Today, before taking an Uber home, she sent me a text wanting me to be downstairs on the street to greet her as the Uber arrives. I read it and told her that yes, I’ll be there. I didn’t notice any further text because I was in the middle of something.
Later, I hear the door opening and went to our door to greet her, she was furious and refused to talk to me. I realized I forgot to turn my phone back from silent mode after work today. I told her that it is my bad, she still refused to talk to me. At this point, things are still normal for our relationship, she would usually become willing to talk after a while.
I usually go to sleep at 22:30 and she knows, so I thought we’d sort things out tomorrow and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to her standing next to my bed (we sleep in separate bedrooms), and she begin asking a series of pointed questions: “What would you do if you found out that I was gone?”, “What would you do if the CCTV on our street is broken by chance?”, “What would you tell my mother if I went missing?”, “If I was actually kidnapped, would you kill the guy for me?”
You know, the usual. I thought she’s just angry at me still and wanted to vent, so I went along with her for the time being: “I’d be very worried and look for youeverywhere”, “I’d sue the city”, “I’d tell your mother exactly what happened and say I’m sorry”, and “I’d kill the guy who kidnapped you”.
She grumbled and asked a few follow up questions, like “if you’re planning to kill the guy, what would you do with our cat?” But at this point, I think she’s finding it difficult to stay angry at me. I tell her again that I’m sorry I missed her text, and that next time this happens, she should just call me to make sure I see her text, but she left soon after without acknowledging my apology.
I know I’m in the wrong for missing her text. Not trying to argue otdhtwise. My question is, am I really responsible if someone kidnaps her between getting off the Uber and getting into our apartment complex? Is she trying to guilt trip me into thinkg her anger is justified or am I really a horrible, kidnap-facillitating bad person for missing a few texts?
I don’t think it’s gaslighting. Gaslighting is manipulating someone into questioning their perception of reality. This is being angry at someone.
I can’t really relate. Is it really that dangerous where you live? We probably live in different countries but I don’t have CCTV in the residential area where I live. And usually in the summer, it’s still bright enough at 10pm an people are still around and it’s safe enough for women to walk home alone. At least in most places.
It’s pretty safe where we live afaik, also CCTV is everywhere here especially in and around the big cities.
So, London?
I get that you’re trying to get more info to help OP out better, but I think that it’s better to drop this “where are you from?” talk. Privacy-wise it’s rather problematic, you know? [Sorry for the uncalled advice.]
Asking someone their country of residence is privacy intruding? Lol
In the strictest sense perhaps, but I dont think a criminal could make something of the knowledge that I am from Germany.
As a wise man once said, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t after you.” Oh wait, that was Kurt Cobain, not a wise man.
Jokes aside, don’t assume that a piece of info about someone else is fine to share, because it is for you. OP likely has their reasons and that’s to be respected. (NB: this is coming from someone who doesn’t mind even sharing their city online.)
U ain’t wrong…
While info is useful, it ain’t worth breaking opsec for it
OP gave some clues, though. I think the comment with “London” was meant to be a joke. But it’s true that this kind of surveillance is common in Britain, some parts of Asia and some random big cities. And OP knows how to write the time of the day properly, so they’re certainly not from the USA. 😉
Lmao it was a joke because London is known for their extremely extensive CCTV network
Then I derped. My bad!
Haha, our city has a much lower crim rate than London actually.
Yeah, sometimes perceived reality and the real reality are two things. And there are places where you can’t walk on the streets as a woman. I’m not sure if it’s about fear in your case. Or just because you broke your promise but there isn’t any fear involved.
Anyways, in relationships general advice is to talk to each other. Ask her what’s bothering her. Maybe it’s a pretend reason and there is something deeper that’s bothering her. Maybe this was the proper reason. Maybe she’s a resentful person. Maybe she just had a bad day.
Unless it happens regularly or there are other factors to it, I wouldn’t necessarily attribute it to malice or be a manipulation strategy…
If I was actually kidnapped, would you kill the guy for me?
This is a pretty massive red flag right here, IMO. I wouldn’t stick around any person that asks this question. If a person is kidnapped there are like a million other steps you can take that lead to the kidnapper rotting in jail and the victim’s SO not being put in jail for murder.
and that’s missing the fact that the kidnapper usually doesn’t leave a business card behind, so he wouldn’t have clue who to kill 😂
I hope she (out of anger) autofilled “the worst thing I can think of“ as an attempt to match for “one of the worst things I can think of happening to me”.
A desire for extrajudicial revenge is something I’d expect from really immature people. (In contexts uncommon for me, perhaps I’d expect it from those who’ve been wronged by the justice system, or for those whom the system doesn’t seem to play a productive role in their environment.)
Wonder if there’s a test of sorts that could reveal more here - if someone insults her, would she expect him to “defend her honor” at risk the personal safety of them both?
