8 Signs Of Emotional Manipulation

Unfortunately, sometimes in life, we will meet people who will try to manipulate us. Emotional manipulation is something really harmful to the victim. It's not always easy to understand that someone wants to manipulate you. Below you can read 8 warning signs:

1) They’ ll use your words against you

This is the signature technique of the emotional manipulator. They will do something to hurt you and when you complain about it, they’ll turn the situation around, making you feel guilty and end up apologizing.

For example, you may be upset that your emotionally manipulative partner forgot your birthday. Normally, a person will simply apologize for forgetting and promise to make up for it in some other way in the near future. The emotional manipulator will make it look like it was your fault that they forgot about your birthday. They might start telling you how they’ve been under a lot of stress because of something you’ve done, or remind you of a time you might have forgotten something, in order to justify their actions.

2) It's never their fault

An emotional manipulator will not take responsibility for their actions. Instead, they will place blame and claim their response was justified based on something you did. Someone who is an emotional manipulator will always make their partner question the validity of their feelings.

For example, if your partner yells at you for asking if they paid the electric bill, they may say that you should know that they are stressed at work and can't be bothered with such trivial things.

3) The force their insecurities on you

Manipulators will often force their own insecurities on you in an effort to control how you react towards them.

There’s a fine line between showing consideration for their feelings and being manipulated into feeling what they want you to feel. Consideration is shown with love while manipulation is ruled by guilt.

4) They say something and later deny it.

A manipulator may say yes to a request or make a commitment to you, and then when the time comes to follow through, they conveniently forget they ever said anything.

Unless you have a recording of them making the promise, you can’t really prove anything — so it’s your “bad memory” against their lying words. A good manipulator has a way of twisting a previous conversation or replaying it to suit their needs and make you look forgetful, demanding, or ridiculous. You begin to question yourself and even feel bad or guilty that you challenged the manipulator.

5) They raise their voice

Some individuals raise their voice during discussions as a form of aggressive manipulation. The assumption may be that if they project their voice loudly enough, or display negative emotions, you’ll submit to their coercion and give them what they want. The aggressive voice is frequently combined with strong body language such as standing or excited gestures to increase impact.

6) They try to humiliate you

A manipulator conveniently embarrasses you in front of others and then does one of two things: acts as though he didn't realize he would hurt your feelings or acts as though he does not care that he did. This tool works your self-esteem down and makes your partner feel better about himself — though, perhaps, he doesn't realize that's why he's doing it.

7) They quickly grow impatient

As with stubbornness, we all have the tendency to be impatient at times. However, there are some individuals that take impatience to the extreme. These individuals detest being held up at anytime, anywhere, for almost any reason, and will manipulate any situation in order to come out on top.

Impatience is a trait that develops from early negative experiences, misunderstanding the nature of self and others, and a persistent sense of insecurity. The early negative experiences often happen during childhood. In many cases, the child was often barred from having a normal social experience resulting in a sense of “missing out”.

8) They are control freaks

Emotional manipulators are usually control freaks; they want things to be done ‘just so,’ and don’t like it when it doesn’t happen their way, which according to them, is the ‘right’ way. Generally, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but when they make use of another person’s feelings and vulnerabilities to get things done, it becomes a very big deal.