Would you know if you were being manipulated? Do you know what to look for?
Manipulative people are experts at toxic language and behavior to make you question reality and make you feel bad about yourself. In this article, I’ll help you discern the difference between manipulation and normal relationship challenges.
Manipulation isn’t always about behavior; a lot of it hinges on how you respond to their behaviors. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell if someone’s behavior is manipulative or not. Often, it’s a matter of gauging how you feel at the end of a conversation with them.
When I first started my other podcast, The Overwhelmed Brain, I interviewed Dr. Dorothy McCoy, who wrote the book “The Manipulative Man.” At that time, I was married and dealing with judgment and anger issues. I couldn’t understand why I was so critical of my wife and why she found it unbearable to be around me when I was that way.
Desperate for answers, I went to the bookstore and stumbled upon “The Manipulative Man.” As I flipped through it, I realized that several personality types described in the book fit me perfectly.
Fortunately, I wasn’t so narcissistic back then that I dismissed the book’s insights. Narcissistic people often find ways to talk themselves out of acknowledging their flaws. Instead, I recognized myself in those pages and decided to work on my issues.
Can you spot a manipulator?
Manipulative people aim to control situations to get their way, often disregarding the needs of those around them. They can appear very nice and accommodating to the outside world, making it hard for others to see what’s happening. If you’re in a manipulative relationship, people outside of it might not see what you see. This is actually a common sign of manipulation.
Manipulative people are adept at presenting themselves logically and rationally. They subtly invalidate your feelings, emotions, and even your logic to maintain control. Every time you converse with a manipulative person, you might end up feeling bad about yourself or guilty for things you thought you were right about.
In relationships with people like this, the manipulative person can be incredibly nice while simultaneously making you feel bad for being who you are. They invalidate your emotions and tell you how you should think.
There was a point where I was working with several clients with manipulative partners. Having been manipulative in my own past, I’ve come to understand many of the tactics used to control people and situations. I’ve also learned what the victim of manipulative behavior has to deal with.
Whenever you’re in a conversation, argument, or heated debate with a manipulative person, you often walk away feeling bad, guilty, or wrong in some way. Even if you go in knowing you’re 100% right, you still end up feeling wrong.
Manipulative people have honed their communication skills to such an extent that they become highly adept at it. They have been perfecting their manipulative language and behavior all their lives, studying people’s reactions to become more precise and effective at getting what they want.
I’m not saying all manipulative people are conscious they are doing it. Some are aware of what they’re doing, while others are not. Many grew up in households that shaped their way of responding to and communicating with the world. When they were young, they developed coping mechanisms that helped them get through the challenges. The problem is that many childhood coping mechanisms don’t always work in adult relationships. In fact, they can often make things worse.
People with poor coping mechanisms in childhood end up in adult relationships, bringing unresolved dysfunctions and sometimes manipulative tendencies along. A manipulative personality is essentially a defensive one, driven by selfish needs and a desire to control situations.
Manipulative people believe they need to control their environment because losing control makes them feel like their lives are chaotic and unhappy. Manipulation is their way of maintaining happiness by controlling others.
Imagine the power trip of controlling everyone’s behavior so that no one makes you feel bad and no one acts against you? It’s a fantasy where everyone does exactly what you want. Most of us aren’t capable of achieving that. However, some have found ways to coerce the world and make it yield to their demands without anyone realizing they’re doing it.
Manipulators are often master communicators
Have you ever felt bad for not doing something someone wanted you to do because they made you feel guilty? Yet, at the same time, you sensed something was off or wrong? Maybe you couldn’t pinpoint what they did or said to make you feel that way, but you knew you felt guilty for not meeting their expectations. They may have convinced you that you were wrong, that you should have done it their way, and that you should have thought of your actions from their perspective.
Manipulative people are truly master communicators – but not in a good way. They’re “experts” at making you submit to their ways.