Eh.
It could be just her going thru possible consequences out loud. Maybe intentionally to drive the point home about what could have happened.
Like, this is some real shit that women do always need to be aware of, and men just never fucking think about, because we don’t have to.
OP could live in a super sketch area where this level of vigilance is warranted and this shit could be going thru her head.
Like from her POV OP didn’t take the risk serious enough to meet her, if he’s not willing to do that, her mind is running thru where the line is on what he would do. You zero into that by asking big questions. And again, it could be to try and set in the possible consequences.
Like, her wanting to know what level of commitment he has to her safety. I doubt it was extrajudicial executions in her mind, and more Liam Niessons style rescue as a rhetorical device.
For a woman a partner who values their security and safety is important both on an instinctual and sadly still practical level. They have a lot more threats then the average dude will ever think about, especially when young and in the dating stages of life. Even married men sometimes don’t learn about it till later when they have kids their responsible for.
… Nah. As a woman, this is not a question I would ever think to ask anyone, regardless of how unsafe I felt. How does agreeing to murder someone AFTER something happens to you help you feel more safe? It doesn’t, at all. Besides, she could have called him from the Uber when she didn’t see him outside. It’s not like they just kick you out of the car immediately.
OP described this behavior as “the usual,” which means this is a thing she does regularly. I would say this isn’t normal for most people to do regularly. If the location is actually not safe, then the conversation should be centered around “when are we going to move somewhere safer?” rather than “how would you murder someone if they hurt me” and especially getting into the specifics of “what would you do with the cat while doing the murder…?” I think this might be some kind of recurring “daycare” or maladaptive fantasy that keeps playing out in her imagination. There are certainly steps she could take to keep herself safe. But because she doesn’t, she feels powerless and then blames OP for her perceived lack of safety. OP cannot be responsible for her safety 24/7. That is an unfair expectation to have of anyone.
I agree with everything you said here except you’re read on that question. There’s a huge area between expecting your partner to take your personal safety seriously, and expecting your partner to kill for you. One of those is a reasonable ask, the other is a reasonable excuse to leave.
and expecting your partner to kill for you.
Some questions are hypothetical or even rhetorical
And honestly on a deeper level there are reasons for women to suddenly go down these hypothetical scenarios related to safety, on a fairly regular basis.
There’s just too much context and subtlies that we can’t know for anyone to give a 100% answer on if a reaction like this is warranted.
None of that is gaslighting. However, it’s a red flag.
Agreed. Sounds like Borderline Personality Disorder. Get her some help, or get far, far away.
No, it doesn’t. Nothing here screams fear of abandonment. It screams insecurity, it screams anxiety, it screams mentally unhealthy, but this doesn’t say anything that could highlight BPD, or any other disorder.
It absolutely does, and I’m getting the vibe this is personal for you. This is not about you.
She is emotionally abusing you.
- She needs therapy.
- If she doesnt get therapy, sadly, the relationship needs to end. In this situation, be prepared to get a restraining order.
I can’t relate as well, as I live in a city where things are really really aafe. But there are places where a women are afraid to walk alone in the dark, even for a few steps. (And even in safe places some people are quite afraid)
I’d be very careful with remote diagnosis. You. might be right, she needs therapy. She might just be afraid, because something bad happened to her some time.
The only way is for OP to have a good talk with her what’s bothering her - and then he may come to a conclusion. As of now, there’s just not enough information.
Yes, I’m hedging it off her making up a new reason, the cat, to stay angry.
And that he already has a whole sentence of things he knows he has to say.
The bitch is crazy, get rid of her asap
Yeah, this is seriously manipulative. I actually wouldn’t consider it gaslighting per se, which is a much more specific thing where a person is trying to make you think you’re losing your mind. This is just bog-standard manipulative behavior.
As someone who is in a long-term relationship with a partner who struggled with these kind of issues when we met…
She has to be willing to understand this is a problem, and even if her fears are justified, she needs help, because berating you and being manipulative by asking super loaded questions (especially in the middle of the night, wtf. she needs some work on boundaries, too) is in no way shape or form a normal or healthy aspect of any functioning relationship.
Be ready to accept that sometimes things like manipulative behavior come from things like fears of abandonment. It doesn’t make them okay, but it should give us pause and consider that people aren’t doing it because they want to hurt us. It took me a while to understand my partner was doing things that pushed me away because she was scared of losing me, because it’s totally backwards in my mind. It just means you have to consider the possibility that this isn’t because she’s selfish, but actually potentially dealing with other kinds of mental health issues. She still needs to work on it, and she still needs help for it, but please have a little compassion.
Be willing to go to counseling with her if you want to try to make it work, but she has to be able to see what she has done, show sincere regret, and want to change. It can take time, and everyone deserves that chance, but only if they’re willing to put in the work.
