HI Vs Koenig what if we reversed the gender roles?

I’ve been thinking about the dynamics in this case, and I am curious how people would feel if we flipped the gender roles for a moment.

Here is a scenario:

A man has an affair, maybe not fully physical, maybe emotional but clearly crossing boundaries. His wife starts to feel something is off. She becomes hyper-focused on it, asking questions, wanting reassurance, asking to see messages. She may even feel so insecure because of the messages plus her partners behavior that she asks him to quit his job for her to feel more secure. Not because she’s inherently controlling, but because something in her gut isn’t lining up. At home her husband is emotionally withdrawn and cold to her, she’s feeling unloved and alone and he continues to text with this person from work constantly.

Instead of responding honestly, the husband dismisses her and minimizes it. He tells her she’s paranoid, crazy, too much. Sometimes he throws her a crumb of reassurance..just enough to keep her uncertain—but mostly he denies and minimizes. Deep down she feels her partners distance even though he has told her nothing is going on. Over time, she becomes more anxious, more reactive, more desperate to make sense of what she’s feeling.

Meanwhile, he’s telling people around him that his wife is unstable and controlling. That she’s harassing him. That she’s ruining his life. He positions himself as trapped or like he can’t leave because it would look bad or cause drama. He can’t leave and be seen as the “bad one”.

But in order to get out, he knows he’s crossed some lines. He knows he played a role in creating this dynamic. And instead of owning that, he starts thinking about how to get out of the relationship without taking accountability.

So he creates a situation.

Let’s say they go hiking. During a tense conversation, he escalates things intentionally. Internally, he’s thinking something like, This is my moment. If he can provoke her enough, if he can push her into reacting emotionally in a public setting—then there will be witnesses. Documentation. Proof that she’s the unstable one.

Maybe he even starts yelling “help” during the argument before anything physical even happens , knowing people will respond. Now the narrative is set: he’s the calm, rational victim, and she’s the one “losing it.”

In that moment, everything flips.

He gets to erase or minimize his own behavior. He gets validation from others. And he walks away as the victim, despite having contributed significantly to the emotional conditions that led to her breakdown.

I’m not saying this is exactly what happened in the real case—but if the genders were reversed and this was the dynamic, how would people interpret it?

Would we see her as “crazy”?

Or would we start asking different questions about coercion, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and provocation?

Curious how others see this. Some narcissistic abusers are very covert and come across as victims and yes even women can be abusive- and usually they have covert ways of going about it.