Isabella Chase
You’ve been with someone who seemed pretty great for a while now.
Maybe you’re going out together, maybe you’re married.
But as much as you’d like to think that you’re happy around them, something somehow feels off.
You notice that they’re quite good at wrapping people around their fingers.
So you wonder—are you with a manipulative person?
Here are 10 behaviors that say “yes!”
1) They act like your hero
For manipulators to “work their magic”, they need to win your trust.
And one way they can do that is by building themselves up as someone you can trust.
“I’m here for you.”
“You can always count on me.”
And the surprising thing is that they always follow through on what they say.
Now that alone is not a red flag and should not be considered as one.
What you want to look out for is when they start saying things like “Remember, I was there for you.”
Or “No one else will care for you like I do.”
This is the red flag!
This is your sign that they are not, and never have been your hero. They simply cozied up to you because they want to wrap you around their fingers.
2) They make you feel like YOU’RE their hero
They say things like:
“Oh, what would I do without you?”
and “You changed my life!”,
and “You mean the world to me!”
A lot!
As with before, there’s nothing explicitly wrong with someone saying things like these. Some people are actually just expressive and grateful.
But praise can be used as a tool for manipulation.
The thing is that we naturally tend to give special treatment to the people who make us feel special.
We can easily end up not noticing it when they do something bad, for example, or even make excuses for them when we notice them doing something we don’t like.
So if someone works hard praising you and making you the center of their world?
Treat it as a pink flag.
Don’t write them out quite yet, but definitely be on guard.
3) They spoil you rotten
People usually like to butter other people up before asking for favors or saying something that would make them mad.
This is pretty much something that we’ve come to accept as normal, but it’s a form of manipulation if you think about it.
It should make sense that master manipulators do this too.
What sets them apart and makes them master manipulators is that they’re subtle about it. They’ve learned the art!
They don’t buy you ice cream and then try to ask if you can watch their dog for the weekend.
Instead they buy you gifts, follow through on promises, and get you whatever they want seemingly with no strings attached.
Then weeks or months later, they start asking more and more out of you. They start being more demanding, and you simply can’t say no.
How can you, after they’ve treated you so well for so long?
4) They make you feel bad for “not loving them enough”
Whenever they want you to do something for them, they’d say something like “Do you still love me? You don’t do things for me anymore!”
And it doesn’t matter to them even if you’re busy or you’re tired—if they want your attention they’ll sulk and ask if you’ve fallen out of love with them.
Being with them feels like you have to keep proving and performing your love to them, over and over again.
It’s almost like they’re perpetually insecure, and you’re stuck having to soothe that insecurity every second of every day.
What they’re doing is hold your feelings hostage. They use “do you love me?” as a way to make you do what they want.
5) They downplay your concerns
It’s only natural for friction to happen in a relationship.
Maybe they haven’t been spending as much time with you as you’d like, or maybe you feel like they’ve been too overbearing.
In any healthy relationship, people acknowledge and talk about their issues.
It might take a while sometimes because people can be quite stubborn, but issues are acknowledged and dealt with.
But when you’re with a manipulator, this does not happen. Manipulators never admit fault unless doing so gives them an advantage.
What they’ll do instead is to downplay your concerns.
They’ll try to make you feel like you go worked up over nothing, or that you’re making a mountain out of a molehill by vastly overreacting to the issue.
Master manipulators are good enough at this that if you’re not aware of what they’re doing, they’ll actually manage to convince you that you’re just emotional and overreacting.
6) They want you to prioritize your relationship all the time
They really don’t like it when you spend time with others.
You can almost feel their mood deflate when you tell them that you want to meet your family or hang out with your friends.
They might say things like “you never spend time with me anymore!” or “but you’re always hanging out with them!”
But if you really think about it, it’s not true.
The reason why they act like this is simple. They want you to only care about them. To spend all your time with them.
As far as they’re concerned, everyone else is a rival for your attention.
7) They try to tear you away from the people you love
Friends and family are not just rivals for your time and attention. They’re also obstacles keeping them from having total control over you.
When people start being abusive towards their partners, their partners would often go to their friends and family for protection.
So they’ll try to cut you away from your friends and family.
They can do this by winning over the other people in your life, and they can do this by making you distrust the people who used to be close to you.
Especially good manipulators can do both at the same time and leave you with absolutely no escape.
8) They have so many relationship “rules”
It can be a bit exhausting being with them.
They have a lot of “rules” on what people should act like in a relationship.
They try to make solid definitions on what you should do or be allowed to do as their partner, what they should be for you, as well as what your friends should be like.
Something that some people might still say, for example, is that you should have no guy friends if you’re a girl in a relationship.
They might try to pass it off as them “setting boundaries”, but if you take a step back, it’s pretty much just meant to control you.
And to make it worse, they often find excuses for why those rules don’t always apply to them.
9) They twist your words to make you look like the bad guy
A great manipulator is a master at twisting your words to play the victim.
The whole tactic of denying accusations and then reversing the story to make the other person look bad is something that manipulators like doing.
And manipulators who have been at it long enough to be considered “masters” happen to be extremely good at twisting the narrative.
In fact, they don’t always have to do the reversal by themselves.
They simply need to say the right thing and they’ll have even YOU convinced that you’re actually the bad guy.
You might still have a lingering feeling of “but I was right, I think?” but they nonetheless manage to put you on the spot.
10) They make decisions for you (and say it’s for your own good!)
They do things involving you without first asking—like, say, buying a life insurance policy that you didn’t agree to.
And when you confront them about it, they’d say “But that’s because I care for you!”
They always have “good intentions” but that’s not the point.
The point is that they’re controlling you. It’s not just annoying, it’s dangerous.
People who are like this are often those who made a habit out of manipulating the people around them.
Who knows—you might even catch them gambling your life savings away and say that “it’s for your own good.”
Listen. You should always have the final say of every decision you make—period.
What to do
If you realize that you’re with a manipulator, here are the things you must do:
- Make sure you have a support system. Friends and family you can trust and who are not being manipulated by them.
- Trust your judgment. Manipulators manage to have their way because they’re good at making their victims doubt themselves.
- Identify your weaknesses. Think about what they exploited to gain control over you, and what you can do about it.
- Be assertive. You don’t always have to say “yes”, and it’s not a crime to say “no.” Someone who can’t handle a little rejection does not deserve to be in your life.
- Stay focused. Look past their words and excuses, and instead pay attention to their actions. Manipulators are good at sounding reasonable, but their actions will still betray them.
Final thoughts
Don’t be hard on yourself if you ever realize that you’ve been with a master manipulator.
They’re masters for a reason—many of them are HARD to spot even when you know what to look for.
What’s important is that you identify the issue and take steps to bring yourself back to a safer place, mentally and physically.
But here’s the tricky thing: many of them are actually not awful, narcissistic people. Let’s face it—even you use manipulative tactics from time to time (we all do).
Just be aware of their tendencies so you’d know how to handle them better. Confront them about it.
And if things don’t progress, then ask yourself if you can really deal with them. You always have an option to walk away.
