Gaslighters, Sex and Infidelity

 Gaslighter's  are really good at pretending to be committed when it comes to romantic relationships, and emotional connection at the beginning of the relationship, but they can't keep it up forever.  Once they have you in their hooks, they quickly become one-sided with sex, they set up rules for sexual intimacy, spoken or unspoken and they pressure you until you give in to their demands.

In this chat, Berthena will speak candidly about the gaslighter and the several manipulation tactics a gaslighter uses to  change his partner's reality so he can keep her in his clutches.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him". 1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:58

Ladies, your natural instinct is to worry. You worry about your children, your health, your relationship and everything else under the sun. It's a classic case of worrywart syndrome. If you tend to worry needlessly, you are not alone. Welcome to the She Strives With Faith podcast with Berthena Jackson. Berthena is a two time divorcee, a single mother and war veteran who suffered from anxiety, but learned to let go and let God. Berthena will share captivating and down to earth conversations on how to strive by faith. Here's your host Berthena Jackson.

BERTHENA JACKSON: 1:56

Hello, Sister friends, welcome back to the She Strives with Faith podcast, I am so excited to be with you again recording an amazing episode, I think you're going to get a lot of great information from this topic. Let me ask you a question. If there was a way for you to immediately spot a gas lighter, Wouldn't you want to have that information, if there was a way for you to know that you're going to be stepping into a toxic relationship, that's going to bring you heartbreak, wouldn't you want to avoid stepping into that relationship? Absolutely you would. You don't want to be heartbroken. So today that is what this podcast is going to be focused on gas lighters? Who are these people? What gas lighters do is plot against you, they're individuals who lie to you deny your needs, and show excessive displays of power when they really don't have any power. They try to convince you of alternative facts. When you already know the facts. You know the truth. Let's just say you catch your boyfriend cheating. And he says we never agreed to be monogamous. Excuse me? What did you just say? Where did you come up with that crazy idea? When you're in a relationship dude. It's all about monogamy. Listen, girlfriend, this is a sign that your relationship is going to be tumultuous, okay? It's not going to be good. He's going to blame you for things that are not your fault. He's going to try to create your reality for you, when you know that that is not the reality. These men are also good at turning friends and family against you, with the goal of watching you suffer. They want to consolidate their power and increase your dependence on them. Because power is what they're after control is what they're after. And even when they show up with all this charisma, it's fake. It's not real. You know? And the manipulation is insidious and is slow. You're not going to even know what hit you until it's too late. You may not even realize the degree of the damage until you have an aha moment. What do I mean by aha moments. It's when your family or friends confront you. And they tell you there's something weird going on with this guy, they noticed that he just doesn't seem to be acting..right. There's something about his behavior. He's criticizing you. He's pretending to be somebody that he's not, like the family can see behind the facade. But when we are with this individual, and we're so in love, and we're so attracted to this person, we all the time can't see what's really going on. So we need to listen to what our family and friends are telling us. Because what you think is cute. And what you basically have kind of blown off and said, Oh, that's not really a problem becomes a problem later on. The goal of the gaslighter is to keep you off kilter and questioning your reality. You see the more you rely on them for the correct version of reality. The more they control who you are, the more they, the more they exert control over you. This power and control is what they're hungry for they crave it. They crave it like I crave coffee. I crave coffee and gas lighters crave power and control in that way. And one of the most common places you'll find gaslighting is in intimate relationships. Gas lighters are very seductive, they will sweep you off your feet, they will, they will be constantly, constantly love bombing. And then drop you off a cliff without a second thought. And what you have to understand is that the initial seduction is so strong that when the relationship starts to go south, the relationship is not working anymore. There's some problems, it's really hard not to feel that you are to blame. And by the way, the gaslighter wants you to blame yourself. In fact, he's going to help you blame yourself. He's going to dump all this stuff on you, make you feel guilty, when it's really, honestly it's not your fault. And you might even be thinking, with all this craziness that's going on around you, that somehow you should be able to get that wonderful person back. But that's not the way it works with the gaslighter because the initial charm is all part of the sick game that he plays. I hate to disappoint you, but there is no getting that wonderful person back. He doesn't exist. By the way, it's not just men who engage in gaslighting women also do the same thing. But for the sake of time, I'm not really talking about the females. I'm talking to my sister friends about the men who are not only gas lighters, but they in most cases, they tend to be narcissistic personalities as well. Narcissism and gaslighting or gas lighters, they have a common bond, okay? They're very closely related. Here's another thing you need to know about gas lighters. These people, these men are very good at pretending at romantic behavior and emotional and intimate connections. They do this at the beginning of your relationship, but they can't keep it up forever because it's so fake and ingenuine. That eventually their mask will begin to fall off after a certain period of time. And they quickly become very one sided with sex. It becomes pleasure just for them. They don't care about your pleasure. You just happen to be there. You are the means to an end. And pretty soon you feel like an object who is unloved on cherished no adoration, no affection. Nothing. Just a dead relationship. It's literally like they cut you off emotionally. Gas lighters will often set up rules for sex that are either spoken or unspoken. Here's an example of some of the rules that they set up. You should always be available for sex when they want it. If you want to have sex, they will probably tell you no. They will withhold sex as a way to punish you. If you want to receive any form of foreplay, you have to earn it. If you don't give them what they want sexually, they will belittle you. They don't really care if you aren't feeling pleasure, and they really don't care if you're feeling pain. These individuals they have no heart. They have no emotion is absolutely crazy. And we have to be aware of what's going on. We've got to take our time before we invite these men into our homes. Before we share information. Before we call ourselves falling in love, be careful. Do your research. Do your due diligence. Don't be so hasty to just follow along with the script. Here's a true story. Daisy, a 50 year old woman says she stayed with her gasligher, her husband and defended him because she didn't understand what his behavior was doing to

