Something I’ve noticed lately reading these posts about LVM is a common thread of them using false dichotomies in order to gaslight you into choosing what they want.

In essence, they want x and you don’t want x. They say the only options are x and this VERY RIDICULOUS OBVIOUSLY BAD other option y. You obviously don’t want y either, so you might get gaslit into thinking “I guess x isn’t so bad.” In reality there was probably another option after all, which was better than both x and y.

The example that prompted me to write this was about a woman who wants to get married with a nice wedding, but her lv boyfriend has already been married before. LVM wants to just go to the courthouse and sign the papers, and when OP voices her disappointment, he ridicules his ex wife and the huge expensive wedding they had, says he doesn’t want to do that again and it was a waste of money.

Notice the lvm is presenting 2 choices: either do what he wants aka no wedding/just sign papers OR have a garish expensive wedding like the one he ridiculed his ex wife for wanting. However, OP probably just wanted a normal-wedding-sized wedding because getting married is in fact a big deal and deserves celebration. This normal and obvious option is intentionally ignored by the boyfriend because he doesn’t want it and there aren’t good arguments against it. So OP is resigned to the lesser of 2 evils, which was what the boyfriend wanted all along.

I think this can be extrapolated to other situations too, and I think it’s a red flag if a guy you’re vetting acts like this. It’s good to keep an eye out for men acting like the only reasonable way forward is the way they originally wanted.

Curious to see other examples and other ways to notice if this is happening to you.