Am I being gaslighted?

(I’ve never made a relationship post on reddit)

My (28M) fiance (29F) of 3 years, frequently says things to me (request, complaint, etc) in a very rude or confrontational way. Quite seemingly out of place. The same pattern seem to follow like this example:

She was cooking in the 12’x4′ kitchen (I typically do 75% of the cooking, and 100% of the cleaning) and I’m off by the far end simply loading some stuff into a juicer, a good few feet away from her by the dirty dish section of the counter (an area typically not used for cooking). She quite randomly says something along the lines of “can you give me some space I’m trying to cook”. Non verbatim. It wasn’t what she said, it was how she said it, a tone I considered rude and unmerited considering there was no prior request (ever) of needing space in the kitchen. She did seem frustrated about the food at the time, perhaps unconscious of how she verbalized her request. It was a time that was enough for me to change my rude; I’m not usually sensitive so if I pick up on a certain tone I feel there’s no denying it. It wasn’t a huge issue so I didn’t say anything back, caught off guard I just went in my room to play guitar and pout for a couple minutes. She came in a couple minutes later saying the neighbor needed help and I will say I ignored her; she swiftly left. (My toxic trait is if I’m treated a certain way I sometimes need a few minutes to cool off and I’ll be unresponsive for that amount of time, nothing out of the ordinary).

At this point I haven’t said anything mean, other than ignore her for a few sentences worth. She came back in 10 minutes later with a plate of food and a river of tears. Very upset. Unsure of specific dialogue, but she said she’s crying cause I’m being mean. I told her I didn’t say anything, she said I stormed off, I’m ignoring her, and being mean. I simply and calmly and explained my perspective of what happened, and what she said (how she said it) that bothered me. She harshly denies it, she changed the dialogue into- “I calmly said ‘baby, I’m almost done can you please give me just a couple minutes’ “. I say “it wasn’t calm, and there was no please, you were rude about it”.

This is the pattern I’m identifying: I’ll be upset at something she did to me (usually being mean out of nowhere) and the. she’ll counteract act it by now saying I’M being mean. But I swear her definition of me being mean, is just me telling her what she did that I don’t like. Every time I get upset at her attitude, she’ll flip it and say I’m starting a fight. So that’s the reverse uno card that I noticed time and time again. I mentioned gaslighting because she’ll recite the events and change her dialogue into something wayy nicer than it was. And respond with, “if you said that I wouldn’t have gotten mad”.

Every time we have a little fight, and it could go away, I feel she exacerbates it and prolongs it whenever we get to the part where I try to calmly analyze and talk about what happened and who said what. I feel like we can’t resolve things or talk about our feelings without her continuously crying. Because the whole time we’re talking about what happened she’s just getting more and more upset. She wants to forget it.

If I said something to someone that they didn’t like, and they say something about it to me, who am I to say that their feelings aren’t valid. I would say something like, “I don’t think that’s how it happened, but if I did say that then I’m sorry, here’s what I meant to say..”. I would apologize for a hypothetical, because obviously someone got upset for a reason they didn’t do it for fun.

But no she won’t apologize for how she made me feel, she asks for my apology instead. As much as I wanted to move on and take the plate of food and have everything be better, she puts up this block. I didn’t want to prolong the fight but she’ll say I’m prolonging it. I’ll tell her, I’m not going to stop being upset until you stop being upset. And its a cycle. It’s never a big deal I’m just trying to be bluntly honest, I feel there’s no reason for her to cry at that stuff all the time because I DO take it personally, they feel like weaponized tears. And the more we talk about it what happened (I think it’s healthy and important to talk about miscommunications after the fact as to avoid them in the future) wanting to move on, she’ll start screaming hysterically and say I started it and then scream some more “can we just go watch TV?” as if just ignoring everything and pretending it didn’t happen while I’m in the middle of being yelled is ever gonna be a path I take. She’ll say I’m dragging it out all the while she’s just getting increasingly upset before my eyes as the conversation goes on, just from talking. I don’t ever want it to linger I just want to talk about it and move on, but she makes it hard saying I don’t want to move, all the while she’s not getting calmer and more agitated. She’ll then scream at the top of her lungs some request (like, “can we just go watch TV??”) and no I won’t, not if you ask me so the neighbors can hear. And she’ll always respond with “I”m not gonna get any calmer until we move on” -.-

TL;DR: No one wants to see their girl cry, especially if they caused it, but I think it’s a little messed up when she’s unapologetically crying because of you simply telling her what she did that you didn’t like (not yelling just talking)