Avoidant Gaslighting- Spot It & Stop It

All right, team, welcome back to the Mantalk show. Today we are going to be talking about avoidant gaslighting, how to spot it, and how to stop it. So this is a common tactic. Usually it's an inadvertent tactic. This is something that usually avoidance will deploy, not because they are. I mean, usually they're not trying to harm the relationship or hurt you or, you know, know, they're not. Oftentimes they're not even intentionally doing it. And again, it's not to make excuses for people that are deploying this tactic. It is usually a way for them to survive. It was usually. Was usually a way for them to separate from consequences, separate from harm or hurt, and it's usually something that was taught to them. So a lot of avoidance have grown up in an environment where they observe this type of behavior deployed as a means of security or safety or some way to absolve themselves of a truth, of a responsibility, of any kind of accountability. So, again, that's not to let them off the hook. It's simply saying that usually this type of behavior, unless they are truly one of the very small percentage of narcissists or psychopaths that are out there, usually this type of behavior is a maladaptive behavior that is designed to keep them from really engaging in a type of accountability and responsibility and usually a type of intimacy that the truth brings, right? Because usually in a relationship, the truth and intimacy coincide, right? The more that you can reveal yourself in a relationship, the more that you are understood, your desires, your wants, your needs, the more that intimacy can be present. And remember, for the avoidant person, intimacy, while it's often desired, feels like a threat. Now, so for the. For the avoidant person, so do other things like responsibility, accountability, those things can feel like a threat because for a lot of avoidance, they experienced a type of punishment growing up, or, you know, they were treated in a way where taking responsibility and accountability was sort of disincentivized, whether they were punished or it just wasn't something that they had to do because they were never really in close enough relationship with somebody else to have to take that type of responsibility or have that level of intimacy. So what does the gaslighting look like? Right, Red flags that you really need to pay attention for that will help you to understand when the avoidant is moving into this gaslighting phase. The truth here is that, or the reality is that the avoidant will try and distort truth, and that might be through forgetting. That might be by misremembering Misinterpreting all of these things will become weaponized by the avoidant. And I'm saying this as somebody that used to deploy a lot of these tactics, right? I had a lot of shame around my actions. I had a lot of shame around who I. Who I was, how I showed up in relationships. And so because of that, I would misremember things, I would omit things, I would alter details, I would forget, I would question. No, it didn't go down that way. Honestly, what was probably infuriating to be in relationship with me in my late teens and early 20s. But, you know, that's. That's the cycle I had to go through. But these types of tactics where the other person will misremember, and you're like, I swear that that's not how it went down. This is a way to try and create distance and space from that person's role in the dysfunction or the breakdown. And this will often happen. You'll often notice this truth distortion get deployed by the avoidant when there is an opportunity for. For intimacy to deepen, where there's an opportunity for closeness and connection to actually become more secure, more robust, where intimacy is even more possible, right? A date together, going to an event, whatever it might be, and that person is suddenly like, no, I didn't agree to go to that. And you're like, no, you definitely did agree to go to that. This is when this tactic and this behavior will get deployed because that individual is in some ways nuking or sabotaging the progression of the intimacy. And again, a lot of avoidance, unless they are very conscious and aware of, oh, I have an avoidant behavior. I have an avoidant attachment style. They're not doing these things intentionally. It's that the closer. And this is the real big thing I want everybody to remember. The closer an avoidant gets to intimacy, love, and connection, the more threatening it feels to them and the more it pulls them closer to the wound or the pain or the hurt or the trauma that created the avoidant attachment in the first place. Okay? So very, very important piece of context. Another way that this gaslighting can happen from the avoidant is. Is not just truth distortion or reality distortion sort of making you question things is that they will sort of turn. I call it the turn, right? They'll turn everything on you. So they'll do something. They'll start a fight. They'll agree to something and then pretend like they didn't agree to it. And then the switch will happen. The turn will happen where suddenly you're too sensitive. You. You're the one that's misremembering things. You're overreacting. If you would just relax, it wouldn't be such a big deal. So the turn will start to happen, and suddenly you're the problem, even though they have very clearly caused this. So this is like the blame. This is moving the blame game on the board, right? This is a little bit of a chess game. So they turn your valid concerns into a fault of yours. And. And