If she’s unable or unwilling to accept how hurtful and manipulative what she did was, and that she at the very least needs counseling, then you need to consider ending it.
EDIT: I should be clear that “putting in the work” means up to and including: getting a mental health diagnosis, getting medication, getting a psychiatrist, getting a counselor whose field is focused on helping people with specifically this diagnosis, and then working through their problems.
“What would you do if you found out that I was gone?”, “What would you do if the CCTV on our street is broken by chance?”, “What would you tell my mother if I went missing?”, “If I was actually kidnapped, would you kill the guy for me?”
You know, the usual.
Are you ok? Blink twice if you’re ok
Your girlfriend is an immature child and manipulative.
You can’t make somebody like that happy. It won’t get better either. You can try reason with her but maturity issue will prevent her from out growing it.
She will need a few more boyfriends if she is ever to to learn why this clown behavior is no good.
My question is, am I really responsible if someone kidnaps her between getting off the Uber and getting into our apartment complex?
Only if you were involved in the kidnapping, like paying them to do it.
Is she trying to guilt trip me into thinkg her anger is justified or am I really a horrible, kidnap-facillitating bad person for missing a few texts?
She is trying to guilt trip you for missing her text by using emotionally ever the top hyperbole which is not gaslighting. Gaslighting requires intentionally lying about something that did not happen to make you question your own experience.
Only if you were involved in the kidnapping, like paying them to do it.
Reading this I’m not sure I’d fault him even if that were the case.
Still rampant manipulation, though.
I’d say at least on the level of gaslighting
Abandon ship, my dude.
This is absolutely manipulative.
Whether she realizes it or not, refusing to engage or talk about it, except in her own time frame- is not a good sign for a healthy relationship, and when she did decide to talk about it, put you into a compromised position- being unable to think clearly.
The questions she’s asking are meant to elicit fear and massive guilt. Though to be blunt, I’m going to assume there’s no real danger of any of that happening, I assume the neighborhood is fairly safe. Because usually it is.
As for what you’d do…? Call the cops. Duh. You (probably) don’t have the resources to find any one and kill them, and besides which, if she’s really asking that you do, uhm… dodge that bullet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder
“Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined emotional abandonment.”
Run. She may decide to do the old murder/suicide if she thinks you’re going to leave her.
Holy shit you gotta love the Internet with people, based on this one story, thinking it makes sense to warn that she might be planning a murder suicide. Lol wow.
Really? No.
Borderline personality disorder is a special kind of crazy, yes, but it’s severe abandonment anxiety at it’s core. I hate how much BPD gets thrown around, because it’s quite a bit more benign than people understand.
This situation doesn’t tell us ANYTHING about any mental disorder she may or may not have.
IT DOES tell us that she is not a healthy individual and he needs to fucking run because we don’t want to find out what really is wrong with her.
She wanted him to let her know when he got home so she could meet him at the door. To know he was there. And then punished him for forgetting, in a very irrational way. That is the definition of the fear of abandonment.
To answer your specific question, in this example, no she’s not gaslighting you. Gaslighting is a special form of lying intent on having you doubting your own reason, judgement, and even memory, in favor of someone else’s.
In this case, it sounds like she’s afraid of her own neighborhood, and is depending on you to make her feel safe. Were I in your position, I would talk to her about looking for someplace to live she does feel safe.
No, this is abuse. Being scared of where you live doesn’t justify abusing your partner. Missing someone’s text doesn’t justify this kind of behaviour. The silent treatment is abusive and not the way mature adults communicate with their partners. The fact that he calls the attention seeking follow up “the usual” also shows the extent of the problem, especially when it’s pretty clear she expects him to provide the “correct” response. This post has so many red flags I thought it was a communist party parade.
Sure all of that is true. But also outside the scope of the direct question.
It’s a response to your second paragraph which is “she’s not gaslighting you and you should reward her abusive behaviour by moving to a nicer neighborhood”.
You know, the usual.
I’m sure it’s been said already, but there is nothing usual about what you described. She sounds unstable and you should reconsider this relationship.
But to be pedantic, nothing about what you described sounds even remotely like gaslighting.
Just to clarify your second statement, gaslighting is when person A tries to convince person B that person B did not see/hear/experience something that person B did in fact see, hear, or experience.
In OP’s situation, their girlfriend might be gaslighting OP if she texted “I’m getting an Uber home, see you in a bit” and then got mad and insisted she had told OP to meet her at the door.
All that said, I will echo many others in this thread and say that just because it isn’t gaslighting doesn’t mean OP is in a healthy relationship. OP, please insist on relationship counseling at a minimum.
My ex-wife would do very much the same thing and more and she was abusive as fuck. If this kind of thing is typical, it’s a big red flag.