her. She said: 10:25

He's highly intelligent and was able to get away with stalking her when he manipulated the police. You see that they're crafty. They're manipulators. They're expert, manipulators. Ladies, again, be careful, be alert. Some of these guys are not who you think they are. Here's another example. Another lady named Janice met a guy who told her he was a surgeon. But there was no record of his license in the state health department when she tried to look him up. And when she asked him about it, he told her that he had just moved to the state, so his license wouldn't show up just yet. And then he had the nerve to tease her about being paranoid and watching too many cop shows. It turns out he wasn't a doctor at all. It's some crazy people in this world. If you have a chance meeting with this type of person, and something seems to be off you trust your instincts. You know, God gave you discernment. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him or her. That's in First Corinthians, Chapter two verse 14, Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Believe them. You know, the only change that a gaslighter or narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath make are masks and victims. So we have got to make sure that we are watching out for these individuals. We have to watch out, we have to be careful, because it can happen and you don't even realize that until you are knee deep in that relationship. Man. and it's hard to get out of those relationships. Because these individuals they hate abandonment. Just the idea of you leaving them causes them to feel anxiety, because that means that they no longer have someone to control. These individuals, listen. They will cheat on you at any opportunity. They have no problem cheating. None. I was also reading a story with about Josie and Jamie. Jamie met Josie and she said it was like love at first sight. And on their first date, Jamie said, Jamie said to her, I noticed it's really early to say something like this, but I think we could be together for a long time. So Jamie showered Josie with all this affection and he was telling her what she wanted to hear. And of course she said she had never felt that way about anyone before. And then Jamie went on to talk more to Josie about marriage and kids. And within their first week of dating, Josie described filling high from Jamie's attention and she wound up spending all her time with him and eventually stopped seeing her other friends. Jamie said they were bad influences on Josie and constantly reminded her that she was happier when she wasn't around them. You see this is what the mind games that they play. They isolate you from friends and family so that they can control you. Josie says she had never been treated with so much admiration and adoration, and she put Jamie on a pedestal. And after a few months of bliss, bliss. Josie started experiencing Jamie stonewalling, he will completely ignore her. And without Josie knowing what she had done to upset him. He would just walk away. Wouldn't explain anything to her. Wouldn't have a conversation with her didn't want to talk about it didn't want to resolve the issue. And now she's thinking it's her fault. It's something that she did. And he was happy for her to take that blame. Another thing that I wanted to talk about was love bombing. Be careful of this as well. Gas lighters are amazingly good at keeping their pathology and check into they know you are hooked. And when I talk about pathology, what I mean by that is that they will wear a mask, you really do not know who they are. And once they got their hooks into you, that's it. The mask will come off and you get to see the true person behind the mask. And in most cases it's shocking, because you never thought that that person could treat you that way. You never thought that person would stop showing you love and adoration. You never thought that person will try to control you in intimate situations. During intimate connection. You never thought that they would do that because you were so in awe and so in love with this person. I'm reminded of the first time that my ex husband lied to me blatantly lie to me. I'm gonna tell you the truth. I thought I misheard him. Because I was like, there's no way that this person who says he loves me would lie to my face. Tell me a bold faced lie, and I caught him in the lie. I knew it was a lie. But he, he denied it. Would not admit that he had got caught red handed, in a lie. And led me to believe after a while that he was telling the truth. That's how convincing he was. Crazy. Because they tell you that your reality is not your reality. They tell you you are mistaken. You're wrong. You're imagining things and you begin to believe them. It is a crazy cycle. To be in gas lighters to erode your perception of reality until you feel you cannot function normally without them. When a gas lighter love bombs you it is hard to get away. The attention you receive is intoxicating. It's like nothing you have ever experienced before. Finally, you think Oh my gosh, someone is treating me the way that I want to be treated. And that pedestal that he puts you on in the beginning. It feels so freaking good because you've had so many other bad relationships. He comes around and does all these amazing things to hook you. And then once he Hoover's you in, and sucks you in, then he changes. He changes on you because he cannot continue to wear a mask and keep up the facade. He cannot continue to be fake. And when I mentioned hoovering, I