car journey there and back. My post wasn't about whether someone's entitled to be hurt because their practically full-term pregnant wife didn't go with them to an event 8 hours' drive away. The point was that abusers will lie and say "You hurt me" to manipulate their victims. And their victims will read something like the statement I was countering with my post and think they have to accept that they hurt this person. A few years back, I did something I’d fantasized about for a long time.

Maybe your husband was "hurt". So what? Reality is that you couldn't go and if he got his fe-fes hurt that's on him. Am I surprised he weaponised it? No. I am sorry people are still trying to gaslight you.

There’s a really good podcast that criticizes bad popular nonfiction called If Books Could Kill. It’s chatty and kind of funny but their research really did not make John Gray look good. 

I saw that post and understood what the real issue was. Some people come at the world from a perspective that all things are working as they should. To them it's a straightforward "problem". We are gaslit by films,tv and other sources from a young age. Every Disney movie for years is inherently man centred with the female character tasked with helping or saving the man. It takes a lot of unpicking. When your eyes have been forever open by being in an abusive relationship your perspective is 1

The levels of comprehension in this place are depressingly low.

Omg yes. I felt like I was taking crazy pills when I was married. We had couples therapy, I read books about relationships, I MAJORED in communication, I don't lose my temper in arguments, etc. But every book, every piece of advice I heard, all told me that it was my job to fix my marriage. Mine alone. If it was bad, it was partly my fault. I had to be fair, always. I had to care about their opinion and listen, always. And it was ALWAYS harmful to me because he was abusive.

I think everyone is entitled to their feelings. If someone says they are hurt because of what we’ve done, okay fine. They are hurt. That doesn’t mean we have to fix it for them. That doesn’t mean that we don’t still do what is best for ourselves.

We should start a Me Too style page - but listing the gaslighting stuff abusive partners do. So that those in bad relationships can start seeing examples of what gaslighting looks like. Frex when my ex screamed at me about how I hurt him by ignoring him. Because I said “good morning” to the cat, who had wandered into the kitchen. Though the Ex and I had been sitting there for over an hour, eating breakfast, and chatting about the NYT Sunday paper articles we were reading.

People love to not critically read then when they’re wrong or slightly inaccurate they double down. People are just willfully ignorant/love to argue. As a result I’ve learned to just say, cool, have a nice day & use the block button. Sometimes I like to throw in the like button too, just to show I really don’t care. If I have to explain to someone the concept of taking into account other people’s experiences/opinions then they’re already goners.