When you’re in a close relationship with someone like that, it becomes incredibly challenging to figure out what’s happening. You get wrapped up in the communication, in what they say, and you get triggered by their words. You want to trust them, so you search for little clues that might indicate they’re saying something trustworthy. You’re on the lookout for tiny references that show they might be supportive.
However, when they say something supportive and then follow it up with something else that makes you feel guilty, you start to associate being loved and supported with being wrong. This creates a whirlwind of mixed emotions, making you feel ashamed and wrong for your thoughts.
In relationships with manipulative people, there’s a constant mix of good and bad feelings. What I want to convey in this article is that when you know you’re right about something but end up feeling wrong after a conversation, it’s because you’re listening to them.
That might sound strange, but when you listen to a master manipulator, you can become “engaged. You internalize their words, making those words a reality in your mind.
This is actually a normal part of communication—we take what people say, internalize it, and then respond. But with manipulators, especially those you’ve been with for a long time, this becomes a problem. If you listen to them and internalize their words, you often end up feeling bad or wrong because you believed what they were saying.
So, what’s the solution? How do you not listen to someone who is a master at making you feel bad just with their words?
You have to separate yourself from what’s being said.
This is very tricky. I’ve been sucked into manipulative people’s words because they mix signals. They say or do something nice, then mix in some manipulation to paint the picture that they’re right, and you are not.
I used to do that. I could justify anything to make myself look right and the person I was with feel wrong. I would say things that sounded completely rational because I got good at it, and the other person would end up feeling wrong and sometimes powerless.
I eventually figured out that I was manipulating situations. But I’m one of the few who managed to get out of that emotionally abusive state of mind because it was harmful.
After multiple failed relationships, I had to start looking for the common denominator of all the problems in my relationship. I remember the day I asked myself, “Is there something I’m doing to cause these problems? And if so, exactly what am I doing?”
That’s when I picked up a book and discovered something about myself.
How do you deal with a manipulator?
If you’re with a manipulative person, the first step is to not take everything they say at face value, especially if most conversations leave you feeling bad or wrong.
If you often feel wrong after these interactions, it’s very likely you’re dealing with a manipulative person. While it’s not an absolute certainty, consistently feeling wrong, unsupported, or talked down to indicates some form of control, invalidation, or manipulation is at play. This kind of influence often happens beneath your conscious awareness.
It’s similar to when you share your thoughts with someone, and they respond with, “Oh, really? That’s how you feel? Okay, I didn’t know that.”
It might sound like they’re listening, but if their words make you feel invalidated, there’s likely manipulation going on. It’s a complex situation because detecting manipulation can be incredibly challenging until you start distancing yourself from their words.
One way to test this is not to believe anything they say for a day. Imagine what it would be like if you didn’t take their words seriously. This is hard, especially if you live with them and want to believe what they say. But often, you’re searching for clues that they aren’t manipulating you, that they appreciate you, or that they value your presence.
Manipulative people mix supportive comments with subtle words that make them right and you wrong.
To find out if you’re dealing with a manipulative person, check for congruence. One definitely of congruence is when someone’s intentions appear in alignment with their behaviors. A few questions you can ask yourself to check for congruence:
- Does their behavior match their words?
- Do they walk their talk?
- Do they follow through on their promises?
For example, when I was married, I told my wife I would get help for my issues, but I never took significant steps to do that. I never sought therapy for the specific problems we discussed because I secretly and firmly held the belief that nothing was wrong with me. Manipulative people often say one thing and do another, justifying their actions afterward. If there’s always a justification for their behavior, you might be dealing with a manipulative person.
Something else you can look for is to check in to see if you feel guilty after conversations. If you do, they are likely invalidating you and teaching you to think in a way that supports them and not you, effectively making you give your power away to them. This is another clear sign of manipulation.