use that term to describe the way gas lighters like I said will suck you back in when they feel that you are checking out. It's like a Hoover vacuum you know you're vacuuming the carpet and is sucking up all that dust and dirt and particles. This is what they do. They suck you back in. Mm hmm. Because they don't want to lose you. They don't want to lose control. If they get any kind of inkling of perceived abandonment. They work at sucking you back in. They put all the full court press to get you back in their clutches. Nothing causes fear and gas lighters more than the feeling of abandonment I also use another word stonewalling. Stonewalling is the disappearing act or radio silence gas lighters will treat you with when they get caught and feel that they have been done wrong or just prefer to not talk about something because it's more convenient for them that way. You know, they're not, they don't want to talk about it. That's stonewalling? Yeah. You have a situation, a conflict in your relationship that needs to be discussed. And instead of them sitting down and talking to you about you know about it as a mature adult would, they stonewall. They walk away, they just leave you standing there? Yeah, they're just gone. That's a problem. Be aware of that. Be aware. Now, I'm not here to tell you one way or the other, to get out of the relationship. That's not a decision I can make for you. But I will tell you this, you know, consider doing what is best for your well being. You know, I would recommend you know, after being with someone who was a gaslighter consider getting counseling. You know, get counseling, you know, if you're considering ending the relationship because you may feel isolated, helpless. I mean, there's going to be some anxiety, and probably some depression. But these are all very common feelings when leaving someone who is abusive. You may continue to have these feelings for quite a while after you have left a gas lighter. But here's the deal. You're learning how to rebuild your self concept yourself. Your self esteem and your life because those things were taken from you without your permission. You didn't sign up for it, you didn't ask for it. So, you know, here's some tough love. If you are in a relationship with a gaslighter, you, you might want to consider ending it, because except that, except the fact that it is a abusive relationship, and it's not going to improve their sister. It's not going to improve, you cannot change him. You know, there has to come from within. I don't believe that gas lighters have a genetic dysfunction in their brain, I think it's a behavior that they learned. And if they chose to change they could. But at first, they have to admit that there's something wrong. And if they're not willing to do that, there's nothing you could do. So in my honest opinion, it might not be a good idea to stay in that relationship. If it's bringing you harm, God would not want that for you. He would not want you to stay in an abusive relationship. If you are considering leaving, here's some things that you can do set up blocking rules on your email, block calls and texts that you get from this person. You know, you may want to consider unfriending this person on social media. If possible, consider moving to a different part of town where you are less likely to run into that person. And if you can't move, make sure that you avoid going to the places that you used to go to as a couple. Also, unfriend anybody that is connected to the gas lighter, because you don't want them reporting back to the gas lighter things that you're doing. You don't want that person to report back your activities to the person who was gaslighting you. So those are just some of the things that you can do if you are considering leaving that crazy gaslighter person. So that is what I wanted to leave you with. I do hope that this was helpful. I learned something myself, I had no idea what the term gas lighting was. I didn't even know that gas lighters existed. But believe it or not, these individuals could be your next door neighbor, you could meet them at the mall, the gas station, the grocery store, you could, listen there at the job as well. They're all around us on a national global level. They're all over the place. And the only thing that you can do is to be watchful, and be careful. Do your research. Listen, I'm going to start asking people listen, I need your social security number. I need the last six jobs that you've had. I need references. I need all of that because I am not taking any chances, y'all. I have been through a narcissistic relationship. And I am not trying to have a repeat. So these guys might think I'm crazy when I start asking for that stuff. And listen, if you don't want to give it to me, then obviously you have something to hide. And I for one don't care nothing about no love bombing that don't mean nothing, because you need to show me you have consistency. So anyway, I was on my rant. Let me go ahead and end this episode. Hope it was helpful to you ladies. Love you so much and have a wonderful, wonderful day. Until next time, keep striving with faith. We'll chat later. Bye for now.

Unknown: 25:02

Thank you for listening to the She Strives With Faith podcast. To hear more about how you can tap into the power of striving with faith, join her next week. If you found value in the episode, give her a rating or tell a friend about the show. Follow Berthena on Facebook and Instagram for a more personal chat. Until next time, strive to keep faith alive.