Relationship
SWISSPUJA PATRIKA 2017
Playing With Fire - The Concept of ‘Gaslighting’ Akash Bhattacharya, my world revolves around my family. By profession, I analyze data and try to predict the future. In real life, I like to analyze the human mind. But even after 11 years of marriage, I still don’t know what my better half thinks. Cooking is my passion, my motto is compassion and I believe that every problem has a solution. Contact: akkibhatt@gmail.com
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there is almost very little room for comfort. Couples nowadays, are actually trying their best to step out of their comfort zone and help run the institution of family. Unfortunately this ‘extra effort’ is often unseen or taken for granted, there is no recognition, but criticism.
rriage is all about complementing each
other’s shortcomings and trying to help each other overcome the barriers of life. I believe this is what most of us would say about marriage but the question lies, do we really feel this way.
This is for sure understable, if a man who has never cooked in his life will not turn into a fantastic cook in days, whereas a woman who has never planned holidays will not be a great holiday planner in the first go. However their effort is almost everytime unseen. Instead the man will be criticized for making a mess in the kitchen and the woman will be taunted that why she did not compare the prices in other online booking sites before purchasing an expensive trip.
I recently learnt what gaslighting means. And I can so much relate to this term with so many of my friends, colleagues and my own daily life. What I additionally believe is that men are equal, if not more, victims of gaslighting in an educated society. Women will doubt if a man can cook, if he can take care of the house and if the child will be safe with his/ her dad. Men on the other hand will have a smirk on their face when women will try to reconcile bills, park the car in a busy street, plan holidays, and in many other occasions. This smirk is enough to let the women feel less confident.
This phenomenon is most prominent in the first generation of a family getting out from the cocoon of their homeland and close family and friends. My kids have seen my wife driving cars and me cooking food and serving guests. Neither did I, nor my wife have ever seen our dad enter the kitchen or our mother driving a car. I believe the statement never is a bit exaggerated, what I meant is the usual scenario. So something we have been tuned to see and accept from our childhood is now diametrically opposite. What we felt is our duty, somebody else is encroaching in our domain and trying to challenge us, so instead of trying to appreciate his/ her effort we become defensive and critical. This is a very normal human behaviour when we read like this, but unfortunately a very hard fact to accept.
I have seen my parents and grandparents, seldom did I observe this strange pattern of behaviour. Things were not perfect then either, there were many debates on small and meaningless things, but this fierce sense of competitive attitude was completely non existent. This is exactly the reason - that I find is responsible for gaslighting; competetion, sense of insecurity and stepping in one’s own comfort territory. All these are coupled with high level of stress in day to day life. Nowadays couple need a punching bag to offload their stress and almost always they are the spouses. This is because the contact to wider circle of family is diminishing and the number of true friends is also limited.
There is an additional factor that works in women coming from patriarchal societies, the thrust to prove one’s own point. In childhood they have always seen male members dominating female family members and somehow there is a willingness to prove to your partner that she is not the same breed. Even though the partner is not expecting her to be the same breed but the constant extra cautiousness causes an additional layer of unhappiness in a similar family institution.
The fact is that in the modern days, specially with couples living in a different country/continent than their extended families, male and female members are bound to share responsibilities. Cooking is not necessarily a female-dominant activity whereas driving and earning bread for the family is not a maledominant section. So, the ‘male breadwinner’ and ‘female nurturer’ roles are nowadays just a cliché. With limited help at hand, and rising costs of living
Now that we have understood some possible reasons for gaslighting, the golden question can now be put forward; ‘How can we avoid gaslighting, causing a fire in our family?’ 66