#GASLIGHTING EXAMPLES IN RELATIONSHIPS HOW TO#
#GASLIGHTING EXAMPLES IN RELATIONSHIPS MOVIE#

Using wit, humor, and an Olympic level ability to manipulate, they know how to package seduction in endless shapes and forms. Men and women who are hiding cheating behaviors can be notoriously charming. CoercionĬoercive behavior covers a scale that ranges from what I call the charm offensive on one end, all the way to bullying or violent behavior on the other. This can be very confusing, and partners can find themselves taking responsibility for things that are not actually problems or that at the very least are not problems that validate the cheating behaviors. Scapegoating can take advantage of a partner’s desire to be open to receiving feedback from their spouse and willingness to be responsive by distorting and exaggerating what is true. However, one person’s character flaw is not another person’s excuse to violate the relationship agreements. There is no question that we all bring deep imperfection and character flaws to our relationships. It can look like criticism about how the partner looks, how they dress, their personality traits, or how they interact relationally. It can look like accusations about unmet relational and emotional needs.įor betrayed partners, scapegoating can be particularly lethal as they try to sort out what is their responsibility in the relationship and what is not. This can look like complaints about the partner not being sexual enough or sexual in the way that the cheater prefers. In this type of cycle, cheaters emphasize and exaggerate their partner’s character defects in their own minds in order to provide a rationale for their cheating behavior.Īnother way scapegoating takes place is that the unfaithful individual will overtly blame their partner. From there it is a short leap to tell themselves that it is ok to go act out and in fact it is their spouse’s fault that they are acting out.

They then tell themselves that their spouse is not empathetic or a nag or unavailable. The word scapegoating is defined by as, “the act or practice of assigning blame or failure to another, as to deflect attention or responsibility away from oneself.” The most frequent way that I see cheating clients use scapegoating is to covertly scoop blame onto their partner so that they can justify their sexual acting out to themselves.įor example, someone might pick a fight with their wife and get indignant and self-righteous in the argument. This week we are going to focus on scapegoating and coercion. Last week we looked at the straight-up lie and reality manipulation.

There are four primary types of gaslighting behaviors: the straight-up lie, reality manipulation, scapegoating and coercion.

#GASLIGHTING EXAMPLES IN RELATIONSHIPS MOVIE#

This term originated from a movie made in 1944 called Gaslight where the heroine’s husband attempts to drive her insane by manipulating her reality. In last week’s post we defined gaslighting as the systematic and chronic manipulation and lying that betrayed partners experience at the hands of the cheating partner.

Gaslighting examples in relationships