Do you know someone who can get whatever they want, and whenever they want it? Have you looked at this person with awe, and yet, end up with a little bit of distaste in your mouth because it doesn’t seem right?
Well, if you felt like they are taking advantage of you or someone else, you are probably right. Many people are master emotional manipulators in work, life, and relationships.
Spotting emotional manipulators is a tough thing and it hurts like hell when you realize someone has been playing you for their own advantage but there are ways to recognize it so you can stop it before it even happens.
While some types of social influence are healthy, emotional manipulation can be quite damaging. And it’s important to distinguish what is healthy to what is not especially in relationships and marriages.
Some men are masters of emotional manipulation. They use this negative behaviour to get women to bow to all their whims and caprices. When they eventually meet a woman who refuses to be manipulated, they call her names and try to tarnish her reputation.
It is a healthy thing to socially influence someone to do better, to encourage them and motivate them. It is a part of the give-and-take of every healthy and constructive relationship in people’s personal lives.
Emotional manipulation is the complete opposite. It’s all about taking from one person for their own benefit. And when you are emotionally manipulated, you lose your power and become vulnerable for exploitation.
Emotional manipulation involves influencing someone thoughts and emotions as a way to control them. This can be done through crafty and abusive practices, oftentimes unhealthy to the victim.
Manipulators will try to control people by using their weaknesses or vulnerability against them. They exploit these vulnerabilities to achieve their own goals, regardless of the harm they do.
Has your partner given you an ultimatum not to do something important, like move to another city, to keep the relationship? Did your spouse tell you to choose between him or your job or business at any time? That’s emotional manipulation at work.
Master manipulators are the worst kind of humans. Their tactics are hardly obvious because they sneak up on you fooling you with sweet words and profession of love while they work hard at stripping you of your self esteem. The worst thing about being in a relationship with an emotional manipulator is that they make you feel like everything going wrong in your relationship is all your fault.
Emotional manipulation is harmful to your mental and emotional well being. It is not something you should endure in your relationships because if care is not taken, you may lose yourself while trying to desperately hold on to your manipulator because he or she has brainwashed you to believe you are nothing without them.
You have to know some of the signs of emotional manipulation so that when someone you are dating tries to take you for a ride, you shut them down in their tracks immediately. You shouldn’t be in the dark about these kinds of people to avoid stories that touch.
One way that master manipulators gain control over the situation is by inviting you to their home or office so that you are in their territory.
It’s a control thing and makes you feel like a guest so you won’t speak up against them. Keep your eyes peeled for sneaky people who are trying to take advantage of you in their homes.
These people are good at twisting facts. Even if you are very clear about what you want, need, or said, they will find a way to turn the truth around and work in their favor. And they will brush it off by saying things that will leave you defending yourself.
To overwhelm you, confuse you, and get you to agree with them, they will often put a great deal of information on you so that you don’t have time to respond. This is so you can feel overwhelmed enough not to want to process such an information overload.
As a result, they will make the decision for you and then you will just have to go along with whatever they want you to do. You won’t even have the time to understand that you have been tricked into doing something you don’t want to do.
For some reason, people think if they talk louder it makes them sound smarter or better. They also think it makes them right. Emotional manipulators do this all the time. It is their own way of intimidating you into submission.
They just keep talking. And can even accompany their tactics with aggressive body language. They talk louder and over everyone else to gain control of the room and then you have no choice but to listen to them.
Emotional manipulators are not happy people and so it comes through in their work and life. It’s probably their own unhappiness that makes them want to make everyone else around them unhappy, too.
Many times, they recognize they can control someone else, which they think makes them happy because it gives them a sense of control. But it just ruins life for everyone.
They are good at issuing ultimatums. They will give you a tight deadline, tell you to take it or leave it, or decide ahead of time that you need to do something specific in order to please them.
It can be hard to know if it’s a bluff or not. But with these people, it’s always hard to tell. And they are so good at what they do you actually believe them.
They might laugh at you and make you feel bad about yourself or something you accomplished. They do it in such a way that is not obvious to everyone else but you. This is because they know your weak spots and how to really hit them. It could be as simple as a comment about the way you dress, but you know they meant to hurt you.
What’s worse is that they manipulate you into forgiving them, that they even guilt trip you for being mad at them in the first place. They call it a joke and ask why you are so serious that you can’t even take a simple joke.
Such people are good at judging others. They make no apologies for saying you are wrong or doing things wrong. And by wrong, what they usually mean, is that you are not doing it their way. You will always be wrong unless you do it the way they think it needs to be done.
They even enjoy doing it. Manipulators get a kick out of embarrassing you and showing others that they have power over you. They will keep doing so. They will never be happy so stop trying to please this kind of person and focus on making yourself happy instead.
This is why I always tell Nigerian women to stop trying so hard to please the men they are dating when it is clear that these men are master manipulators and can never be satisfied until they reduce them to nothing. You don’t continue trying to please a man who just wants to see you grovel at his feet like a slave.
Emotional manipulators are your friend only when it is convenient for them. You have probably met people who don’t give you the time of the day, but when they need something, they immediately act all friendly towards you.
You may not have thought about it before, but that’s one sure sign of emotional manipulation. They just want to get close to you because they need you not because they like you or want to be your friend.
Emotional manipulators are selfish, and they will stop at nothing to get what they want even if that means blatantly using someone.
Emotional manipulators are experts at making you doubt yourself. If you think about it well, you will wonder if they have a degree for messing with people’s self esteem. This is because of how good they make people question themselves after messing with their emotions.
They will make you feel silly for saying and doing things you feel strongly about. They will make mockery of your dreams and projects and diminish your feelings as if you are unimportant.
A relationship with a person who has no regard for you and is using manipulation to selfishly gain advantages in the relationship should be ended immediately.
Don’t put yourself in situations where they will have a chance to make a dig at you and compromise your integrity.
You might not realize this is happening for some time, but once you do, you will need to take action to get them out of your life, if only physically, and for a little while at a time.
Avoid them until you are ready or strong enough to take their controlling behavior without getting angry. If you get angry or show any signs of anger, the controller will only flip things on you and blame you.
Another strategy for cornering a classic manipulator is to give them a taste of their own medicine and turn the questions on them. Put the spotlight on them. Expose the flaw in their argument and let them know you know what they are doing.