When someone wants to manipulate your emotions, they want to have power over you and the relationship. They want to control you, and this is not healthy. A relationship should be based on trust and respect and sometimes people need to pay attention to the relationship so that they can protect themselves.
If you feel that you are being emotionally manipulated, you need to identify it by recognizing the signs and stopping it. This can help to protect you in your mind and your emotions.
Advantage
When you are in your own home or your favorite place, you have the advantage. Do not let people that want to have power over you take you out of your space. Go to places that leave you in the advantage and avoid places such as their office or their homes.
Close
When someone wants to manipulate your emotions, they will often tell you their dark secrets and let you see how vulnerable they are but in reality, they are trying to make you feel that you are the person that they share with and then they will use it against you.
They will tell you that you are someone that they have connected with and they don’t connect with people easily or that you are meant to be together.
Let You Speak
Letting you speak first is one thing that happens in both business and personal relationships. They will let you speak so that they can control where the conversation goes, and they will answer you so that they can manipulate you.
They will say something that questions how your experience was or make you explain why you are upset with things.
Facts
An emotional manipulator will change the facts and make you confused and feeling like everything is your fault. They will pretend to be vulnerable and will do whatever they can so you can sympathize with them.
They will tell you that they were crying or that someone was mean to them so that you can feel sorry for them.
Bullying
Another thing that happens in these kinds of relationships is that they will use their knowledge on you to make you feel that you are dumb. They will ask you why you don’t understand things, or they will go “slower” when they tell you something.
Business Bullying
Another thing that can happen in these types of relationships is they will try to make you lose control by giving you a lot of procedures or paperwork that you have to work through before you can even get a word in. They will tell you how hard it is and make it where you cannot complete the task.
Sorry for What You Say
Someone that is using emotional manipulation will try to make you feel bad for asking questions and will try to argue with you. They will make you feel bad for questioning or saying anything, and they will throw things such as trust and anxiety into the mix when they talk to you.
Problems
When you have a bad day, an emotional manipulator will do their best to show you how much harder their day was. They will try to make your bad experiences invalid and will want you to focus on their problems instead of your own.
Martyr
An emotional manipulator is like a martyr and they will do things and help people but then they will act like it was so hard for them to do it. They will pretend or make you feel that you are burden and that they are overwhelmed but they are doing it for you.
Joking
Someone that is manipulative will use joking as a way to make up what they are saying. They really are just trying to make you doubtful and they will pretend that they are just kidding with you so that you will not notice what they are doing.
Accountable
Emotional manipulators will never take responsibilities for what they do. They will always hold everyone else accountable but themselves and they will turn everything else around on you to make you look like the bad guy.
One Up
People that use emotions to manipulate will always have a one up on you and they will make things negative. They will turn your bad day into what happened to them and make things about them instead of you.
Criticizing
Someone that always criticizes you is probably an emotional manipulator. They will do this because they feel insecure and they want to feel better about themselves.
Insecurities
An emotional manipulator will take your insecurities and your weakness and make you feel bad for them. They will talk about how vulnerable and weak you are.
Feelings
This type of person will use your feelings against you and make you feel guilty for having bad feelings. They will talk about how you should love them and how you are doing everything wrong.
Guilt
An emotional manipulator will always use guilt to make you see their side. They will do what they can to guilt you into seeing things from their point of view and they will always demand you to do what they want.
Passive Aggressive
A passive aggressive person will use other people and emotions to communicate with you such as talking behind your back. They will act like they are doing it to better you when it is really for their own good.
Silence
When an emotional manipulator gets mad at you, they will ignore you and give you the silent treatment. They do this so that they can be in control and it is a true sign of manipulation.
Deny
Even though a manipulator will say a lot of things, they will deny it each time. They will make sure that you feel uncertain about something that happened and they will make it look like it was in your mind all the time.
Calmness
Someone that is manipulative will be calm when there is a crisis because they are able to be the one emotionally charged in the situation. They will make you feel that you are overly sensitive and that you are upset for no reason.
Crazy
Someone that manipulates you will make you feel that you are imagining everything that is happening, and you are crazy. They will make you feel that you are misreading every situation and you are making things up.
What Can You Do?
If you are dealing with someone that is manipulative you need to learn to do certain things such as move away from the relationship. You are not going to get an apology and you need to learn when enough is enough.
Learn to stop playing games with them and do not try to beat them but instead set boundaries so that they will not be able to control you. If you live with someone that is an emotional manipulator, learn to manage your feelings and find someone that you can talk to that is safe like a counselor.
Conclusion
No one deserves to spend their life being manipulated and if you feel that you are in this type of relationship, get out. Learn to recognize the patterns and see where the danger lies. If you feel that you need to confront the situation, do it and if you feel that it will get violent, leave as soon as you can and seek help.
