the same time he was adamant that he wasn't trying to convince me that it would be OK if he was with another woman and that he would NEVER do that.
Not long after that started, there was an incident where immediately after we had sex he started pouting. After repeatedly asking him what was wrong he finally said how he "really wanted to have sex with other women" and how he didn't know if I would ever satisfy him.
When I had a SERIOUS fucking issue with those words and especially the time he delivered them (to the point that I was physically grieving and mentally preparing to leave his ass), he argued that I always asked him to share his thoughts and feelings but when he did I couldn't handle them and acted irrationally and emotional. That MF'er convinced me that *I* was in the wrong for reacting to the fucked up stuff he was saying to me in the month or two before DDay. It was the same argument he later used to gaslight me about his "friendship" with OW. The lack of boundaries isn't the issue, my inability to just leave the issue alone was the REAL problem!
All of the crap he dumped on me came out of nowhere and my head was spinning. Looking back it's like I was married to one crappy-ass guy for almost 10 years but the last 3-4 months some evil clone took over to finish the mission for the marriage to end with me in an institution or a grave.
And even if I wasted my breath to bring up these incidences with him now he would make the same arguments, blame me and gas me until the room spins even though his actions since those days prove without a doubt that he was priming himself up for an affair. His motivation? To look and feel like the "good guy" no matter how awful of a person he truly is. He doesn't actually have to be a good person, he just needs people to believe it. Sick bastard.
I definitely have to watch this movie when I get a chance.
Housefulloflove~ the X pulled that same shit with me, even compared himself to David with a wandering eye, a harem, and a man after God's own heart
It's been awhile since I could post freely bc of some of his crazy stunts during the D... But I tell you guys truly, freedom is so very sweet❤
