by Suzy Cross

Created on: February 10, 2010   Last Updated: February 11, 2010

My daughter is a teenager, but I suspected that her boyfriend's father gaslighted him. He would set up all these restrictions and conditions on when the son could see my daughter. I understand rules, but these conditions would almost seem impossible. 

Then, the man would set the boy up to fail. For example, if the young man wanted to see my daughter, he would have to read a book in a certain amount of time. Sounds reasonable, but the time limit would make it very difficult to accomplish. Then, the man would come up with all these other activities for the son so he could not possibly meet his goal. 

When the son failed to meet the goal - as we all knew he would - the father would apologize to my daughter about how sorry he was that the son had failed once again. 

Also, I noticed that whenever they had anything special planned, for example the young man's birthday dinner, the dad would give the son permission to see my daughter, then at the last minute make some up some reason why the young man had failed at some task and had to be punished by not seeing my daughter that day. Of course, this punishment always came with a profuse apology to my daughter that his son just couldn't get his act together.  

Another gaslighting technique that I saw was making unkind comments about my daughter then insisting he was joking. My daughter is a tiny little thing who cheers and has even done a little modeling, but the dad would make jokes about what she ate, comments that were devastating to a girl her age. Then, he would insist that the comment was taken out of context or it was a joke. 

When my husband and I tried to talk to him about the situation, we put things on the line and said, "Look, if you have a problem with their relationship, please just be upfront and we will support your decision." The man called his own son a liar who was just making up things because he wanted to break up with our daughter and was using him as a scapegoat. 

What he didn't realize was that while we were having the conversation, the son was texting my daughter begging her to please understand that things weren't his fault and to not break up with him.

The kid is such a sweet boy, but he is so paranoid about making mistakes. I am sure it comes from living with this man. The father even told me that he has to control his son by breaking him and using gaslighting techniques to keep him under control. 

At first I thought the man must be kidding, but after we went through the same situation over and over again, I realize the man wasn't joking.  He had the family dog put to sleep and told the boy it was his fault because he didn't clean up after him well enough. 

The mother is out of the picture because they are in the middle of a divorce and the young man seldom sees her. I suspect he gaslighted her also. I truly think this constitutes emotional abuse.

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