When Your Gut Knows the Truth But Your Partner Says You’re Wrong

Understanding Gaslighting, Reclaiming Your Intuition, and Finding Your Way Back to Yourself

You know something is wrong. Your body tells you. That tight feeling in your chest, the knot in your stomach, that voice in the back of your head saying this isn’t right.

But every time you try to bring it up, your partner turns it around. Suddenly you’re the problem. You’re “too sensitive” or “overreacting” or “imagining things.”

And here’s the thing that breaks my heart: after enough of this, you start to believe them.

The Quick Version

Gaslighting is when your partner consistently makes you doubt your own perceptions, memories, and gut instincts. It’s a form of emotional abuse—sometimes conscious and strategic, sometimes unconscious and self-protective. Either way, the damage is the same: you lose trust in yourself, which is the foundation of self-esteem and healthy relationships.

What Most People Don’t Realize

First, people who want relationships to work are more vulnerable to gaslighting. If you deeply value family, commitment, and connection, you’re more likely to question yourself rather than question your partner. That’s not weakness—it’s a strength being exploited.

Second, the person gaslighting often doesn’t see what they’re doing. In many cases, it’s an automatic defense mechanism rooted in their own unprocessed pain, shame, or trauma. They genuinely believe their version of events because facing the truth would be too painful.

Third, and this is the part that matters most: recovery means learning to trust your gut again. Not just leaving a bad situation, but actually rebuilding that relationship with your own intuition that got damaged along the way.

How Gaslighting Actually Works

Let me be clear about what gaslighting looks like in real life, because sometimes people think it has to be dramatic or obvious. It usually isn’t.

Your partner comes home late. You feel something’s off. When you ask about it, they don’t just explain—they attack. “Why are you always so suspicious? You’re so controlling. No wonder I don’t want to come home.” Now you’re apologizing for asking a simple question.

Or maybe you’re upset about something they said. Instead of hearing you out, they rewrite history: “I never said that. You’re making things up again.” And you start wondering if maybe you did misremember, even though you know you didn’t.

Over time, you learn to walk on eggshells. You describe it to me like walking through a minefield—one wrong step and everything blows up. You become invisible, making yourself smaller and smaller, just trying to avoid the next explosion.

Projective Identification: The Psychology Behind the Pattern

There’s a concept in psychology called projective identification, and understanding it can be really helpful. Here’s how it works: when someone can’t tolerate certain feelings in themselves—shame, inadequacy, fear—they project those feelings onto you. But it goes further than that. You actually start feeling what they can’t feel. You take on their emotional baggage.

So if your partner feels deep down that they’re not good enough, but they can’t face that, they might make you feel not good enough. Their shame becomes your shame. Their inadequacy becomes your inadequacy. It’s like an emotional transfer they don’t even know they’re doing.

This is why victims of gaslighting so often say, “I don’t even know what’s mine and what’s theirs anymore.” That confusion is the projective identification at work.

A Story from My Practice

Let me tell you about a couple I worked with many years ago—names changed, of course, but the dynamics were so clear.

The husband comes in for our first session and immediately goes on the attack. I was probably 20 years younger than I am now—he was probably my age at the time. He looks at me and says something along the lines of, “What does some young punk therapist know about marriage? Go to hell.” That was my greeting. First session.

Now, I’m human. I felt intimidated. But something about that intimidation felt off to me—not quite mine. So I said to his wife, “Wow, I feel really intimidated right now. Do you feel this way around him?”

She looked at me and said, “All the time. So do a lot of other people.”

I saw the smirk on his face. He was proud of this. So I turned to him and explained projective identification—that when someone makes everyone around them feel intimidated, often they’re unconsciously passing along a feeling they can’t tolerate in themselves.

He gave me grief about “fancy words” but I pressed on: “Who the hell intimidated you?”

And then, underneath all that aggression, something shifted. “Oh, so this is where I’m supposed to tell you about my father and how he abused me pretty much from the day I was born.”

There it was.

What Happened Next

This man was gaslighting his wife constantly. He made everyone around him feel stupid, inadequate, like they were walking through a minefield. But it wasn’t really about them—it was his own feelings of unworthiness, his own damaged self-esteem from a critical, abusive father. He acted out on other people what he couldn’t face in himself.

I don’t believe, deep down, he was a malicious man. Some people who gaslight are, but he wasn’t. He just had no other way to cope with his pain.

We worked together, and he was willing—with the right help—to see what he was doing. To recognize it as a defense mechanism. To understand how he was impacting the people he loved.

About eight or ten years later, I ran into his wife by chance. She told me, “Todd, what you did was so helpful. He would never admit it or give you credit—you know that—but he’s like a teddy bear now.”

His friendships got better. His marriage got dramatically better. Everything changed when he finally faced what he’d been running from.

Signs You May Be Experiencing Gaslighting

I want to be thoughtful here because every situation is different. But if you’re experiencing several of these patterns, it’s worth paying attention.

You often think “What’s wrong with me?” after conversations with your partner. You regularly wonder if you’re overreacting or being too sensitive. You find yourself apologizing even when you didn’t do anything wrong.

You’ve started covering up for your partner—lying to friends, family, even your children—because you want them to see your partner in a good light. You feel like you’re walking on eggshells, always bracing for the next explosion.

You feel like you need to be invisible to stay safe. When something goes wrong, it somehow always becomes your fault. You’ve become isolated from people who used to be close to you.

