It’s unfortunate, but a lot of times we will get into relationships with people who are focused on their own wants. They may tend to do manipulative things or attempt to manipulate you or the situation for their own favor. This is why it is important to be aware of signs of manipulation so you can tell if someone is trying to manipulate you. So today I am going to share with you guys some tips on how to tell if someone is manipulating you.
5 Signs of Manipulation – How to tell if someone is manipulating you
They will attempt to guilt you into doing something.
Example: Because you’re my girlfriend, you should want to do this for me.
The fact that you’re the girlfriend makes them feel like you are obligated to do certain things even if you may not want to.
Example: Jessica’s friends did this for her. I sure wish I had friends that would do that for me.
They want to make you feel like you’re a bad friend so they use this tactic to make you think you’re a horrible friend and that you should do the thing they mentioned for them.
Example: I need better friends.
So while this could be someone just speaking their mind randomly about something they see as they compare their situation to others… I see this a lot on Twitter where someone will reference how their friends doing something great for them. Then they’ll say this because they wish their friends would do something similar for them.
The tactic of the consequences of something negative happening being brought up.
Ex: “I’ll leave you if you don’t do this…”
“Some people get cheated on for not doing this…”
Leverage your feelings about something so you’ll do it.
They may act like they don’t care to hurt you and get you into doing something. They cut off affection or love because you won’t give them what they want.
Ex: “Do whatever you want. It won’t affect me..”
They threaten to hurt themselves to make you do something.
Ex: Someone threatening to cut themselves or sacrificing themselves so you’ll feel bad and want to stay with them or do what they want.
Using something they did for you to get you to do something for them.
Example: A person bakes you a cake. Sometime later they ask you to do something for them and mention that they baked you a cake therefore you should do this something for them.
They give you a gift and expect you to give them a gift because they gave you a gift. They bring it up how things should be equal or how you should do things for them because of what they did for you.
It’s like unforeseen taxes or them attempting to barter for something and you don’t know what it is.
They didn’t do something nice for you because they’re nice. They did something for you as an investment is a form of manipulation.
So those are some ways in which someone can manipulate you.
I know I’ve personally had people I’ve dated before manipulate me. I’ve experienced all of these tactics of manipulation unfortunately and I didn’t even realize it until much later down the line.
It sucks, but sometimes people are only thinking about what they want instead of considering your feelings too.
Know the signs of manipulation so you’ll know if you need to remove yourself from a situation.
