Am I Being Gaslit?
Oh man. I'm sure some commenters will blast this caller for being a doormat or the like.
But I wanted to give her a huge hug. I was in a relationship with an extremely similar dynamic for six years. It can be harder to extricate yourself from this kind of situation than many think.
I was struck by the myriad specific, factual examples she was desperately fielding of ways her partner hurt her. In case the caller is reading this—lovely woman: in a good relationship, you simply won’t feel the need to marshal evidence like that. Your feelings are not something you have to justify like a case before a court. That doesn’t mean others have to accept them. But they don’t need to be proven to a jury.
You are on trial every minute of every day with this partner. The trial is rigged, because he is both the prosecutor and the judge.
I actually can believe your partner is a good person in some ways, as you say. But he is not being good to you. He is preying on you—your kindness—and carefully and comprehensively making you feel you can do no better than him. That your pathologies mean that relationships will always be like this for you, and your best hope is a partner who magnanimously points them out all the time, like him. He’s miring you in a stunted space of terrifying insecurity so he doesn’t have to be alone with it—locating problems in you so he doesn’t have to witness them in himself.
Whether he’s consciously doing it or not doesn’t matter. But if you stay, you will lose your health. It doesn’t have to be like this. I was also in my mid-30s when I left. You will find someone else who appreciates your obvious curiosity about and attentiveness toward others and respects and admires your strength.