again, this is another form of gaslighting. And this happens, or manipulation. This happens because that avoidant person is trying to inadvertently create distance and space between them and basically intimacy them and more closeness with you. And this tactic usually happens when things are going really well, when there's more closeness and connection that's possible, right? Where the two of you are maybe progressing in the relationship, and all of a sudden you'll notice that this tactic or this behavior will start to come up. And then the last way that you can see this happen is a kind of disappearing act where this individual will, you know, the avoidant person will be starting to be emotionally connected and, you know, feels like there's a little bit more stability. And all of a sudden, there's this kind of, like, emotional unavailability that shows up and. And there's this strategic retreat. And it feels like you've been duped, right? You're like, wait, what just happened? Like, we were moving in the good direction. Felt like there's this close instant connection. And all of a sudden you're on the retreat, and then, you know, again, they turn it and make it, you know, somehow your fault, like you did something wrong or, you know, you. There's not. The main piece is that there's a shirking of personal responsibility. The avoidant really can struggle to say, here's my part in creating this space and separation. Because for them, the space and the separation is safety. That's where they feel the safest is when there is more and more distance. Now, the truth is that obviously, for you as the recipient of this, that can have a very, very sort of devastating impact. It can erode your. What I call relational reality. We all have a relational reality. Usually that's an intersubjective and subjective experience, right? There's how you're feeling about the relationship, and then there's, you know, the story about the relationship that both of you are holding. But it can really erode your sense of relational reality of what is true. What did I agree to? How is this relationship going. And it's kind of a slow erosion and death of the trust in the relationship because slowly, it seems like you are sort of at the problem and the epicenter of the problem. The other piece is that it can be very emotionally isolating for you as a recipient because it feels like you're going crazy, right? You're like, wait, you said you were going to go out on this date on Friday night, or you said that you wanted to go to that wedding or that thing or watch that movie, and all of a sudden you're flipping it and saying that you never agreed to that and that I'm the crazy one and what's going. And it's all because there's a tension inside of that avoidant person of like, oh, my gosh, things are starting to get closer and closer. Things are going well, I need to back away. I can't stand this tension that's happening inside of me that says intimacy is happening. There's security here, there's safety here. That's foreign. So I'm going to go back to what I know. Okay? So again, for the avoidant person, what they know, their kind of relational homeostasis is instability and distance, right? Not stability and closeness. It's instability and distance. For the anxious person, it's a little different where it's instability and constant closeness, right? It's like there's all this anxious energy and there's a lot of constant closeness. So it has a big impact on you. Now, what do you begin to do, right? How do you begin to deal with the gaslighting when this occurs? The first thing that you do is you address it directly so you can name it to tame it if you want to tame this behavior. And again, I know the comment section is like, just don't date an avoidant person. But that's not really realistic for a lot of people that are in a relationship with an avoidant person and love them and are trying to make it work. But name it to tame it, right? So clearly identify the behavior for what it is. And that might mean.

When they agree to do something, right? So you're in a conversation, you're like, hey, there's this dinner on Friday night I would really like to go to. Do you want to come with me? And they're like, yeah, I'd be happy to go with you. And then you can say something along the lines of, okay, I'm going to remind you of this conversation if you forget about it. And you prompt them right there and you say, specifically, I'M going to remind you of this conversation. If you forget about it, if you act like this isn't going to go down right, If Friday comes around and dinner time and you're like, what are you talking about? I never agreed to do this, so name those things. And then in the moment when it's happening again, name it. And I wouldn't use the word gaslighting, okay? Because here's what goes wrong. For a lot of people, it's just like, oh, you're gaslighting me. It gives that other person even more material to go on the defensive. It basically puts them in a way more defensive position and posture. And then they shut down even more. And it's like, okay, well, if you're going to tell me I'm gaslighting you, then f it, I'm out, right? And so then they really get to disconnect and you have fed right into their hand. So in the moment, what you can say are things like, that's not true. And I know it's not true because we had this conversation on this time at this date, and this is what was happening. And it feels like you're doing this to try and pull away. Is that right? So name the behavior. Very, very clearly in the moment.

