My Reality List

Gaslighting. It's one of those words that's overused in modern day society, without people really knowing what it actually means, so I'm going to talk about it here. There are many different definitions, but I'm going to use the one that's simple and easy to comprehend. Gaslighting is a technique in which someone causes you to question your own reality - the things you know to be true, that you saw with your very own eyes. It's a very insidious form of manipulation and is actually considered to be psychological abuse. It is also a tactic that C used to try and convince me that I was overreacting, crazy, and paranoid, when the entire time I was right about what he was doing. At the end of the relationship, I honestly didn't know if I could trust myself. His version of events did not match my version of events, and so I started to wonder if maybe I WAS overreacting, crazy, and paranoid. I struggled with what the truth really was. One of the things I read online advised to create a "reality list" - a list in which you simply state the things you know to be true. So, this is MY reality list, aka All the F**ked Up Things that C Did or Said. Anything you see in bold is my personal commentary.

HANNAH'S REALITY LIST

1. He told me on my birthday that his wedding ring represented a prison and that he was not in the right mental headspace to make that commitment. Was he not at the altar with me when we made that commitment to each other?

2. He cheated on me in our home while I was out of state visiting my grandma in the ICU.

3. He tried to bring K over to meet me so I could show her around the house. This was before he knew that I knew he was cheating.

4. He tried to go fishing with her the morning after he found out I knew about them.

5. He defended her by saying that she didn't think she was doing anything wrong, even though she knew he was married.

6. When I asked him to cut off contact with her, he consistently said he didn't want to hurt HER feelings. So much for his wife's feelings.

7. He said that I was trying to make him feel bad for choosing to be happy for once. Choosing to be happy = cheating??

8. He said he didn't consider it cheating because he didn't think of me as his partner at the time. We were literally married.

9. He said it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, that I drove him to her by asking him to set boundaries in respect for our marriage.

10. He blockaded the bedroom door and said he was afraid of me stabbing him in his sleep.

11. He lied about not being in contact with her on multiple occasions.

12. After initially telling me I could have access to his phone to rebuild trust, he then told me I could not because he had private conversations he didn't want me to see.

13. He did not come back to stay with me the night of my grandma's funeral when I asked him to and said I was trying to emotionally manipulate him. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about after we buried my grandma.

14. He would disappear overnight after I found out about the cheating and said he was going camping, fishing, or some other activity but never showed me any proof.

15. He constantly accused me of cheating throughout our marriage. When I accused him of cheating on me with K, he said that I must be the one cheating and that I was projecting. Funny that this logic only applies when I'm the one making the accusation.

16. He refused to spend Christmas with my family, stating that his family was more important because there were more people and young children.

17. He claimed that I was unstable and that he was concerned about me, but never reached out to any of my family and friends to let them know. If you're genuinely concerned about someone, wouldn't you try to reach out to their support system to get them help?

18. He said I was being vindictive by reporting his workplace affair to HR. I reported him to HR because he refused to set any boundaries with K after I found out, which was pure emotional torture for me.

19. He said he needed time to make a decision on whether he wanted to be with her or me.

20. He said he has had multiple opportunities to cheat on me during our relationship. Does he want a gold star for this?

21. He was suspicious when a male coworker texted me at 11pm about a work meeting the following morning. But when I got suspicious about him gaming with his female coworker at 11pm, I'm overreacting.

22. He said I was too friendly with our neighbor in Louisiana.

23. He said it was suspicious if I talked about a male coworker too much, but he also said it was suspicious if I didn't talk about them at all. Lose-lose situation for me.

24. He did not want me to go to an out-of-state work meeting because he said he was worried about me cheating on him. But he went to several out-of-state work meetings and that was ok.

25. He told me my family didn't really love or care about me.

26. He never wanted to go out to eat with me or on date nights, but always found time to fish and play video games.

27. He controlled our finances. I never saw his bank account, savings account, or our credit card bills.

28. He never discussed the purchase of his car with me even though we were married at the time.

29. He said that my job wasn't hard and said I complained too much about work, even though I worked significantly more than he did. But it was ok for him to complain about work.

30. He stopped sleeping in bed with me and gave multiple excuses - it was too hot, the animals woke him up, etc. He slept in the same bed with me for 4 years. What changed?