And maybe the biggest sign: you’ve stopped trusting your own gut. That inner voice that used to guide you has gotten quieter and quieter.

The Real Cost of Staying in a Gaslighting Relationship

The price you pay for keeping a relationship stabilized in that kind of toxic stability is enormous. I’m talking about your emotional wellbeing, your physical health, and—if you have children—their wellbeing too.

Because here’s what I’ve learned after 35 years of doing this work: the most important thing you can do for yourself and your children is to be a person with self-esteem. And the most essential part of self-esteem is listening to yourself—listening to your own heart and your own gut.

When you’re in a gaslighting relationship, you lose that. You become disconnected from your own intuition. And without that connection, you’re not really you anymore.

I’ve worked with countless people—men, women, all genders—who were victims of gaslighting. When they finally get out, either by leaving or by the relationship healing, they always say the same thing: “My God, it never was me. It never was me.”

They describe what it’s like to finally feel safe. To just express themselves without feeling like they’re in a minefield. To say something without bracing for it to blow up in their face.

The Path Forward: Whether You Stay or Go

Let me be honest with you: some gaslighting relationships can heal, and some can’t. The difference usually comes down to whether the person doing the gaslighting is willing to look at themselves honestly and take responsibility for their behavior.

When Healing Is Possible

In the relationships I’ve seen heal, two things had to happen. First, the victim of the gaslighting had to recognize what was happening and stop trying to make everything nice when it wasn’t nice. They had to disengage from the habit of smoothing things over and keeping the peace at any cost.

Second, the person doing the gaslighting had to face whatever they were running from. Their shame, their childhood wounds, their own feelings of inadequacy—whatever it was driving the behavior. That’s painful work. Not everyone is willing to do it.

But when both partners are willing, real change is possible. The man from my story is proof of that.

When You Need to Leave

Some relationships can’t be healed from the inside. When the gaslighting person refuses to take any responsibility, when they’re not willing to look at themselves, when every attempt to address the problem becomes another attack on you—sometimes leaving is the only way to heal.

And that’s okay. Leaving isn’t failure. Sometimes leaving is the bravest, healthiest thing you can do.

The First Step, No Matter What

Whether you end up staying or leaving, the first step is the same: find someone you can talk to. Even if—especially if—your partner has isolated you, which many people who gaslight do.

It might be a friend, a family member, or a professional therapist like myself. Someone who can help you get perspective and reconnect with your intuition and your gut.

You may have been brainwashed to think you need to keep everything private. That’s not necessarily true. It isn’t true when you’re dealing with someone who’s hurting you.

Reconnecting with Your Gut: The Real Work of Recovery

Recovery from gaslighting isn’t just about changing your circumstances. It’s about rebuilding trust with yourself. That inner compass that got damaged—it can heal.

Start by noticing when you dismiss your own feelings. When you feel something is off but immediately tell yourself you’re probably wrong, pause. Ask yourself: Is this my genuine intuition speaking, or is this the voice of someone who taught me not to trust myself?

Practice giving weight to your own perceptions. If you remember something a certain way, honor that memory. You’re not crazy. You’re not making things up. Your gut knows things before your mind catches up.

And be patient with yourself. This kind of healing takes time. You didn’t lose trust in yourself overnight, and you won’t rebuild it overnight either.

Trust Your Gut

Here’s what I want you to take away from all of this: your gut is not wrong. If something feels wrong, something probably is wrong.

Gaslighting is common. It’s painful. It’s confusing. But you can get free from it—whether that means your relationship heals or you find the strength to leave.

If this resonates with you, or if you know someone going through this, reach out. Talk to someone. Get the support you deserve.

You are not the problem. You never were.

Thanks for reading. This is Todd Creager, making the world safe for love.

Frequently Asked Questions About Gaslighting

What’s the difference between normal disagreements and gaslighting?

In healthy disagreements, both people can acknowledge each other’s perspective even when they don’t agree. With gaslighting, your reality itself gets denied. It’s not “I see it differently”—it’s “That never happened” or “You’re crazy for thinking that.” The pattern over time erodes your confidence in your own perceptions.

Can someone gaslight without meaning to?

Yes, absolutely. Sometimes gaslighting is conscious and strategic—the person knows exactly what they’re doing. But often it’s unconscious and self-protective. The person genuinely can’t face certain truths about themselves, so they rewrite reality in a way that protects their self-image. The impact on you is the same either way, but understanding this can be helpful in deciding whether the relationship can heal.

How long does it take to recover from a gaslighting relationship?

There’s no standard timeline. I’ve seen people make significant progress in months; others take years to fully rebuild trust with themselves. Factors include how long the gaslighting went on, whether you have support, and whether you’re still in the relationship. The key is being patient with yourself and getting professional help if you need it.

What if I’m worried I might be the one gaslighting?

The fact that you’re asking this question is actually a good sign. People who gaslight consistently rarely wonder if they’re the problem—that self-reflection is what they’re avoiding. That said, all of us can have moments of defensiveness where we deny or minimize things. If you’re concerned about this pattern in yourself, working with a therapist can help you develop more self-awareness and healthier ways of handling conflict.

About the Author

Todd Creager, LCSW, LMFT has spent over 35 years helping couples and individuals heal from the pain of betrayal, addiction, trauma, and relationship dysfunction. He specializes in infidelity recovery and helping partners rebuild trust and intimacy. His approach combines clinical expertise with genuine compassion, creating a safe space where people can face difficult truths and do the hard work of healing.