Wife trolls husband with Bunnings ‘gaslighter’ sign

A woman has brilliantly trolled her husband with a conveniently placed sign while on a visit to Bunnings.

A woman has trolled her husband with a conveniently placed sign while on a visit to Bunnings.

Sydney-based couple Sav and Mark shared the now-viral clip with their 98.2k followers on TikTok, captioned, “He’s going cheap”.

The video showed Mark standing beside a sign for gaslighters at the hardware store, retailing for $5.30.

“Men only cost $5.30, remember that,” a caption on the video, which has drummed up 56.5k likes and more than 300,000 views since it was posted, read.

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@savandmark He’s going cheap 😅#savandmark#sydney#australia#linkbudsneveroff#gaslighting#marriedlife#agegap#nz#usa#rdj#mcu#fyp♬ Thinking with My Dick (feat. Juicy J) - Kevin Gates

Hundreds of users took to the comments remarking how funny the video was, with many commenting: “Seems accurate, I see no lies here”.

“Lowest prices are just the beginning,” joked another.

Others took the sign in the video a bit more seriously – commenting not on the kind of “gaslighter” that Mark was posing next to, but the behavioural trend in relationships that shares the same name.

“I had it free for years in the form of an ex-boyfriend,” one user commented.

Employed in recent years to explain the actions of some contestants on Married At First Sight, politicians and perpetrators of domestic violence to varying degrees, “gaslighting” is a newish term for a relatively old set of behaviours, Deakin University senior lecturer Jessamy Gleeson explained in a 2018 piece for The Conversation.

A woman has trolled her husband with a conveniently placed sign while on a visit to Bunnings. Picture: TikTok

The interaction has since gone viral on TikTok, drumming up more than 300,000 views in four days. Picture: TikTok

“Although it can cover various behaviours, the central tenet of gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person in order to erode their sense of self and sanity,” Dr Gleeson wrote.

“The behaviour itself is not always deliberate, in that the perpetrator may not have consciously set out to distort another person’s experience of reality. But gaslighting is often used as a method of power and control.”

Common tactics, she said, can include “denial of the gaslightee’s experience (‘That wasn’t what happened!’), escalation (‘Why would you question this? I wouldn’t lie to you!’), trivialisation (‘You’re too sensitive, this is nothing’), and countering (‘That wasn’t what happened, this was’)”.

Increasingly recognised as a technique of abuse by multiple domestic violence information and advocacy groups in Australia, Dr Gleeson said “there is growing recognition that psychologically abusive techniques such as gaslighting are often used to unnerve and demoralise others”.