Scenes from a Marriage: Gaslighting Your Spouse

"How dare you speak to me that way! I'm your husband, not some cabana boy you can whip into shape," snarled Gordon Trask as he slammed the door behind him. He closed his cell phone shut and threw it against the wall. He watched as it broke into many pieces.

As Gordon walked around his ridiculously beige living room, his blood boiled too much for him to care about his cell phone. Gordon's midnight blue eyes grew to the size of saucers thinking about how badly Gloria treated him at the country club. He combed his hands through his taupe flavored hair and wondered why he stuck by Gloria this long. He was a popular college professor who could have his pick of the student population. Why did he choose to marry Gloria eleven years ago? Even then, she drove him stark raving mad.

When they first met, he taught English literature at Dartmouth. She was the kind of woman he always wanted to be with, but was too scared to approach.
She took Gordon's breath away when she entered his classroom as his teaching assistant. Gloria flung her salmon colored hair and wore a clinging sage dress that hung in the right places. Gordon always thought of himself as an attractive individual. He had a reasonable athletic build without looking too much like a wannabe bodybuilder. Everything about Gloria signified that he did not have a chance in hell of scoring with her. Their union began as more of a common interest and went from there.

She read his first play "The Professor" and thought it was fascinating. He appreciated her praise, but was completely taken aback when she jotted down numerous criticisms to improve the structure of the play. Gordon could not believe she had the nerve to do it. He later realized she was right and took her out to dinner to thank her. Gloria played it cool the whole night by ignoring him and flirting with other men. He almost gave up on her, until he walked her home.

"Goodnight, Gloria, I had a ... lovely evening," Gordon forced himself to smile as he shook her hand. Gloria took his hand and pulled him closer to her.

She purred in his ear, "Liar. You're pissed at me, aren't ya, Professor? You took me out on a date and I treated you like dirt. Admit it. You wanted to knock some sense into me so that I'd focus my attention on you."

Gordon stared in Gloria's slate shadowed eyes and was driven to distraction by her Calvin Klein perfume. He put his free hand over her mouth briefly to silence her and then pulled her into a steamy kiss that lasted five full minutes.

"Yes, I do want you badly, Gloria, but I...." Gordon stammered still feeling the heat of her body on him. "I have an early lecture tomorrow. Got to rest up for it. See you tomorrow."

Gloria laughed as she watched him run away from her building like a man running from the Bubonic Plague. This sexual mind game between them sustained through the early part of their relationship and even carried over into their marriage as well. As the years passed by, the game started to sour their feelings for each other. Gordon dove into his teaching and wrote plays in his spare time. He drove Gloria out of both arenas so that she could focus on her own writing.

Instead, she flirted shamelessly with other men in Gordon's face and pretended like he did not exist. Gordon pretended in front of Gloria that her behavior did not hurt when in fact it broke his heart every time she groped a cabana boy. This last time he finally had enough of her behavior and confronted her at the country club. Her response was nothing but classic Gloria: play up the drama.

She started yelling at him and threw a drink in his face, "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I'm your husband. In case you've forgotten," Gordon grabbed a towel to dry his face off.

"Could have fooled me. The only time you give a damn about me is when you need some public arm candy or the obligatory screw every once in a while," Gloria twirled her way around him. "I thought you were more of a pimp or a prison warden. A miserable excuse of a man treating his woman like nothing more than a common piece of trash."

"Let's go home, Gloria, and talk about this privately," Gordon urged her quietly.

"Privately? We have not done anything privately in years. Go screw your privacy and yourself along with it," Gloria walked away in the other direction. "You go home where you'll have a ton of privacy, because I'm not coming back!"

"Fine by me!" Gordon stormed off to this car and pulled out of the country club within a matter of seconds. In minutes, he got into the driveway and left Gloria a message on her cell about how much he disliked her behavior at the country club.

Within ten minutes, the front door reopened and slammed again as Gloria stormed in ready to fire back. She did not appreciate the message he left on her cell phone. Gloria found her husband sitting on the couch looking at the wall. At that moment, her hatred for him grew and she was going to let him know it.

"You wish you were a cabana boy, because that way I'd actually be able to find you remotely entertaining," Gloria growled with venom in her voice. "Because, baby, you are such a pretentious bore. You think you're Mr. Wonderful, but you're nothing but a big zero. A loser who cannot satisfy his wife's curiosity anymore."

"Shut up! Shut up! All you do yap. You're like a little puppy that can't keep its mouth shut," Gordon jumped up from the couch and put his right hand over Gloria's mouth. He pulled back when she bit his hand. "Good God, woman, you could have given me rabies with that bite."

"Honey, that is the least of your problems," Gloria grinned like a cannibal staring at her next meal. "I'm just getting started. By the way, babe, don't ever tell me to shut up again, or I'll kick your sorry butt all the way to New Jersey."

"Shut up, you vile woman," Gordon shouted at the top of his lungs. "Maybe the reason I don't satisfy you anymore is because you make me sick. The sight of you makes my manhood scream and run for the deepest darkest cave. Never to be seen or heard from again."