Another test to identify manipulation is to examine your past interactions with this person. Have they often said one thing and then done another, providing justifications for their actions? Does it feel like every time they promise something and don’t follow through, their reasons seem logical and reasonable, but it still feels like just another delay?
Manipulative people are experts at stringing you along, telling you exactly what you want to hear to delay outcomes they don’t want. For instance, in a romantic relationship, they might say all the right things to buy more time so they don’t have to face a breakup or divorce. They know the perfect words to keep you from leaving. Often, they will say something about you they know you can’t defend. They do whatever they can to keep you hooked.
The best way to detect if someone is manipulative is to look at your history with them. Personally, I used to say, “I’m working on it,” or “I’m going to get help,” or “I’m researching and reaching out to people.” I always had some legitimate-sounding excuse that I was working on it or that it was in process, but I never took significant action. I might have taken some steps, but not enough to make a real difference.
This is another way to tell if you’re dealing with a manipulative person: they keep saying the right words to make you feel better, but they never take meaningful action.
Their behavior often feels like a delay tactic. Even if you believe it isn’t a delay tactic, consider it as such because that’s typically what’s happening, especially if the same issue keeps coming up repeatedly.
As you become more aware of their strategies, they’ll notice this! And when they do, unfortunately, they’ll dig deeper into their bag of tricks. They might use deeper triggers against you. For example, if they know not taking out the garbage is a trigger for you, they’ll find ways to use that against you.
But once you’re onto their particular tactic, they might bring up something more personal, like your dysfunctional relationship with a parent, to make you feel bad again.
Manipulative people excel at finding deeper levels to make you feel bad, wrong, or guilty, keeping you strung along to avoid outcomes they don’t want. They’re very crafty and often brilliant in their communication, which might make them excellent salespeople.
For those of us who aren’t manipulative or who no longer practice such behaviors, it can be incredibly challenging to spot what a manipulative person is doing.
That means all you have at your disposal is how you feel and what you walk away with from the conversation. If you frequently walk away feeling bad, guilty, ashamed, or experiencing other negative emotions, you’re likely being manipulated in some way.
While this isn’t always the case, if you feel this way more often than not with people who are supposed to love, support, and nurture you, then there’s something else going on.
Here’s a final test you can run on yourself: ask, “Do I have a lot of self-doubt? Do I struggle to trust myself?”
If the answer is yes, you might be experiencing manipulation.
At one time, you probably did trust yourself until someone came along and convinced you that you were wrong. When you trust yourself, you make empowered decisions. When you don’t, you lose your power, and someone else takes it. So, who has your power? If you can’t pinpoint how it’s happening, it’s likely being manipulated out of you.
Never give up your power. You have the right to think what you think, to be validated, and to be listened to. You shouldn’t be talked out of your own thought processes. Sure, there are times when others might be right and you’re wrong, but if you’re constantly made to feel wrong, then it’s hard to trust anything they say. Eventually, you stop trusting their words because everything they say seems to serve their need to maintain control.
Manipulative people often create an illusion of freedom within their control. It feels like you’re free to do and think anything you want, but it’s all under a larger veil of control.
It’s like being in a big open field. You feel free, but as you walk further, you notice a giant iron fence with barbed wire at the top. You realize that this fence has always been there, keeping you confined.
That’s what being in a manipulative relationship feels like – veiled control. It’s freedom with boundaries that equate to emotional slavery.
If you think you might be with a manipulative person, you’re probably not crazy. If you feel wrong more than right, guilty more than not, then you might be dealing with manipulation.
Ensure that your self-doubt isn’t being programmed into you by someone else. It’s very subtle, and if you’ve been with the person for a long time, you might not even realize it’s happening. This doesn’t mean the person you’re with is definitely a manipulator; there could be other factors at play. But if you feel bad more often than you feel good, it’s time to question your relationship and figure out why you feel that way and what you can do to change it.
The first step is always awareness. Recognizing that something nefarious exists in your life allows you to start making healthier decisions for yourself.