It seems to me like you're trying to get out of this situation that you agreed to. And the other thing that you can do is be very secure in the truth. One of the things that avoidance will do is try and destabilize what happened and what the truth is. And it can be very helpful for you to be very solid and very secure. Because if you are a secure person or an anxious person, it can be very common for people to question like, oh, did it go down that way? Or did I actually say that? Or did. Did he or she actually agree to that? No. Hold to what you know to be true. If you question it already, if you're not really too sure already, then you're probably best off to let it go. But if you know for sure that a conversation went a specific way or that they agreed to something that they're trying to get out of right now, hold the line, okay? Hold the line of truth. Do not let yourself question whether or not that's true. You can simply say, you know what? I fundamentally know that what you're saying is not true, and I'm actually not going to allow you to try and convince me of otherwise. So if you're ready to have a conversation, and when you're ready to have a conversation from a Place of truth and reality. I'm here to have that conversation with you. But until then, we're not going to engage with this. We're not going to engage with the bs. The next thing is having very clear boundaries around some of these things. And again, the example I just gave you is a clear boundary. You can also have some non negotiables. And you know, one of the things that I've had couples do, because I've worked with anxious and avoidant couples, one of the things that I've had them do is when they agree to something, they have a shared calendar. And that thing goes on the shared calendar. And it only goes on the shared calendar when both people have agreed to the date, to the event, to the experience. And that way there's an accountability around it. The anxious person doesn't have to fret so much and worry about whether or not something's going to come up. And the avoidant person can begin to rectify and heal some of the fear or the avoidance around committing to things. Because for the avoidant person, committing to things and then following through on them, committing can be a big challenge. Because all of those things create consistency and they create commitment and they create closeness and intimacy. And for the avoidant person, again, that is the struggle. That's the challenge. Now, final piece here is all of this is sort of contingent on them really being able to acknowledge that there's an issue. Okay. If you are dealing with a truly, truly avoidant person that thinks that they're totally fine, there's no issues. And again, this isn't about you pathologizing or labeling them and being like, you know, my therapist says that you are, you're an avoidant. That's not what, that's not what we're looking to do. What we're looking to do is have some awareness, have the other person have some awareness around their behavior. So in an ideal world, they, that person is able to acknowledge, yeah, you know what, I do have some avoidant tendencies. And you might point them out, right? That's not a bad thing. You might be able to say, you know what it feels sometimes like as soon as we start to build closeness and connection, that you start to pull away. Does it feel like that to you? Have you noticed that? So rather than it being an accusation, you start to put out questions to see if they can acknowledge and have awareness around some of their behaviors. Big, big, big difference. The challenge that so many people have with avoidance and the reason why so many avoidants stay avoidant is that avoidance get attacked a lot. I see it in the comments section, but it also happens in relationships. Avoidance get attacked a lot. And so what happens when an avoidant is in a relationship with somebody? That person, as soon as they start to get educated about, like, what avoidant behavior is, they. They start to pathologize the crap out of that avoidant person. Like, you never do this and you're just an avoidant person. You always pull away and you always shut down and it attacks that avoidant person. That causes them to shut down and causes them to go on the defensive and does not allow for any type of introspection to happen. So if you're with an avoidant person and you're like, okay, these things sound good, but the person I'm with doesn't even realize that they have avoidant behaviors or tendencies, that is where you need to begin. Hey, it feels like when we start to build really deep connection and closeness, you start to pull away. Have you noticed that? Does it feel like that to you? And start to get a sense of whether or not they can even engage in that conversation with you? Because if they can't, everything else that I described is going to be very, very challenging. So you want to lay some groundwork first and foremost around helping them to build some awareness and for you to build a safe relationship and context for them to disclose some of that with you. And that can be a huge first step for a lot of avoidance. I remember a relationship that I was in where that started to happen, where the woman I was dating just said, hey, it feels like as soon as we start to get closer, you start to pull away. And I really had to think about that. I was like, is that true? You know, and you know, I denied it, right, in that conversation, but it kind of stuck in my head. And I remember having a conversation a couple days later saying, you know, I think you might be right. I definitely do pull away sometimes. And I don't, I don't want that anymore. You know, I don't want to do that. So the time and the place where that person is in their life is pretty important. If they are not in a place where they're wanting to settle down in a relationship, they're probably not going to reflect anyway. Or if they're, you know, they're not interested in a long term relationship with you, they're probably not going to reflect anyway. If they're more committed to being alone than they are in a relationship, then they're probably not going to reflect anyway. So all of this to say you putting it out there can be very formative in helping them to not only have some self awareness around their behavior, but it's also going to help you get some insight into whether that person is willing to self reflect and have a deeper level of self understanding to prioritize moving towards security. And it's not going to happen every single time, but you want to test the waters to make sure that they can do that. So anyway, share your thoughts and comments in the comment section below. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you aren't already, whether you're listening on Spotify or YouTube or wherever you're tuning in. And and until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.