Up: [[Life]] Created: 2024-11-13 Updated: 2025-01-11 Bob Burgess accused his wife, Margaret, of gaslighting him in the Elizabeth Strout novel *Tell Me Everything*. I’ve heard the term many times. I know there’s an old movie where it’s the main theme. But I don’t know what the term actually means. The term ‘gas light’ comes from a British play of that name from the 1930s that got turned into a movie a couple of years later. In it, the husband does a variety of things, including dimming and brightening the gas lights and then denying it in an attempt to convince his wife that she is out of touch with reality. So gaslighting is deliberate manipulation, usually over a sustained period of time, to convince someone that their perception of reality just isn’t true. In the early days, gaslighting was to get people committed to psychiatric institutions, either to get them out of the way or for financial gain. A more recent example is of a woman convincing her husband that he was an alcoholic so that she could divorce him and take control of the pub they owned. Gaslighting only works if there’s a power difference in the relationship. The gaslighter has to be dominant with the one being gaslighted too willing to listen. As is so often the case, the term has been popularized and stretched beyond its intended meaning. So people will now use it to describe an ordinary argument between a couple, or any time someone tries to influence someone else. Merriam-Webster dictionary made it their word of the year for 2022. It’s used a lot, too much, in self-help and pop psychology texts. #### Update 2025-01-11 I’ve just finished the book *Liars* by Sarah Manguso. It’s a superb example of gaslighting by a manipulative man who does as he pleases, doesn’t accept responsibility for anything, and tells everyone that his wife is angry and crazy. > [!Orbit] Sarah Manguso in *Liars* > Inflicting abuse isn’t the hard part. Controlling the narrative is the main job. (p. 203)