How To Tell If Your Partner Is Gaslighting You & What To Do About It
Gaslighting has become somewhat of a psychological buzzword in recent years as more young people are increasingly aware of mental health concepts. It was even the Merriam-Webster Word of the Year in 2022.
However, just because more people are aware of what it is doesn't make it easier to identify when you're being subjected to it. When you're in a relationship, it's nearly impossible to zoom out and look at problems from the outside, but knowing the early signs is a good first step to protecting your clarity—and sanity.
What is gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a deeply disorienting form of emotional manipulation. It's when someone makes you question your own reality, memory, and sanity through lies, denial, and trivializing. Victims often experience doubt, confusion, and low self-esteem, which leads to an increased dependence on the abuser.
The term was first coined in a 1938 play, Gas Light, in which a husband subtly changes his home's environment to make his wife doubt her reality.
Recognizing the signs
Do you often ask yourself if you're being too sensitive? One of the clearest indicators of gaslighting is chronic invalidation. If your partner regularly tells you that your feelings are “too much,” “dramatic,” or “irrational,” it can make you believe your emotional responses are invalid.
Gaslighters often dismiss concerns instead of addressing them, framing themselves as calm and logical while implying you are unstable. Over time, you may start apologizing constantly or rethinking your emotional reactions, even when they were perfectly reasonable.
Another red flag is constant contradiction or revision of events. You remember a conversation one way; they insist it happened differently. You recall hurtful words; they tell you they never said that. While we all have slightly different memories of events, and occasional misunderstandings are normal, a pattern of telling you your memory is wrong isn't.
This tactic keeps you off-balance, forces you to rely on their version of reality, and destroys your confidence in your own judgment.
Gaslighters also tend to shift blame. Somehow, every issue becomes your fault, and the worst part is, you believe it. If you bring up an issue, instead of addressing it, they might accuse you of being overly sensitive, misinterpreting things. Instead of taking accountability, they flip the narrative so you end up defending yourself rather than addressing the original concern.
A subtler sign is isolating you from validation. This can look like discouraging you from venting to friends, rolling their eyes when you talk about confiding in others, or claiming that outsiders “don’t understand your relationship.” This cuts out the "third party" who would help you realize what's going on.
Taking action
The first step to addressing the issue is reclaiming your clarity. Start by documenting incidents: write down conversations, dates, and feelings while they’re fresh, not to "collect evidence" for your next fight, but to keep yourself grounded.
Next, talk to a trusted friend, therapist, or support person who can help you reality-test what’s happening. Gaslighting is designed to make you feel alone, so having an outside perspective is crucial.
Finally, you can address the person gaslighting you. This can be tricky, especially when that person is so good at manipulating you, but stay strong, stick to the facts, and remember: you're not crazy.
"Responding to gaslighting can be empowering because you are refusing to accept the false narrative that the other person is trying to make you believe," family therapist Patrice Le Goy told Very Well Mind. "Responding to it is a way of reclaiming your self-respect and confidence."