"Yeah, right. The reason your manhood runs for cover is because it does not know how to handle my womanhood. A real man would know how to be with a strong woman, which means only thing: you're not really a man," Gloria laughed hysterically like a hyena being tickled with a large feather.

"Well, surprise, sweetheart, you're not really a woman either. Just a wolf dressed up in beautiful sheep skin to cover up the ugliness that is really you," He responded with playful vigor like a tennis player searching for an opening to score. "A monster with nothing to offer, except smoke and mirrors. You have no real personality of your own. You're just a people pleaser. A seal searching for scraps of fish."

She slapped Gordon hard across his left cheek, "How dare you judge me, you jerk. You may think that I'm a fake somebody, but at least I am somebody. You're just an aging nobody striving for youth when it passed you by long ago along with your intelligence and your looks."

Gordon was sick of this constant fighting with Gloria. It was exciting in the beginning of their relationship, but now it was just repetitive. He wanted off of this nightmarish rollercoaster ride fast.

"Go away, you miserable shrew. Leave my sight now. I don't want to be around you anymore," Gordon threw his hands up in the air. "I surrender to you. You won. Is that what you want to hear?"

Gloria clapped hysterically as if she were on speed, "Yeah, that is just what I dreamed about all my life. To make my husband hate me so much that he wants me gone."

"Mission accomplished, darling," Gordon grimaced as he flopped into his favorite blue easy chair. "So, the truth comes out. You want to leave me."

"Oh yeah, I pledged to spend my life with you only to divorce you in a matter of a decade plus," She started laughing for some unknown reason. The subject matter was not funny. She just needed to pull her heart out of the blender before Gordon made a strawberry smoothie out of it.

"What's so funny?"

"Us. This scene is pretty much like one out of a damn soap opera. I never thought our relationship would stoop so low," Gloria rubbed her sides which hurt from laughing so hard.

"Neither did I," Gordon began laughing too. He could not believe how quickly his anger towards Gloria melted away. "I don't know how our marriage devolved into this crap. I hate being a jealous jerk. All I ever wanted to do was give you the world."

"Only for me to throw it back in your face and down your throat," Gloria moved next to him and put her hand in his. "I'm sorry, Gordon, I did not plan for any of this to happen. I did love you. I still do. I just don't know what happened to us. How did we become like this?"

"I shut you out of my life. You became such a big part of my professional world that I wanted to see if I could make it on my own, but I can't. I'm struggling without you, Gloria, and I've been too afraid to tell you. I'm sorry for pushing you away," Gordon rose from his easy chair and walked with Gloria to the window. "This isn't us. We used to be young and carefree. When did we start to care this much?

"I don't know. I just wish we would use it differently instead of through hurting each other. I hate feeling like this. I don't ever want to be like this ever again," She moved closer to him and wrapped his arms around her stomach. The navy silk dress felt good against him, like a long ago comfort brought back to life. "You're my partner, Gordon, in everything. I'm so sorry for treating you like you didn't matter when you always have and always will."

"Apology accepted," He kissed her cheek in an effort to calm her heavy breathing. He felt her rapid heartbeat and stroked her hair to relax her further.

"Now, we got our apologies out of the way. Where does that leave us?" Gloria felt the tension ooze out of her as he massaged her scalp. She wanted to stay this way in his arms forever, but did not know how he felt about that.

"Should we stay together?" He smelled her new fragrance of Jasmine and lavender soap. He hoped she wanted to stay.

"Or go our separate ways?"

"Do you want a divorce? I know I've been a douche to you."

"No, I just want my husband back, not my keeper. Do you?" Gloria pleadingly wondered as she wanted to kiss him desperately.

"No, I want to stick this out as long as you will have me."

Gloria turned around and hugged Gordon, "Good know my husband still loves me."

"And always will. No matter how many cabana boys you throw in my face."

"I'm sorry," She stared shamefully at the floor. "I only did that to spite you."

"And it worked. I wanted to pound their faces in. All of them."

"You know what else works?" She paused for dramatic effect "This scene is perfect for our play."

"Our play?" Gordon stared at Gloria in disbelief. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Honey, I know you've been trying to write one about us for years, but you haven't been able to get past the second act. A scene like this would help it along."

"Are you serious? I totally did not intend for any of this to be there, but I guess it works for me."

"Like I said it would."

"Yes, you are right once again," Gordon playfully sighed.

"What would also work is--"

Gordon put his hand over her mouth, "Don't push your luck, sweetheart."

Gloria moved his hand away, "I think you'll like this idea though. Trust me."

"Okay, fire away."

"The ending I was going for was having you and me take a little trip to the bedroom," Gloria added as she put her hands through his hair.

Gordon kissed her hard on the mouth, "I love you, baby. Leave it to you to make one of our epic fights into part of a story."

"Should I take that as a compliment?" She put her hands on her hips waiting for his response.

"Take it however you like," Gordon concluded. "As long as it does not leave me in the doghouse yet again."

Gloria kissed her husband and dimmed the blinds so that they practiced the next scene of their play: making up. This scene was going to be much more dramatic than the fight. She guaranteed it.