The easy way to be on the right side of things

Have you ever tried to break up with someone and tried to make it seem like their idea? Or had this happened to you? What a spot-on description of this particular gaslight (here a rejection of a daughter by a father) in Henry James’ "What Maisie Knew":

“[Maisie] understood as well as if [her father] had spoken it that what he wanted, hang it, was that sh…