Again, I’ve been watching this behavior all of my life and want to give good examples to help people identify when gaslighting is happening in their life.

Let’s say you have a happy couple and they have a couple of children together. The wife is constantly complaining that she has more to do than she can manage. She also works, so it all rings true. There really is too much to do. Then you ask her if she wants help, no she doesn’t want help. Then she quits her job. But nothing changes, because she has too much to do. Same amount of laundry is not getting done, dishes don’t get done and she never cooks. But really, she has too much to do.

Then there is the man who can’t believe his beautiful wife loves him and only him. He’s so sure that she doesn’t that he constantly sees every interaction that she has with a man as a challenge. He tells her, if you really loved me you wouldn’t talk so much with other men. This is gaslighting because the version of reality doesn’t match reality. Her love for him has nothing to do with her conversations with others. But, he is controlling the narrative and gaslighting her into thinking that she must act a certain way in order for him to feel loved. The problem is that, he will never be satisfied and is likely to drive her away with all of his demands.

How about the supervisor who corrects you in front of subordinates? She tells her supervisor that you are a “problem” even though you have the very best results. It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t like you and because she is the supervisor, she can control the narrative. She’s really not a horrible supervisor, you are just a bad person. This supervisor has 80% turnover every year, but no one checks that. They roll with her narrative because she has an expertise they want. Her version of reality becomes the version of reality.

One of the best examples of gaslighting is easily recognizable from a scene in Die hard. You have the overweight black cop talking to his captain before the police breech the skyscraper. No matter what evidence there is that there is a terrorist group that is organized and well funded for crime, the imperious white police captain kept explaining the evidence dismissively. He wants his version of reality because it puts him in a better light. And of course, we all know, that he was wrong. The imperious captain was schmuck who couldn’t create any positive results.

 The win for the good guys in Die Hard doesn’t work out that way in real life. Very often, it’s the gaslighters who win. Their version of reality wins out and the gaslighting continues. It continues because it is successful. People get away with it and often no one is the wiser, or there is a terrible outcome.

We don’t call people out on their lies because our financial lives depend on buying into the false narrative. It’s an awful situation to be in. People use this strategy to keep their own lives in check as well. We’d much rather believe that our wife really does have too much to do and that’s why the laundry isn’t done and no one ever cooks at home. A wife would much rather believe that eventually she can love her husband enough to make him stop being so desperate. Again, gaslighting is successful.

We’re hoping that someone will identify your supervisor as jealous and desperate, but hope doesn’t get you anywhere. We’re hoping that the wife will finally clean something. We’re hoping that the husband will be convinced of your love. This doesn’t work and never will. Contrary to what the movies and TV tries to tell you. Gaslighting is controlling the narrative and it isn’t reality.