TL;DR – Fiancé always telling me I forget things when he hasn’t even told me the info or saying my experience was wrong and I’m not remembering correctly, is this gaslighting?

I would love your advice please! My fiancé (M41) and I (F31) have been together for 4 years, have a home together, 2x pets and own and run a business together. We struggle with communication at times as most couples do, all in all we have a great life together and are best friends, we have history and have helped each other through some really tough times and I truly believe he is my person, the love and deep connection we both feel for each other is something indescribable. I feel secure within our relationship however, there are always going to be annoyances. This is mine; It’s a regular occurrence for us to sometimes talk in passing and forget small details of a story the other has told. Through out our relationship there have been a handful of times where my partner has said he told me something, which I have ‘forgotten’, but in actual fact I believe he has not told me at all and then proceed to make me feel like I am losing my mind. One example (this was about 2 years ago), My partner was talking to me about a old friends wife passing away from cancer. This was the first time hearing of this and I was shocked and felt so sorry for his friend. My partner in a demeaning way said he’d already told me about this, I replied, ‘no you haven’t, I would remember significant news like that’ to which he said I probably didn’t listen to him when he told me or I am just losing my mind. Another incident which I’ll never forget, was when we were driving down a stretch of road I’d never been on before. I made the remark ‘oh I haven’t been on this road before’, my partner replied telling me I had and proceeded to try and jog my memory with no luck. I was getting frustrated and kept saying ‘no! I would remember if I had been this way before’, and he got louder and louder which erupted into him screaming and yelling so much he had foam in the corner of his mouth. I was yelling too, saying NO! I would remember if I had been this way and the scenario he was trying to describe to jog my memory sounded like he may have been with someone else on that road. I could be here all day typing out different scenarios he’s gaslit me over the years. Recently, he told me his sister was getting a new car, when I spoke to her about it she told me she was picking it up from another town. When I said to my partner ‘oh, you know such and such is going to blank to get her car’ he replied and said he’d told me that, again I said, I would have remembered that detail. I said ‘all you said to me was blank is getting a new car or something’. It left me feeling like I was literally insane and there is no point in living anymore. It makes me furious frankly!! I want to scream in his face and tell him he is losing the plot! IMO he has the worst attention span when trying to talk to him about something important and always has his phone glued to his face, or preoccupied with messages/conversations he’s having via his phone. This is frustrating for me and I have voiced my concerns about this to him and the only changes have been me now being on my phone more because I don’t have anyone to conversate with. I need reassurance that I’m not losing my mind and this happens with other couples. I really want to become a better listener and have tried modeling this behavior, thinking HE would start doing the same but he doesn’t so I lose my care factor and continue on.

\- Super confused

3 comments
  1. Yeah there’s a reason he chose a younger woman to date – he’s trying to use your potential naivety and kindness against you to gaslight and isolate you.

    Good partners don’t scream at you. Imagine 30 more years feeling this way…

  2. This sounds like the type of behavior an abuser starts. They start by getting their victims to doubt themselves. They gaslight the victim into believing they have a bad memory or some other made up excuse. Soon the victim believes it and the abuser presents themselves as the only one who can deal with them and their “issues”

    If you truly know you didn’t do those things, it’s a huge red flag.

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