Trust Yourself if You’ve Been Gaslighted!

I watched a wonderful documentary yesterday called Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa. It’s about the Nepalese woman who submitted Mt. Everest ten times. Really inspiring. But not only because she accomplished an unimaginable feat and survived on Everest but also because she survived a violently abusive alcoholic husband who brought her from Nepal to Connecticut, illiterate and not speaking English, where she was 100% in his power.

At one point in the film, her teenage daughter commented to her sister that their father, who had died of cancer by that time, had told her once that he’d never hurt the girls in any way. The daughter said, “What about all those times he pulled our hair and hit us? Was I imagining it?” And I thought, BINGO! That’s the perfect example of gaslighting. When a person’s reality is challenged so that she questions her own lived experience. “Am I crazy or did it really happen?”

For many women in our community, the one question they ask themselves when their husband leaves is, “Am I crazy?” Why does this come up over and over? Because, on running away, so many husbands attack their wives with a distorted reality, different from what really took place. He might say something like, “I hated that trip we took to Florida” when in reality, he seemed to be having a great time. Or he could say (like my ex-husband did), “I never liked this house” when, in reality, he loved it and said the only way he would leave it is feet first (an actual quote).

Or, he could say even more baffling things like, “I never really loved you”, when he’d been a loving husband for 27 years.

Words have tremendous power, particularly when you’ve trusted the person who is saying those words for decades. He couldn’t be lying - that doesn’t make any sense - so the next possible explanation is for you to question yourself. Did I mis-read what was actually going on in my own life? Was I blind to the reality? Did I have my head in the proverbial sand?

Or . . . there’s a third explanation, have I been gaslighted? Is my husband saying whatever he wants to undermine my version of our relationship so that he can have an excuse for “having” to leave? Is he banking on my trusting his word, as I always have, so that I would question myself before questioning him?

BINGO! That's it!

As hard as it is to understand, your ex is re-writing history to suit his new narrative.

When my husband left and I was dumbfounded to understand how he now viewed our joint life in such different hues than he had when we were married, I called up Mike, a friend of ours who is a history professor, and asked him what to believe. Mike said, “believe your lived experience. You have to believe yourself.”

For so many women, that takes courage. Believing yourself in the face of someone else’s adamant denial of your reality requires grit. You would need to accept that his denial of what really happened is in the service of supporting his story. He doesn’t really care about the truth.

So, in the end, the Everest climber’s daughters were abused by their father regardless of what he said and you need to know that your version of your story is real. Be a strong mountain climber, like Lhakpa Sherpa, and trust yourself.

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Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.

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How Can I Trust Again?

Every time I’ve gotten together with abandoned wives for a workshop or retreat since I wrote Runaway Husbands in 2010, the same question comes up: “I’d like to be in a new relationship but how can I ever trust again?”

Almost all of the women in the Runaway Husbands community have been betrayed. They didn’t know that their loving husband was thinking of leaving. They trusted him with all their hearts. They never dreamed that he would have an affair. They felt secure.

But then, one day, out of the clear blue sky, boom! “I can’t do this anymore. It’s over!” What?!?

So how can a woman who couldn’t read the signs in her marriage (because often, there aren’t any) trust that the same thing won’t happen again with another man who may also seem loving and devoted? How can she protect herself from the devastation she went through with her runaway husband?

A crucial question. Some women are not interested in having a subsequent relationship and, of course, that’s fine! But many women in our community would love to have a companion; someone to go out with on the weekend, someone to share life with, someone to love them and for them to love (people need to give love as well as receive), someone with whom to have some delightful sex. 

They want to be in a couple but to get there, they have to open their hearts with no guarantee that this new man can be trusted. It means taking a leap of faith, but also, recognizing that this relationship is inherently very different from your last one.

Most probably, you were very idealistic when you married your runaway husband. You imagined your lifetime future, building together all the lovely parts of home and family. You likely married in your twenties or thirties and the years ahead were spread in front of you like the smorgasbord table at a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant. You had expectations! Your husband having an affair and leaving you was not one of them.

But now, you’re older and you’ve been through this experience and you know, right from the get-go, that husbands can leave. You’re wiser. You’ll listen carefully when any new man tells you how his previous marriage ended, paying particular attention to how he talks about his ex-wife. Is he mean and diminishing of her? Did he end the marriage? Was there an affair? Good information to know.

Unless you’re still in your thirties or early forties, you probably are not looking to start a family with a new husband. You may already have done that and are at the next stage of your life. The bond you will develop in a new relationship is of a different quality. You’re an independent woman now who can survive on your own. You won’t need to merge your identity with someone in the same way that you did in your first marriage.

You’re actually not as vulnerable as you think you are. You will never again be hurt at the same magnitude as you were when your husband left because you know it’s possible. And you’ve worked on yourself to be comfortable in your own skin. If you meet someone, don’t rush to fall in love. Get to know him gradually. He’s not the man of your dreams - he’s just a man.

You really have two choices. You can close up shop and not risk any new relationship which means that you will be safe but also may miss out on the pleasure of having someone in your life. Or, you can open your heart wisely, taking a chance with no assurances but being willing to expand your life to admit someone else.

Last year at the Sedona Retreat (the yearly divorce recovery retreat I hold in Sedona, Arizona), we spent an afternoon with the Shaman Joseph White Wolf who told us about when he first got to know his wife who had been married before. She traced a big square in the air and told him that she had a map of her life with all the pieces in place in this square, just like she liked them. Her family, her home, her work, her friends - she liked the life she had constructed for herself. Then she said, “Now I see your little nose poking up into the corner of my map. I’ll let you come inside but you need to know, I’m not changing any of it for you. So you’re welcome to come into my life but you have to be a plus because my life is good just as it already is.”

And that is my wish for you. I hope you will be open to trust again, accepting the fact that not all men are dishonest, slowly getting to know someone - no big dreams or expectations. And if his nose is poking up into your life, choose wisely if you will let him in.

Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.

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