31. He was always telling me that his female coworkers were hitting on him. This happened at 2 different jobs with 3 different coworkers. Now I wonder if this was true or if he was trying to make me jealous.

32. He received a Tinder code on his phone once and told me it was a scam.

33. K's pins on Pinterest disappeared immediately after I confronted him about it, though at the time he claims she was blocked. Explain that one to me.

34. There was a receipt for snacks bought on K's birthday that included snacks that I had never seen him eat. He's a creature of habit who always gets the same things.

35. He wore a pair of women's pajama bottoms around the house that weren't mine. When I asked him why he had women's, he said that they were the last pair left.

36. He told me he would do whatever it took to rebuild trust in our marriage, yet continually did not answer his phone, disappeared for long periods of time, and would not let me see his phone or phone records. Great way to rebuild trust!

37. He claimed it was my fault that he did not have a job 5 months after he lost his job. Make that make sense.

38. He claimed it was my fault he got fired. Not the consequences of his own actions.

39. He said my parents were toxic. I felt like I had to choose between them and him. He told me that if we wanted to save our marriage that I had to agree that he wouldn't have anything to do with them in the future. Why is he the one making demands when he's the one who cheated?

40. He told me that he was worried I'd get tired of him and replace him. Yet he replaced me with K.

41. He told me I didn't compliment him enough. When I started complimenting him more, he said I didn't mean them. Another lose-lose situation.

42. He told me he hated having friends and that it was too much responsibility, but then he said I was controlling and I did not let him have friends.

43. He recorded me in highly emotional states after his affair came to light, and he showed these videos to others as proof that I was unstable and crazy. What woman wouldn't be highly emotional after finding out the one she loves betrayed her?

44. He told me that K reminded him of me.

45. He told me that K was just a kid he was trying to help, that he wasn't trying to f**k her and she wasn't trying to f**k him. His idea of help is different than mine.

46. He told me to take my time with my grandma, while he was at our home with K.

47. He told me he would never cheat on me and that if he even thought about it, he would tell me so we could end things. So much for that.

48. He claimed that I had bipolar disorder, mild autism, BPD, NPD, and ADHD. Quite the psychiatrist, isn't he? The only thing I've been diagnosed with - and I've seen multiple providers - is depression and anxiety.

49. If I was out and about, he wanted me to answer his calls and texts almost immediately. If I didn't, he would start questioning me.

50. According to him, I'm manipulative, evil, crazy, psycho, selfish, toxic, abusive, paranoid, controlling, and narcissistic. I'm also a tyrant, a monster, a pathological liar, a crybaby, a leach, and a parasite who sucked the life out of him. Oh, and I ruined his life, he always walked on eggshells around me, I always looked down on him, I was jealous of him, I didn't really care about or love him and never did, I try to bring him down because I don't want him to feel good about himself, I have anger issues and he's scared of me, I've manipulated everyone around me (including my therapist), I'm a puppet master and he's one of my puppets, I treat him like an object and not a human, I don't admit my own faults, & the list goes on.... Don't even know what to say about this one.

Anyway, that is my reality list, and it doesn't even encompass everything. These are things that I remember vividly, things that I have record of in our text messages. By the end of this list, I realized that the truth was right in front of me, and it was undeniable. I was NOT overreacting, crazy, or paranoid. He was gaslighting me, manipulating me into believing that I'm this awful person. And the thing is - it almost worked. But I didn't see all of this until I left, until I made this list. When I was in the middle of it, though, I honestly believed that I was the problem. He caused me to doubt myself, to question my own mind. It's kind of like Pavlov's dogs (if you don't know, that's the experiment where over time, the dogs were conditioned to expect food upon the signal of a ringing bell). Just like the dogs, over time, he conditioned me to BELIEVE in his version of reality. And that, friends, is gaslighting.

The effects of gaslighting are many. I used to be so confident, so sure of myself, and now I'm not. Even as I write this post, I wonder if this is the truth, even though I KNOW that it is. I have questioned myself for so long that it's now a habit - one I have to break. And breaking it involves telling my story. It means reclaiming the truth, even the parts that don't show me in the best light. It means trusting my own version of events and not caring about the false narrative that someone else has created. It means sharing this with other women - maybe even you - in the hopes that they can recognize gaslighting in their own relationships. It means rediscovering myself and forging my own identity. It means writing this post. It means healing.